Part 8 (1/2)
His embarra.s.sment increased. It was a novel sensation to him, this feeling ill at ease with a woman--he who was at ease with everyone and put others at their ease or not as he pleased. ”I'm sorry you and Miss Burroughs didn't arrange something. I suppose she found the hours difficult.”
”She made me an offer,” replied the girl. ”I refused it.”
”But, as I told you, we can let you off--anything within reason.”
”Thank you, but I do not care to do that kind of work. No doubt any kind of work for wages cla.s.ses one as a servant. But those people up there--they make one _feel_ it--feel menial.”
”Not Miss Burroughs, I a.s.sure you.”
A satirical smile hovered round the girl's lips. Her face was altogether lovely now, and no lily ever rose more gracefully from its stem than did her small head from her slender form. ”She meant to be kind, but she was insulting. Those people up there don't understand. They're vain and narrow. Oh, I don't blame them. Only, I don't care to be brought into contact with them.”
He looked at her in wonder. She talked of Josephine as if she were Josephine's superior, and her expression and accent were such that they contrived to convey an impression that she had the right to do it. He grew suddenly angry at her, at himself for listening to her. ”I am sorry,” he said stiffly, and took up a pen to indicate that he wished her to go.
He rather expected that she would be alarmed. But if she was, she wholly concealed it. She smiled slightly and moved toward the door. Looking after her, he relented. She seemed so young--was so young--and was evidently poor. He said:
”It's all right to be proud, Miss Hallowell. But there is such a thing as supersensitiveness. You are earning your living. If you'll pardon me for thrusting advice upon you, I think you've made a mistake. I'm sure Miss Burroughs meant well. If you had been less sensitive you'd soon have realized it.”
”She patronized me,” replied the girl, not angrily, but with amus.e.m.e.nt.
”It was all I could do not to laugh in her face. The idea of a woman who probably couldn't make five dollars a week fancying she was the superior of any girl who makes her own living, no matter how poor a living it is.”
Norman laughed. It had often appealed to his own sense of humor, the delusion that the tower one happened to be standing upon was part of one's own stature. But he said: ”You're a very foolish young person.
You'll not get far in the world if you keep to that road. It winds through Poverty Swamps to the Poor House.”
”Oh, no,” replied she. ”One can always die.”
Again he laughed. ”But why die? Why not be sensible and live?”
”I don't know,” replied she. She was looking away dreamily, and her eyes were wonderful to see. ”There are many things I feel and do--and I don't at all understand why. But--” An expression of startling resolution flashed across her face. ”But I do them, just the same.”
A brief silence; then, as she again moved toward the door, he said, ”You have been working for some time?”
”Four years.”
”You support yourself?”
”I work to help out father's income. He makes almost enough, but not quite.”
Almost enough! The phrase struck upon Norman's fancy as both amusing and sad. Almost enough for what? For keeping body and soul together; for keeping body barely decently clad. Yet she was content. He said:
”You like to work?”
”Not yet. But I think I shall when I learn this business. One feels secure when one has a trade.”
”It doesn't impress me as an interesting life for a girl of your age,”
he suggested.
”Oh, I'm not unhappy. And at home, of evenings and Sundays, I'm happy.”
”Doing what?”
”Reading and talking with father and--doing the housework--and all the rest of it.”