CHAPTER IV
The following summer was one of the hottest on record in New York City. The thermometer persistently hung around ninety, and the newspapers gave daily accounts of deaths and prostrations. Thousands of East-siders sought Coney Island and the cool beaches to spend their nights upon the sands. Thunderstorms brought but temporary relief. Jeannette, slowly regaining strength and energy, declared she had never known so many violent thunderstorms in the space of one short summer. She hated the vivid, blinding darts and the cracking ear-splitting detonations. She could reason convincingly with herself that there was but the minutest atom of danger, yet the menacing crashes never failed to bring her heart into her mouth and make her wince.
She had been in bed four weeks since the Sunday Roy had dined with the family, and she had fainted at the table. The doctor, when he arrived, had declared, after careful examination, that several ligaments had been torn from the bone, and the muscles of her back had been badly strained. She had been tightly bandaged with long strips of adhesive tape, and put to bed in her mother’s room, where she had lain for a month, rebellious and raging, at the mercy of a horde of disturbing thoughts.
Roy sent flowers, a box of candy, magazines. He wrote her long letters in a boyish hand in which he boyishly expressed his concern for her condition, his earnest hope of her speedy recovery, his tremendous devotion. It was for the last that she eagerly looked when she unfolded his scrawled pages. But his words never seemed to satisfy her wholly; they were never vehement enough. She longed for something more vigorous, aggressive, violent.
At the end of ten days he begged to be allowed to come to see her. There was no reason why he shouldn’t, Jeannette reflected, but she could not bring herself to the point of asking her mother to arrange for the visit. She did manage to say, with a light air of ridicule, one morning, when Mrs. Sturgis brought her breakfast tray to her bedside:
“Roy’s got the nerve to want to come to see me.”
“Why don’t you let him, dearie,—if you’d like it? He seems a right nice young fellow, and you could put on your dressing sacque, and Alice could do your hair.... I’ll be home to-morrow,—all day, you know. It would be quite right and proper.”
But the girl only made a grimace.
“That kid! That rah-rah boy! ... He thinks he’s got an awful case.”
“Why do you treat Mr. Beardsley so mean, Janny?” Alice asked her a few days later, closely studying her face. “You know,” she continued slowly, “sometimes I think you’re really in love with him.”
“Love!” cried her sister. “Hah! withthatkid?”
“I think he’s terribly attractive, Janny.”
“Half baked!” Jeannette said scornfully.
“Well, I think he’scharming.”
“You can have him!”
“Oh, Janny! ... You’redreadful!”
But in the dark nights Jeannette would kiss the scrawled writing, press the stiff note-paper to her cheek, and let her thoughts carry her back to their first meeting, their first encounter on the Avenue, their first kiss in the hallway downstairs, their memorable lunch together....
Ah, it was beautiful? It was all so very beautiful,—so infinitely beautiful! Every glance, every word, every moment! She loved him! She could not deny it. Oh,—she loved him, she loved him!
He wrote he was obliged to go to San Francisco. It was impossible to find a position in New York during midsummer, and his father had telegraphed him to come home. He would have to go, but he longed to see Jeannette just once before he went. Hemustsee her, if only to say “good-bye.” He was coming back the first of September, and then he would.... But they must talk everything over. Wouldn’t she please let him come?
Jeannette still hesitated. She wanted to see him again; yet she was afraid,—afraid of disappointment, of what her mother and sister might think, of herself and Roy. In the end, with what seemed to her a weakness she despised, she wrote him, and named an afternoon; Although the doctor had said she was to remain in bed for another week, she prevailed upon her mother and sister to move her into the studio, where with pillows about her and a comforter across her knees, and her hair arranged in the pretty fashion Alice sometimes liked to dress it, she received her lover.
It was as unsatisfactory an interview as she hadfeared. Constraint held them both. Jeannette was intent upon not betraying the delicious madness into which her thoughts of Roy had led her during the empty hours of her long illness, and she sat up stiffly, unbendingly. Roy did not understand. He thought the change in her was due to her illness, but there was something about her that troubled him. They made their promises to one another, they held each other’s hands, they kissed good-bye, but there was nothing fervid about any of it. At the door, however, when he turned, hat in hand, for a final, searching look, she saw a glitter in his eyes, his queer little mouth was straight and drawn harshly, unsmilingly across his teeth. It was that last look of him, that wet gleam in his eyes which took her courage and brought her own tears in a rush. But by then he was gone. The dull boom of the hall-door closing downstairs announced his departure with stern finality.
The summer bore on, hot, unalleviated. The apartment smelled of strange odors, was close, airless in spite of open windows. The Najarians, with much banging and clattering, left with their trunks and boxes for several weeks at the seashore, and on the first of the month old Mrs. Porter, who had occupied the first floor since the building was erected thirty years before, moved away. Only the two trained nurses, one flight down, who were rarely at home, remained in the city during the burning weeks of July and August.
With the Sturgises, life became dreary and grewdrearier. Miss Loughborough’s school closed, Signor Bellini departed for his beloved Italy, the Wednesday and Saturday pupils became fewer and fewer and by mid-July had evaporated entirely. Mrs. Sturgis, fretting over the trivial expenses each day inevitably brought, wore a worried, harassed air. She found some work to do, copying music, but this had to be given up, as her teeth commenced to give her trouble. How long she was able to disguise her discomfort from her daughters, they never guessed, but her misery eventually was discovered, and she was summarily driven to a dentist. It developed that her teeth were in such a decayed condition they would all have to be pulled, and replaced by an artificial set.
Poor Mrs. Sturgis wept and protested. She objected strenuously to anything so drastic. It wasn’tin the least necessary! She couldn’tpossiblyafford it! Her daughters urged her and argued with her until they lost their tempers and there was almost a quarrel in the little household. The dentist declined to modify his advice. Pain—cruel, persistent pain, that robbed her of her sleep, and sapped her strength—finally compelled her to give way.
“I’ll do it,—but my girlies haven’t the faintest idea what they are letting me in for! It will be the death of me!” wailed Mrs. Sturgis.
Jeannette, able to sit up now and hobble from one room to another, regarded her mother with frank impatience as she rocked vigorously back and forth, weeping abjectly into a drenched little handkerchief. She felt sorry for her, she would have made any sacrifice to alleviate her pain to make matters easier for her, and yet it was obvious there was no other coursefor her, and the sooner the teeth were out and a false set in their place, the better it would be for them all. The girl gazed gloomily out of the window.
“And my daughter’s no comfort to me,” continued Mrs. Sturgis, piteously, conscious of Jeannette’s unvoiced criticism. “The child that I’ve raised through sorrow and tribulation, through hunger and self-denial,—the daughter for whom I’ve worked and sacrificed my life....”
Jeannette continued to stare stonily into space, locked her fingers more tightly together, but said nothing.
Eventually there came the terrible day when Mrs. Sturgis and Alice went forth to the dental surgeon, and when the young girl brought her spent and broken mother home in a cab. The four flights of stairs for the exhausted woman were a dreadful ordeal. Jeannette, catching a glimpse of the labored progress, as she gazed over the balustrade from the top landing, forgot her own weakened condition, the doctor’s caution, and hurried to her mother’s assistance. She ran down the stairs and grasped the little woman’s almost fainting figure in her young arms. Together the sisters dragged and pushed her up the remaining steps, but the older girl knew before she reached the top, that she had put too great a strain upon her own partially regained strength.
She paid for the imprudence by another three weeks in bed. It was the longest three weeks of her life. Her mother roamed about from room to room, toothless and inarticulate, unable to eat solid food, waiting for her lacerated gums to heal. She complained and mumbled almost incessantly, harassed by the thoughtof doctor’s and dentist’s bills which she declared over and over she saw no way of ever paying. Jeannette, chained to her bed, had to listen unhappily. Mrs. Sturgis gave her no respite. She refused to leave the house for fear of meeting a friend in the street who would discover her toothlessness. Alice went to market and ran the errands, while Mrs. Sturgis rocked back and forth, back and forth, beside Jeannette’s bed, picked at her darning, and complained of life. It was not like her mother, thought the daughter wearily; she of indomitable spirit, who had never been afraid of hardships, but rejoiced in overcoming them.
Letters from Roy brought the only alleviating spots in these long, tiring days. He wrote almost every day and there were numerous picture post-cards. His letters were full of assurances and young hopes. Jeannette loved his endearments, his underscored protestations, but the plans which he elaborately unfolded seemed so uncertain, their realization so improbable that they left her cold. She read the scrawled words in the immature script, and tried to conjure up a picture of him penning them. It eluded her. The boy in the Norfolk jacket with the stuck-up hair, blue eyes, and whimsical smile, that had so strangely fired her heart, had already become hazy and remote. Her own weak back and helplessness, her mother’s trembling cheeks and mumbled complaints were harsh realities, very close at hand. The summer sun blazed on unsparingly, and perspiration covered her arms and neck and trickled down between her breasts. Spring and young love, the glittering Avenue, walks and talks and murmured confidences that whipped the blood and caught the breath, were of a far distant yesterday.Was there ever a time when thoughts of this boy had kept her awake at nights, a time when at the memory of his kiss her tears had blinded her? It was some other Jeannette,—not the one who sighed wearily and wished Alice would keep the door shut, and not let in the flies to bother her.
Slowly Nature reasserted herself. Strength returned, old hopes revived, youth throbbed again in the veins, life once more took on a pleasing aspect. The late August day, that found Jeannette making a cautious way toward the Park on her first venture from the house, was brilliant with warm but not too hot sunshine, and the foliage of trees and shrubbery in the Park vistas never appeared greener or more inviting.
Mrs. Sturgis’ false teeth had made a great improvement in her appearance, had rounded out her face, given strength to her jaw, and made her seem ten years younger. The little woman was delighted with the effect, and was now evincing a gratified interest in her appearance. Signor Bellini had returned earlier than he expected, had already started his Monday and Thursday classes, while Miss Loughborough’s Concentration School for Young Ladies was about to open its doors, and pupils were flocking back from their vacations. And lastly, and to the girl, most important of all, Roy was returning to New York.
He would arrive in the city in a few days, and she wondered how she would feel toward him when they met. As she sat upon a park bench, enjoying the sunand the toddling children playing in the soft gravel of the pathway near by, she asked herself if she cared. She could not tell. Of far more interest to her was the prospect of work again. She had been stifled all summer by illness and heat, but now she wanted to get back to the business world and win her independence anew. Her ambition was afire; she was all eagerness to have a job once more.... Roy? ... Well, it would be pleasant to have him making love to her again, to watch him tremble at her nearness.
But she found herself thrilling on the afternoon he was to see her. He had telephoned in the morning from the station, and his voice had sounded wonderfully sweet and eager. When his ring at the door announced him, her heart raced madly. Delicious tremors, one after another, coursed through her.
He came hurrying up the stairs and she met him in the studio. Their hands instantly found one another’s, and they stood so a moment, smiling happily and ardently into each other’s eyes; then she drifted into his arms, and it seemed the peace of the world had come.
Ah, she had forgotten how dear he was, how lovable, how sweet! It was good to have him take her to himself that way, and feel his thin arms about her, and have him hold her close against his young hard breast.
Plans—plans,—they were full of them. They were engaged now; Mrs. Sturgis and Alice must be told, the father wired, and Roy must immediately set about finding a job. He had some corking letters, he told her eagerly, and he was on the trail of a splendid position already. Jeannette was going to find work, too; they would both save, buy all the clothes they wouldneed, and be married,—oh, some time in the spring! Roy, holding both her hands, gazed at her with shining eyes, his whole face glowing with excitement.
“Oh, God, Jeannette—oh, God! Just think! You and me! Married!”
Itwasa wonderful prospect.
In less than a week, he had obtained a promising position with the Chandler B. Corey Company, publishers of high-class fiction and the best of standard books. It was a new but flourishing organization with offices on Union Square. In addition to its book business, there were two monthly magazines,The Wheel of FortuneandCorey’s Commentary, and Roy was made part of the staff that secured advertisements for the pages of these periodicals. He was full of enthusiasm for his new work. Mr. Featherstone, the advertising manager, who was also a member of the firm, was the jolliest kind of a man, and the other fellows in the department, Humphrey Stubbs and Walt Chase, were “awfully nice” chaps. He was to receive from the start, twenty dollars a week, and Mr. Featherstone promised him a raise of five dollars at the end of three months, if he made good. The gods were with them. Jeannette and he could be married early in the spring.
The girl listened and pretended to rejoice, but her heart was sick within her. Roy, getting twenty dollars a week!—back in a job!—independent and secure once more!—a bright future and rapid advancement ahead of him! She was bitterly envious. She longed for theold life of business hours, of office excitement, for her neatly managed if frugal lunches, for the early hours in the mornings and the tired hours at night, for the heart-warming touch of the firm, plump little manila envelope on Saturday mornings, and, above all, she longed for the satisfaction of being a wage-earner again, of being financially her own mistress, and being able to contribute something toward the household bills each week.
The next day she started out to find work. She knew it would be a humiliating business, but she found it worse than she feared. The advertisements for stenographers in the newspapers which she answered, all turned out to be disappointing. The most she was offered was ten dollars a week, and in the majority of cases only six or eight. She had made up her mind to accept nothing less than what she had earned before. She would walk out of an office into the glaring street with the prick of tears smarting her eyes, with lips that trembled, but she would vigorously shake her head, and renew her determination.
She went to interview Miss Ingram of the Gerard Commercial School, but Miss Ingram had no vacant positions on her list.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the little teacher said with a forlorn air; “I’ve got three girls now just waiting for something to turn up, but all they want downtown are boys—boys—boys!”
Twice Jeannette had the unpleasant experience of having men to whom she applied for work lay their hands on her. One slipped his arm about her, and tried to kiss her, pressing a bushy wet mustache against her face; the other placed his fat fingerscaressingly over hers and, leering at her, promised he would find her a good job, if she’d come back later in the day. She was equal to these occasions but there was always a sickening reaction that left her weak and trembling with a salt taste in her mouth. She said nothing about them at home.
Her mother and Alice, even Roy, had urged her not to go to work again. Mrs. Sturgis reiterated her original objection; Alice thought it was not necessary, that Janny had better take things easy and devote her time to wedding preparations. Roy did not like the idea, he frankly admitted, of her associating so intimately with a lot of men in an office, and, besides, it distracted her, made her nervous.
“In three months, sweetheart, I’ll be getting twenty-five dollars a week and we can get married. A hundred a month is enough for a while. You ought to run the table on ten dollars a week,—your mother does that for the three of you!—and out of the remaining sixty, we surely will have enough for rent, and a lot left over for clothes and theatres.”
“Oh, yes,” Jeannette sighed wearily, “it’s plenty,—only I want—I want to earn some money myself. I need clothes, and I ought to have everything for a year, at least!”
September passed, and October came with a tingle of autumn, and an early touch of yellow, drifting leaves. Jeannette missed the chance of an excellent position in the manager’s office of a large suit and cloak manufacturer by no more than a minute or two. She saw the other applicant enter the office just ahead of her, and was presently told the place was filled. The girl who had preceded her was Miss Flannigan!
There was another position in a lawyer’s office for which she eagerly applied. She heard the salary was twenty-five dollars a week, but when she was interviewed, and it was discovered she had no knowledge of legal phraseology, she was rejected.
Desperate and discouraged, she was obliged to listen in the evenings to Roy’s glowing praise of his new associates, to detailed accounts of small happenings in the office, and gossip between desks. She learned all about Mr. Featherstone, his devoted and adoring wife, his small, crippled son, his own good nature, and hearty joviality. She heard a great deal about Humphrey Stubbs and Walt Chase. Stubbs, she gathered, was already Roy’s enemy. He had made several efforts to discredit the newcomer, and was on the lookout for things about which to criticize him to his chief. Walt Chase, on the contrary, was amiable and inclined to be very friendly. Walt had been married less than a year, lived in Hackensack, and his wife had just had a baby.
Jeannette listened enviously, with despair in her heart, when she heard about Miss Anastasia Reubens, the editor ofThe Wheel of Fortune. That Miss Reubens was forty-five and had spent all the working years of her life on the editorial staff of one magazine or another made little difference to Jeannette. She hated to inquire about her, but her curiosity was too great.
“What do you suppose she gets?” she asked Roy with a casual air.
“Oh, I don’t know; perhaps fifty or sixty a week. I’m sure I haven’t an idea. None of the folks down there get high salaries; everyone is underpaid. Mr. Corey hasn’t more than got the business started. Heonly began it five years ago. He tells us, we’ve got to wait with him, until the money begins to come in, and then we’ll all share in the profits.”
“Fifty or sixty a week?” sniffed Jeannette. “Did she tell you she got that? ... She’s lucky, if she gets twenty-five!”
Roy shrugged his shoulders. He had an irritating way of avoiding arguments, Jeannette noticed, by lapsing silent. She considered the matter for a moment further, but decided it was not worth pressing.
“What kind of a man is Mr. Corey?” she asked.
“Oh, Corey? Corey’s a peach. He’s a dynamo of energy, and has all sorts of enthusiasm. He’s got the most magnetic personality I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s going to make a whale of a big business out of that concern. Every Wednesday we all lunch together,—that is, the men in the editorial and book departments,—and we go to the Brevoort; we’ve got a private room down there, and Mr. Corey always comes and talks to us about the business and we try to offer suggestions that will help each other. We call it ‘The Get Together Club.’ It’s great.”
Jeannette studied her lover’s face and for a moment felt actual dislike for him. What didheknow? Why shouldhebe so fortunate? Why should everything go so smoothly forhim? Why shouldn’tshehave a chance like that?
“Mr. Featherstone may send me to Boston Friday to see the Advertising Manager of Jordan & Marsh about some copy. He said something about it last night. I’d hate to go, but, gee! it would be a great trip!”
Jeannette rose to her feet abruptly and lowered ahissing gas-jet. Oh, she was unreasonable, silly, ungenerous! But she couldn’t listen any longer. It made her sick.
Mr. Abrahms, of Abrahms & Frank,—fur dealers and repairers of fur garments,—would pay twelve dollars a week for a first-class “stenog,” who “vood vork from eight till sigs.” He was very anxious that Jeannette should accept his offer.
“I need a goil chust lige you, who c’n tage letters vot I digtate an’ put ’em into nice English, and be polide to der customers vot come in ven I am busy,” he explained.
It was a cheap little establishment, crowded into the first floor and basement of an old private dwelling, now devoted to similar small enterprises. A dressmaker occupied the second floor, an electrician the next, and a sign-painter the last and topmost. It was far from being the kind of employment Jeannette wanted, but it was the best that had been offered, and she promised to report on Monday.
She went dismally home on the “L,” deriving a bitter satisfaction in picturing to herself what her days would be like, cooped up in an ill-ventilated back office with the swarthy, none-too-clean Mr. Abrahms, interviewing the none-too-clean customers who would be likely to patronize such a place. Still it was a job and she was a wage-earner again. There would be some comfort in announcing the news to Roy and to her mother and sister.
She found a message from Roy when she reached home. It had been brought by the clerk in Bannerman’sDrug Store. He had said, Alice repeated for the hundredth time, that Mr. Beardsley had ’phoned and asked him to tell Miss Jeannette Sturgis to come down at once to his office; he had said it was important. Alice didn’t know anything more than that; there wasn’t any use asking her questions; the clerk had just said that, and that was all.
“Perhaps he’s got a job for me!” Jeannette exclaimed with a wild hope. “He knows how badly I want one!”
“I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea.” Her sister turned back to the soapy water in the wash-tub where she was carefully washing some of her mother’s jabots.
“Well, I’ll fly.”
Jeannette hurried to her room, and jerked the tissue paper out of her best shirtwaist. Her fingers trembled as she re-dressed herself; the tiny loops that connected with small pearl buttons on her cuffs eluded her again and again until she was almost ready to cry with fury. She felt sure that Roy had a job for her; he would have telephoned for no other reason. In thirty minutes she was aboard the “L” again, rushing downtown.
As she crossed Union Square the gold sign of the Chandler B. Corey Company spreading itself imposingly across the façade of an ancient office building made her heart beat faster, and her rapid, breathless walk doubled with her excitement into almost a skip as she hurried along. Oh, there was good news awaiting her! She felt it!
The wheezy elevator bumped and rumbled as it leisurely ascended. At the fourth floor she stepped out into a reception room whose walls were coveredwith large framed drawings and paintings. There were some magazines arranged on a center table. The place smelt of ink and wet paste. A smiling girl rose from a desk and came toward her.
“I’ll see if he’s in,” she said in reply to Jeannette’s query and disappeared.
Upon an upholstered wicker seat in one corner of the room an odd-looking woman wearing a huge cart-wheel hat was talking animatedly to another who listened with a twisted, sour smile. They were discussing photographs, and the woman in the cart-wheel hat was handing them out one by one from a great pile in her lap. Jeannette was forced to listen.
“This one is of some monks in a village monastery in Korea, and this shows some of the Buddhist prayers for sale in a Japanese shop,—did you ever see such a number?—and here is a group of our Bible students at Tientsin,—could you ask for more intelligent faces? ... Wonderful work.... these men are sacrificing their lives ... twelve thousand dollars....” The words trailed off into an impressive whisper.
Down in the Square the trees were a mass of lovely golden brown and golden yellow shades. Tiffany’s windows across the way sparkled with dull silver.
Roy’s quick step sounded behind her, and Jeannette turned to meet his grinning, eager face, his smile stretched to its tightest across his small and even white teeth.
“Gee, I’m glad you’ve come, Janny!” he exclaimed boyishly. “Say, you look dandy!—you look out-of-sight!” He eyed her delightedly. The woman with the sour, twisted smile glanced toward them casually. Jeannette was all cool dignity.
“What was it, Roy? ... Why did you send for me?”
He continued to smile at her, but at last her serious, expectant look sobered him.
“I think I’ve got a job for you!” he said quickly, dropping his voice. “I only heard about it this morning. I couldn’t telephone until I went out to lunch. One of our regular stenographers is sick; she’s very sick and is not coming back. Mr. Kipps, the business manager, was explaining why they were short-handed upstairs and I was right there, so of course I heard about it. I spoke to Mr. Featherstone about you, and he sent me to Kipps, and Kipps told me to tell you to come down, so he could talk to you. I told him what a wizard you were, and he seemed awfully interested. I didn’t lose a minute; I telephoned as soon as I went out to lunch. I had a deuce of a time making that drug clerk understand.... Gee, you look dandy! ... Gee, you look swell! ... Gee, I love you!”
He piloted her a few minutes later into the inner offices. Jeannette gained a confused impression of crowded desks and clerks, the iron grilling of a cashier’s cage, an open safe, a litter of paper, wire baskets of letters, and stacks of bills. Before she knew it, she found herself confronting Mr. Kipps, and Roy had abandoned her. She was aware of a nervous, fidgety personality, with a thin, hawklike face and long, thin fingers. He had unkempt hair and mustache, and wore round, black tortoise-shell glasses through which he darted quick little glances of appraisement at the girl who had seated herself at his invitation beside his desk.
He fitted his finger-tips neatly together as he questionedher, lolled back in his swivel armchair, and swung himself slowly from side to side, kicking the desk gently with his feet. He asked her to spell “privilege” and “acknowledgment,” and to tell him how many degrees there were in a circle. He nodded with her replies.
He would give her a trial; she could report in the morning. He dismissed her with no mention of what salary she would receive.
But Jeannette did not care. She was delighted and in high spirits. This was just the kind of a job she wanted, just the sort of an atmosphere she longed for; she felt certain that, whatever they paid her at first, she would soon make them give her what she was worth.
When Roy arrived that evening there was great hilarity in the Sturgis household. He had never seen Jeannette in such wild spirits, or found her so affectionate with him. The coldness he sometimes met in her, the reserve, the unyieldingness, were all absent now. He pulled the shabby davenport up before the fire, and they sat holding hands, watching the dying fire flicker and flicker and finally flicker out, and when the light was gone she lay close against him, his arms about her, and every now and then, as he bent his head over her, she raised hers to his, and their lips met.
Her desk, with those of the five other stenographers employed by the publishing company, was located on the floor above the editorial offices. Here were also the circulation and mail order departments. Light enteredfrom three broad front windows but it was far from sufficient and thirty electric bulbs under green tin cones suspended by long wire cords burned throughout the day over the rows of desks and tables that filled the congested loft. At these were some hundred girls and women, and half a dozen men. In the rear, where the daylight failed almost completely to penetrate, the cones of electric radiance flooded the dark recesses brilliantly. Old Hodgson, who was in charge of the outgoing mail, there had his domain, and it was in this quarter that the lumbering freight elevator occasionally made its appearance with a bang and crash of opening iron doors. Toward the front, near the windows, and separated from the rest by low railings, were located the desks of Miss Holland and Mr. Max Oppenheim. The former was a tall, thin-faced woman with iron-gray hair and a distinguished voice and manner. Just what her duties were Jeannette could not guess. She had her own stenographer and was forever dictating, or going downstairs with sheaves of letters in her hands for conferences with Mr. Kipps. Oppenheim was the Circulation Manager. He was a Jew, intelligent and shrewd, with a pallor so pronounced it seemed unhealthy, further emphasized by a thick mop of coal-black glistening hair that swept straight back without a parting from his smooth white forehead. Jeannette thought she recognized in him a type to be avoided; but she never saw anything either in his manner toward her or the other girls at which to take exception.
There was one other individual in the room who had a department to herself. This was a chubby, bespectacled lady with an unpronounceable German name whopresided over a huddle of desks and conducted the mail order department. No one ever seemed to have anything to say to her, nor did she in her turn appear to have anything to say to anyone. She plodded on with her work, unmolested, lost sight of. Sometimes Jeannette suspected that Mr. Corey and Mr. Kipps and the other men downstairs had forgotten the woman’s existence.
The stenographers with whom she was immediately and intimately thrown were distinctly of a better class than the girls who had been her associates in the Soulé Publishing Company. Miss Foster was red-headed and given to shouts of infectious mirth, Miss Lopez was Spanish, pretty and charming, Miss Bixby was a trifle hoidenish but good-natured, and Miss Pratt was frankly an old maid for whom life had been obviously a hard and devastating struggle; there remained Miss La Farge, who, Jeannette suspected, was not of the world of decent women; her be-ribbonedlingeriewas clearly discernible through her sheer and transparent shirtwaists, and she was given to rouge, lavish powdering, and strong scent.
The first day in her new position was as difficult as Jeannette anticipated. She knew she gave the impression of being cold and condescending, but her shyness would not permit her to unbend. The girls were politely distant with her at first, but Jeannette was fully aware that each and every one of them was alive to her presence, and everything they did and said was for her benefit.
She made an early friend of Miss Holland. The tall woman stopped at her desk in passing, smiled pleasantly at her and asked if everything was going allright. Something of quality, of good breeding in the older woman’s face brought the girl to her feet, and it was this trifling act of courtesy that won Miss Holland’s approval and favor, which Jeannette never was to lose.
There were plenty of girls scattered among the tables where the business of folding circulars, addressing envelopes, and writing cards went on, who were of the high-heeled, pompadoured, sallow-skinned variety with which Jeannette was already familiar, but these persons came and went with the work; few of them were regular employees.
When a stenographer was needed in the editorial department a buzzer sounded upstairs and the girl next in order answered the summons. Miss Foster usually took Mr. Corey’s dictation and also that of his secretary, Mr. Smith, but the other girls went from Mr. Featherstone to Mr. Kipps to Miss Reubens and to the rest as they were required.
Mr. Kipps sent especially for Jeannette on her first morning. She was nervous and her pencil trembled a little as she scribbled down her notes. She found his dictation extremely difficult to take; he hesitated, paused a long time to think of the word he wanted, corrected himself, asked her to repeat what he had said, or to scratch out what she had written and to go back and read her notes to a point where he could recommence. But he seemed pleased when she brought him the finished letters.
“Very good, Miss Sturgis,—very good indeed,” he said without enthusiasm, tapping his pursed lips with the tip of his penholder as he scanned her work.
She was jubilant. She looked for Roy; she waseager to tell him what Mr. Kipps had said. But he was not at his desk as she passed through the advertising department, nor was he waiting for her—as she hoped—when five o’clock came and she started home.
Well, she was satisfied,—she had gotten just what she wanted,—she would soon make herself indispensable.... Mr. Kipps was really a lovely man, although one would never suspect it from his nervous manner. She felt a sudden assurance she was going to be very happy.
Roy found her again in her sweetest, kindest mood that evening. They began at once to discuss everyone in the entire organization of the company from the President, himself, down to Bertram, the little Jew office boy, who was inclined to be fresh. The publishing house had suddenly become their entire world and everyone in it was either friend or foe.
“I hope I make good,” sighed Jeannette.
“Make good?” repeated her lover indignantly. “Of course, you’ll make good. Don’tIknow how good you are? Why,say, Janny dear, you’ve got that bunch of girls skinned a mile!”
It was soon evident to Jeannette that Roy was right. The next day she made a point of glancing at some of Miss Foster’s and Miss Lopez’s letters; she noted two errors in the former’s, and the latter’s were rubbed and full of erasures; the letters, themselves, were poorly spaced and the sheets in several instances were far from being clean. She was genuinely shocked at such slovenliness. They would not have tolerated it at the school for a minute! The girls who had been with her under Beardsley had done better work thanthat!.... She paused over the thought and smiled. It was funny now to think of dear old Roy as the Mr. Beardsley who had once filled her with such awe and in fear of whose displeasure she had actually trembled.
Her satisfaction with her new position found utter completeness when on her first Saturday morning her pay envelope reached her, and she discovered she was to receive fifteen dollars a week. It was the last drop in her felicity. She flung herself into her work with all the eagerness of an intense young nature. In turn she took dictation from Mr. Featherstone, Miss Reubens, Mr. Olmstead, the auditor, and young Mr. Cavendish, who editedCorey’s Commentary. Everyone seemed to like her. Miss Reubens, having tried the new stenographer, thereafter invariably asked for her, and while this was gratifying in its way, Jeannette would have willingly foregone the distinction. Miss Reubens was not a pleasing personality for whom to work; she referred to Jeannette as “the new girl,” treated her like a machine, and kept her sitting idly beside her desk while she sorted papers or carried on long conversations at the telephone. She was a high-strung, perpetually agitated person, given to complaining a great deal, undoubtedly overworked, but finding consolation in pitying herself and in bemoaning her hard lot. Jeannette recognized in her the lady with the twisted, sour mouth who had been inspecting photographs the day she first came to the office.
Mr. Olmstead, the auditor, was a tiresome old man, who teetered on his toes when he talked and tapped histhumb-nail with the rim of his eye-glasses to emphasize his words. He took a tedious time over his dictation, and Jeannette had to shut her lips tightly to keep from prompting him.
Mr. Cavendish, on the other hand, was charming. He was about thirty-three or-four, Jeannette judged, handsome, with thick, very dark red hair, and a thick, dark red mustache. He was always very courteous, and had an ever-ready stock of pleasantries. She was aware that he admired her, and she could not help feeling self-conscious in his company. They joked together mildly and their eyes frequently held one another’s in amused glances. Of all the people in the office she liked best to take dictation from him; he never repeated himself, his sentences were neatly phrased and to the point, and his choice of words, she considered, beautiful. That he was unmarried did not detract from her interest in him. She read some of the recent back numbers ofCorey’s Commentaryand particularly the editorials, and told Roy she admired them enormously.
She was far happier in the environment of the editorial rooms than upstairs where she worked with the other stenographers in the midst of the bustle, racket and confusion of the circulation and mail order departments. She soon discovered she had little in common with Miss Foster or Miss Bixby; Miss Lopez was a pretty nonentity; Miss Pratt, an elderly incompetent, and Miss La Farge, a vulgar-lipped grisette. The girls realized she looked down on them and clannishly hung together, to talk about her among themselves. They were not openly rude, but Jeannette was aware she was not popular with them.
Miss Holland alone on the first floor attracted her. They smiled at one another whenever their eyes met, and Jeannette enjoyed the feeling that this faded, kindly gentlewoman recognized in her a girl of her own class.
There were a dozen other personalities in the company that the new stenographer learned to know and with whom she came more or less into contact. Important among these was Mr. Corey’s secretary, Mr. Smith, whom nobody liked. He was suspected of being a tale-bearer, an informant who tattled inconsequences to his chief. He was obviously a toady, and treated everyone in the office, not a member of the firm, with an air of great condescension. Mrs. Charlotte Inness of the book department was a regal, gray-haired personage, with many floating draperies that were ever trailing magnificently behind her as she came and went. Miss Travers, who was cooped up all day behind the wire grilling of the Cashier’s cage, was a waspish, merry individual, and although sometimes common, even vulgar, was both friendly and amusing. Francis Holme and Van Alstyne spent most of their time on the road visiting book dealers. Van Alstyne was English and inclined to be patronizing, but Holme was large-toothed, large-mouthed and big-eared, bluff and frank, noisy and good-hearted. And there was also Mr. Cavendish’s assistant, Horatio Stephens, a tall, rangy young man, with rather a dreamy, detached air, with whom Roy shared a room at his boarding-house. Jeannette found him vaguely repellent; there was something about his long skinny hands and droopingeyelids that made her creepy. And then there was Mr. Corey himself.
Chandler B. Corey was, as Roy had described him, a man of vivid personality. Although not yet in his fifties, he had a full head of silky white hair. In sharp contrast to this were his black bushy eyebrows and his black mustache which curled gracefully at the ends and which he had a habit of pulling whenever he was thinking hard. His skin was pink and clear as a boy’s, but there was nothing effeminate in his face with its heavy square jaw. There was a dynamic quality about him that communicated itself to everyone who came in contact with him, and yet with all his energy and fire, Jeannette noted there was an extraordinary gentleness about him, somewhat suggesting sadness.
On a day toward the end of her third week, she took a long and important letter from him. Miss Foster was struggling with a pile of other work he had already given her, and Mr. Smith sent Bertram upstairs with a request for Miss Sturgis to come down.
She had never been in Mr. Corey’s office before. At once she was struck with its quality. Compared with the noisy ruggedness and bare floors outside, it was quiet, luxurious. Sectional bookcases, filled to overflowing, and many autographed framed photographs lined walls that were covered with burlap. There were one or two large leather armchairs and in the center a great flat-topped desk heaped with manuscripts and stacks of clipped papers. A film of dust lay over many of these, and the scent of cigar smoke was in the air. Mr. Corey’s silvery head beyond the desk appeared as a startling blot of white against the background of warm brown.
She was surprised to discover how tersely he dictated. There was nothing of a literary quality about his sentences, nothing savoring of the polish of Mr. Cavendish. He was all business and dispatch. She felt oddly sorry for him; more than once during the brief quarter of an hour that she was with him a great sympathy for him came over her. He seemed weighed down with responsibilities. A paper mill was pressing him for money; no funds would be available for another three months; his letter offered them his note for ninety days. While he dictated, the telephone interrupted him; something had gone wrong with the linotype machines, and the delay would result inThe Wheel of Fortunebeing two or three days late on the news-stands. In the midst of this conversation Mr. Featherstone came in to report that Shreve & Baker had cancelled their advertisement and had definitely refused to renew it. An army of annoyances pressed around on every side.
She told Roy about it when he came to see her that night.
“Oh, C. B.’s a wonder,” he agreed; “he carries that whole concern on his shoulders, and you can rest assured there’s nothing goes on down there that he doesn’t know. They all depend on him.”
“He seems so over-burdened, and so—so harassed,” Jeannette said.
“I guess he’s all of that. You know he’s had an awful hard time getting a start; the business is just about able to stand on its own feet now.”
“I don’t think Mr. Smith is much help to him. He could save him a whole lot if he would.”
“Oh,thatfish! He’s no good. He told C. B. a mostoutrageous lie about Mr. Featherstone; there was an awful row.”
“Then why doesn’t Mr. Featherstone have him discharged?”
“Nobody’s got anything to say down there except Mr. Corey. He owns fifty-one per cent of the stock, I understand, and if he likes Smith, Smith is going to stay.”
“I can’t see how Mr. Corey can put up with him.”
“How did C. B. like your work?”
“I don’t know. Mr. Smith took it when I brought it downstairs, and carried it in to him. I didn’t hear a word; but he didn’t send it back to me for anything.”
“He was pleased all right. You’ve made a hit with everyone. They’re all crazy about you; Miss Reubens always wants you; and Cavendish, I notice, seems to take a special interest in his dictation now.”
The last was said with an amused scrutiny of her face.
“Oh, don’t be silly, Roy!”
“I’m not,” he declared sensibly. “I don’t care if he admires you. Men are always going to do that. Holme asked me the other day who the new queen was, and I was mighty proud to tell him you were my fiancée. I guess I appreciate the fact that the smartest, loveliest girl in the world is going to be my wife!”
“Oh,—don’t!” Jeannette repeated. There was trouble in her face.
Her days were packed full of interest now. She enjoyed every moment of the time spent within the shabby portals of the publishing house. The rest ofthe twenty-four hours were given to happy anticipation of new experiences awaiting her, or in pleasant retrospect of happenings that marked her advancement. For it was clear to her she was progressing, daily tightening her hold upon her job, making the “big” people like her, bringing herself nearer and nearer the goal she some day eagerly hoped to reach: of being indispensable to these delightful, new employers. To what end this tended, how far it would carry her, under what circumstances she would achieve final success she could not surmise. She was conscious these days only of an intense satisfaction, a delight in knowing she was steadily, though blindly, attaining her ambition.
Often she wished during these early weeks she had a dozen pairs of hands that she might take everyone’s dictation and type all the letters that left the office. She became interested in the subject and purpose of these letters. Cavendish wrote an urgent note to a Mr. David Russell Purington, who was a regular contributor toCorey’s Commentaryfrom Washington, telling him how extremely important it was, in connection with a certain article shortly to appear in the magazine, for him to obtain an exclusive interview on the subject with the Japanese plenipotentiary at that time visiting the capital. Miss Reubens fretted and murmured complainingly as she worded a communication to Lester Short, the author, explaining that it was impossible forThe Wheel of Fortuneto pay the price he asked for his story,The Broken Jade. Mr. Kipps, through her, informed the Typographical Union, Number 63, that under no conditions would the Chandler B. Corey Company reëmploy Timothy Conboyand that if the union persisted, the Publishing Company was prepared to declare for an open shop. Mrs. Inness confided to her hand an enthusiastic memorandum to Mr. Corey urging him to accept and publish at once a novel calledThe Honorable Estateby a new writer, Homer Deering, which she declared was of the most sensational nature.
But after typing these letters and memorandums Jeannette heard nothing more of them. She wanted to know whether or not Mr. David Russell Purington succeeded in obtaining the much desired interview, what Lester Short decided to do about the seventy-five dollars Miss Reubens offered, how the Typographical Union, Number 63, replied to Mr. Kipps’ ultimatum, and if Mr. Corey accepted Homer Deering’s significant manuscript. Her curiosity was seldom gratified; she hardly ever saw the replies to the letters she had typed with such interest. Miss Foster, Miss Lopez, Miss Pratt, Miss Bixby or Miss La Farge continued the correspondence. Often she would see a letter unwinding itself from a neighboring machine at the top of which she would recognize a familiar name, but she had no time to read further, and there was a certain restraint observed among the girls about overlooking one another’s work. Jeannette realized she was merely a small cog in a machine and that her prejudices, enthusiasms, her interest and opinion were of small consequence to anyone.
She rose early in the morning, sometimes at five, and her mother would hear her thumping and pounding with an iron in the kitchen as she pressed a shirtwaist to wear fresh to the office, or clitter-clattering in the bathroom as she polished her shoes or washed stockings.Her costume was invariably neat and smart, but she dressed soberly, with knowing effectiveness for her working day. Her mother, yawning sleepily or frowning in mild distress, would find her getting her own breakfast at seven.
“Why, dearie,” she would plaintively remonstrate, “whatever do you want to bother with the stove for? I’m going to get your breakfast; you leave that to me.... I don’t see,” she might add querulously, “why you have to get up at such unearthly hours.”
Alice would shortly make her appearance, and with wrappers trailing, slippers clapping and shuffling about the kitchen, her mother and sister would complete the simple preparations for her morning meal, and set about getting their own. About the time they had borne in the smoking granite coffee-pot again to the dining-room, and had hunched up their chairs to the table, Jeannette would be ready to leave the house. When she came to kiss them good-bye, she would always find them there, her mother’s cheek soft and warm, Alice’s firm, hard face, cool and smelling faintly of soap. She would seem so vigorously alive as she left them, so confident and capable. There was always a tremendous satisfaction in feeling well-dressed, well-prepared and early-started for her day’s work. As she left the house, and filled her lungs with the first breath of sharp morning air, there would come a tug of excitement at the prospect of the hours ahead. She loved the trip downtown on the bumping, whirring elevated; she loved the close contact with fellow-passengers, wage-earners like herself; she loved the brisk walk along Seventeenth Street and across the leaf-strewn square, where she faced the tide of clerksand office workers that poured steadily out of the Ghetto and lower East Side, and set itself toward the great tall buildings of lower Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and she loved the first glimpse of the gold sign of the Chandler B. Corey Company, with the feeling that she belonged there and was one of its employees.
She would be at her desk half to three-quarters of an hour ahead of the other girls. There would usually be work left over from the previous day. She liked settling herself for the busy hours to come when no one was around and she could do so with comfort.
She would hardly be conscious of the other girls’ arrival, and would often greet them with a smiling good-morning, or answer their questions with no recollection afterwards of having done so.
The whirlwind of office demands and the tide of work would soon be about her. Miss Reubens wanted her, Mr. Kipps rang for a stenographer, Mr. Featherstone had an important letter to get off before he went out. Would Miss Sturgis look up that letter to the Glenarsdale Agency? Would Miss Sturgis come down when she was free? Mr. Cavendish had an article he wanted copied as soon as possible. Miss Bixby was busy, Miss Foster was busy, Miss Lopez, Miss Pratt, Miss La Farge were busy; Miss Sturgis was busiest of all. She thrilled to the rush and fury of her days. There was never a let-up, never a lull; there was always more and more work piling up.
At noon, at twelve-thirty, at one,—whenever she was free for a moment about that time,—she would slip out for her lunch. She had learned she must eat,—eat something, no matter how little, in the middle of the day. She still patronized the soda and candy counterin the big rotunda of Siegel-Cooper’s mammoth department store for her china cup of coffee and two saltine crackers. Sometimes she spent another nickel for a bag of peanut brittle. Somewhere she had read that the sugar in the candy and the starch in the peanuts contained a high percentage of nutritious value. She nibbled out of the bag on her way back to the office.
She would be gone hardly more than half the hour she was allowed for luncheon. Between one and three in the afternoon was the time she was least interrupted, and in this interval her fingers flew, and letter after letter,—slipped beneath its properly addressed envelope,—would steadily augment the pile in the wire basket that stood beside her machine. She rejoiced when it grew so tall, the stack was in danger of falling out.
In the late afternoon came the rush and the most exacting demands. Miss Reubens had a letter that must go off that night without fail; Mr. Featherstone had just returned from a conference with a big advertiser and wanted a record of the agreement typed at once; Mr. Kipps had a communication to be instantly dispatched; Mr. Corey needed a stenographer. The girls were all busy; they had too much to do already; they could not finish half the letters that had been given them. Well, how about Miss Sturgis? Could Miss Sturgis manage to get out just one more? It wassoimportant. Yes, Miss Sturgis could,—of course she could; it might be late, but if the writer would remain to sign it, she’d manage to finish it somehow.
“You’re a fool,” Miss Bixby said to her one day sourly. “Nobody’s going to thank you for it; youdon’t get paid a cent more; I don’t see why you want to make a beast-of-burden out of yourself. They just use you like a sponge in this office; squeeze every ounce of strength out of you, and then throw you away. Look at Linda Harris!”
Linda Harris was the girl who had sickened, and whose place Jeannette now filled.
Perhaps Miss Bixby was right, Jeannette would say to herself, riding home after six and sometimes after seven o’clock on the lurching train, tired to the point where her muscles ached and her sight was blurred. But there was something in her that rose vigorously to this battle of work, that made her reach down and ever deeper down inside herself for new strength and new capacity.
Wearily, her hand dragging on the stair rail, she would pull herself step by step up the long flights to the top floor. Tired though she might be, her mind would still be buzzing with the events of the day: Mr. Cavendish’s letter to Senator Slocum,—had she remembered the enclosures? Mr. Kipps had been short with her, or so he had seemed; perhaps he had been only vexed at the end of a long day of worry. Mr. Corey’s smile at a comment she had ventured was consoling. Then there was that friction between Miss Reubens and Mrs. Inness; they had had some sharp words; she wondered which one of them eventually would triumph. Mrs. Inness, of course.... And little Miss Maria Lopez had confided to her in the wash-room she was going to be married!
“Hello, dearie! ... Home again?” Jeannette’smother would call to her cheerfully as she pushed open the door. Alice would turn her head with a “’Lo, Sis”; she would kiss them dutifully, perfunctorily. The kitchen would be hot and steamy; the smell of food would make her feel giddy, perhaps faint. She would be ravenously hungry. She would go to her dark little bedroom, light the gas, remove her hat, blouse, and skirt and stretch herself gratefully on her bed.... Would Mrs. Inness go to Mr. Corey about her difference with Miss Reubens? ... Miss Holland had had a conference with Mr. Kipps all afternoon; what could it be about? ... Would Bertram be discharged for losing that manuscript? ... Mr. Van Alstyne had certainly been unnecessarily curt; she cordially disliked him.... And Mr. Smith had most assuredly not given her Mr. Corey’s message; why, she remembered distinctly....
“Dinner, dearie.” She would drag herself to her feet, rub her face briskly with a wet wash-rag, and in her wrapper join her mother and sister at table.
“Well, tell us how everything went to-day,” Mrs. Sturgis would say, busy with plates and serving spoon.
“Oh,—’bout the same as usual,” Jeannette would sigh. “Bertram, the office boy, lost a manuscript to-day. It was terribly important. We were awfully busy upstairs, and Mrs. Inness sent the book out to be typed, and he left the package somewheres,—on the street car, he thinks. Mr. Kipps will probably fire him; he deserves it; he’s awfully fresh.”
“You don’t say,” Mrs. Sturgis would murmur abstractedly. “Drink your tea, dearie, before it gets cold.”
Jeannette dutifully sipping the hot brew would consider how to tell them of the trouble between Mrs. Inness and Miss Reubens.
“Miss Reubens,—you know, Mother,—is the editor ofThe Wheel of Fortune, and Mrs. Charlotte Inness runs our book department. They dislike each other cordially and I just know some day there’s going to be a dreadful row——”
“Alice, dearie,—get Mother another tea-cup,” Mrs. Sturgis might interrupt, her eye on her older daughter’s face to show she was attending. “And while you’re up, you might glance in the oven.... Yes, dearie?” she would say encouragingly to Jeannette.
The girl would recommence her story, but she could see it was impossible to arouse their interest. Their attention wandered; they knew none of the people in the office; it was no concern of theirs what happened to them.
“Kratzmer had the effrontery to charge me thirty cents for a can of peaches to-day,” Mrs. Sturgis would remark. “I just told him they were selling for twenty-five on the next block and I wouldn’t pay it, and he said to me I could take my trade anywhere I chose, and I told him that that was no way to conduct his business, and he as much as told me that it was his business and he intended to run it the way he liked! I wouldn’t stand for such impudence, and I just gave him a piece of my mind.” An indignant finger tossing an imaginary ruffle at her throat suggested what had been the little woman’s agitated manner.
“Kratzmer’s awfully obliging,” Alice commented mildly.
“Well, perhaps,—but the idea!”
“Mr. Corey was unusually nice to me to-day,” Jeannette remarked.
Her mother would smile and nod encouragingly, but her eyes would be inspecting her daughters’ plates, considering another helping or whether it was time for dessert.
“I couldn’t match my braid,” Alice would murmur in a disconsolate tone. “I went to the Woman’s Bazaar and to Miss Blake’s and they had nothing like it. I suppose I’ll have to go downtown to Macy’s. Do you remember, Mother, where you got the first piece?”
“No, I don’t, dearie,” her mother would reply slowly. “Perhaps it was O’Neill & Adams.... How much do you need?”
“About three yards. I could manage with two. Do you suppose you’d have time to-morrow, Janny, to try at Macy’s?”
“Maybe; I can’t promise. You have no idea how rushed we are sometimes.”
“You know I’ve a good mind to try Meyer’s place over on Amsterdam; it always seems so clean. Kratzmer’s getting too independent.”
“Kratzmer knows us, Mama, and sometimes it’s awfully convenient to charge.”
“I know. That’s perfectly true. But the idea of his talking to me that way!”
“They might have it at Siegel-Cooper’s. You could ask there to-morrow. It would only take you five minutes. I hate to go all the way downtown, and there’s the carfare.”
“I’ve traded with Kratzmer ever since he moved into the block. I guess he forgets I’ve been a residentin this neighborhood for nearly thirteen years. He shouldn’t treat me like a casual customer; it’s not right and proper.”
“It would be the greatest help if I could get it to-morrow. I’m absolutely at a standstill on that dress until I have it. Siegel’s sure to keep a big stock. I’ll give you a sample.”
“I’ve always liked the look of things at Meyer’s. All the Jewesses go there and they always know where to get the best things to eat,—but I suppose heismore expensive.”
“It oughtn’t to cost more than twenty cents a yard. Do you remember what you paid for it, Mama?”
“Dearie,—it’s so long ago; I’m sorry.... I’d rather hate to break with Kratzmer after all these years. You can’t help but make friends with the trades-people. Do you think Meyer’s would really be more high-priced, Janny?”
Jeannette would shrug her shoulders and carefully fold her napkin. They were dears,—she loved them best of all the world,—but they seemed so small and petty with their trifling concerns: matching braids and disagreeing with trades-people.
The dinner dishes would be cleared away. Jeannette would brush the cloth, put away the salt and pepper shakers, the napkins, and unused cutlery; then she would carefully fold the tablecloth in its original creases, replace it with the square of chenille curtaining, and climb on a chair to fit the brass hook of the drop-light over the gas-jet above.
Roy would arrive at eight,—he was always there promptly,—and she would have a bare twenty minutes to get ready. She would hear her mother and sisterscraping and rattling in the kitchen as she dressed, water hissing into the sink, the bang of the tin dishpan, their voices murmuring.
She would be glad when her lover came. A flood of questions, surmises, hazarded opinions about office affairs, poured from her then. She was free at last to talk as she liked about what absorbed her so much; she had an audience that would listen eagerly and attentively to everything. WhatwouldMr. Kipps do about Bertram, and if the manuscript was really lost, whatwouldMrs. Inness do about it? ... Did he hear anything about the row between Mrs. Inness and Miss Reubens? Well,—she’d tell him, only she wanted first to ask his advice about whether she should go to Mr. Corey and simply tell him that Smith had certainlynevergiven her his message?
Roy would meet this eager gossip with news of his own. Mr. Featherstone had given Walt Chase an awful call-down for promising a preferred position he had no right to, and Stubbs was starting on a trip to Chicago and St. Louis. There was talk of putting Francis Holme in charge of the Book Sales Department, and Roy hoped he’d get it instead of Van Alstyne. And what did Jeannette think the chances would be of Horatio Stephens getting Miss Reuben’s job if Miss Reubens quit on account of Mrs. Inness?
Roy would tire eventually of this shop talk. He longed to reach the love-making stage of the evening; he was eager to tell her how much he adored her, and to have her confess she cared for him in return; he liked to have her nestle close against him, his arms about her, to hold her to him and have her raise her lips to his each time he bent over her. But Jeannettegrew less and less inclined these days to surrender herself to these embraces. Each time Roy mentioned love, she would tell him not to be silly, and would speak of another office affair. It distressed her lover; he would fidget unhappily, not quite understanding how she eluded him. Again and again he would return to the question of their marriage. Did Jeannette think March would be a good month? It was three months off. Yes, March would be all right, but did he suppose Miss Reubens was really overworked? Roy didn’t know whether she was or not; she complained a good deal, he admitted. But now about where they were to live; he had heard of a little house in Flatbush that could be rented for twenty dollars a month. How did she feel about living in Brooklyn?
But marriage did not interest her for the present; she was too much absorbed in the affairs of the publishing company. Weddings could wait; hers could, anyhow. Just now she wanted Roy to help her guess the salaries of everyone in the office.
And when, as ten and ten-thirty and eleven o’clock approached, Roy, conscious of the passing minutes, would press his love-making to a point where Jeannette could no longer divert him, she would send him home. She would suddenly remember she had her stockings to wash out, or gloves to clean before she went to bed. She would realize at the moment, how dreadfully tired she was, and the morrow always presented a difficult day.
“You must go now, Roy,” she would say. “You simplymustgo. I’m dead and I’ve got to get some sleep. Please say good-night.”
“Not until you kiss me,” he would insist.
“... There. Now go.”
“But tell me first you love me?”
“Oh,Roy!”
“No,—you must tell me.”
“Why, of course; you know I do.”
“Lots?”
“Yes—yes.”
“And you’ll marry me?”
“Surely.”
“When?”
“Now, Roy, youmustgo. I tell you I’m dropping, I’m so tired.”
“But tell me when you’ll marry me?”
“Well,—whenever we’re ready.”
“You darling! Kiss me again.”
“Roy!”
“Kiss me.... Oh, kiss megood.”
“Good-night!”
“Good-night.... You darling!”