Part 8 (1/2)

”Glorious Lutie,” began her ante-breakfast address, ”we are not a millionairess; ergo, today we buy all the morning papers and read them at breakfast in order to hunt for a job via the ads. And perhaps the next time your Glorious Susie begins to earn money, you might advise her to save a little against an unexpected situation. Of course I shouldn't have squandered my money the way I did. But I never had had so much before in my life--and oh, the joy of having cut-steel buckles and a perfectly beautiful raincoat--and my first set of furs--and perfumery and everything.”

The advertising columns were not, she found (and attributed it to the return of so many men from France), very fecund. Each newspaper offered only from two to six chances worth considering. One, which appeared in all of them, seemed to afford the best opening. It read:

”_Wanted_: A stenographer, lady-like appearance and address, with some executive experience. Steady job and quick advancement to right woman. Apply between 9 and 11, room 1009, Carman Building.”

”I am requested to apply for this spectacular job at the office itself, Glorious Lutie,” she confided on her return to her room, ”and I'm going out immediately after it. It's a romantic thing, getting a job through an advertis.e.m.e.nt. I hope I float up to the forty-sixth floor of a skysc.r.a.per, sail into a suite of offices which fill the entire top story; all Turkish rugs on the highly polished floor; all expensive paintings on the delicately tinted walls; all cut flowers with yard-long stems in the finely cut crystal vases. I should like to find there a new employer; tall, young, handsome, and dark. Dark he must be, Glorious Lutie. I cannot marry a blond; our children would be albinos. He would address me thus: 'Most Beauteous Blonde--you arrive at a moment when we are so much in need of a secretary that if you don't immediately seat yourself at yon machine, we shall go out of business. Your salary is one hundred dollars a week. This exquisite rose-lined boudoir is for your private use. You will find a bunch of fresh violets on your desk every morning. May I offer you my Rolls-Royce to bring you back and forth to work? And,' having fallen in love with me instantly, 'how soon may I ask you to marry me?'”

Susannah took the Subway to Wall Street; walked through that busy city-canon to the Carman Building. She strode into the elevator, almost empty in the hour which followed the morning rush; started to emerge, as directed by the elevator-man, at the tenth floor. But she did not emerge. Instead, her face as white as paper, she leaped back into the elevator; ascended with it to the top floor; descended with it; hurriedly left the building.

That first casual glance down the corridor had given her a glimpse of H.

Withington Warner sauntering slowly away from the elevator.

”Say, Eloise,” she said late that afternoon over the telephone to the friend she had made at the Dorothy Dorr Home. ”When can I see you?...

Yes.... No.... Well, you see I'm out of a job at present.... No, I can't tell you about it. This is a rooming-house. There is no telephone in my room. I am telephoning from the hall. And so I'd rather wait until I see you. But in brief, I'm eating at Child's, soda-fountains and even peanut stands. I'm really getting back my girlish figure. Only I think I'm going to be a regular O. Henry story. Headlines as follows: _Beautiful t.i.tian-haired_ (mark that _t.i.tian-haired_, Eloise) _Blonde Dead of Starvation. Drops Dead on Fifth Avenue. Too Proud to Beg._ I hope that none of those wicked reporters will guess that my new shoes with the cut-steel buckles cost thirty-five dollars. All right! All right.... The 'Attic' at seven. I'll be there promptly as usual and you'll get there late as usual.... Oh yes, you will! Thanks awfully, Eloise. I feel just like going out to dinner.”

Eloise, living up to her promise, made so n.o.ble an effort that she was only ten minutes late. Then, as usual, she came das.h.i.+ng and sparkling into the room; a slim brown girl, much browner than usual, for her coat of seash.o.r.e tan; with narrow topaz eyes and deep dimples; very smart in embroidered linen and summer furs. The Attic restaurant occupied the whole top floor of a very high, downtown West Side skysc.r.a.per. Its main business came at luncheon, so the girls sat almost alone in its long, cool quiet. They found a table in a little stall whose window overhung the gray, fog-swathed river which seamlessly joined gray fog-misted sky.

A moon, opaque as a scarlet wafer, seemed to be pasted at a spot that could be either river or sky. The girls ordered their inconsequent dinner. They talked their inconsequent girl chatter. They drank each a gla.s.s of May wine.

Susannah had quite recovered her poise and her spirit. She described her new room with great detail. She suggested that Eloise, whom she invariably addressed as, ”you pampered minion of millions, you!” should call on her in that scrubby hall bedroom. In fact, her narrative went from joke to joke in a vein so steadily and so augmentingly gay that, when Eloise had paid the bill and they sat dawdling over their coffee, suddenly she found herself on the verge of breaking her vow of secrecy, of relating the horrors of the last week.

”Eloise,” she began, ”I'm going to tell you something that I don't want you ever to--”

And then the words dried on her lips. Her tongue seemed to turn to wood.

She paled. She froze. Her eyes set on--

O'Hearn was walking into the Attic.

He did not perceive that instant terror of petrification; for it happened he did not even glance in their direction. He walked, self-absorbed apparently, to the other end of the room. But his face--Susannah got it clearly--was stony too. It had the look somehow of a man about to perform a deed repugnant to him.

”What's the matter, Sue?” Eloise asked in alarm. ”You look awfully ill all of a sudden.”

”The fact is,” Susannah answered with instant composure, ”I feel a little faint, Eloise. Do you mind if we go now? I really should like to have a little air.”

”Not at all,” Eloise answered. ”Any time you say. Come on!”

They made rapidly for the elevator. Susannah did not glance back. But inwardly she thanked her guardian-angel for the fortuitous miracle by which intervening waiters formed a screen. Not until they had walked block after block, turning and twisting at her own suggestion, did Susannah feel safe.

”Oh, what was it you were going to tell me, Susannah,” Eloise interrupted suddenly, ”just before we left the Attic?”

”I don't seem to remember at this moment,” Susannah evaded. ”Perhaps it will come to me later.”

Susannah did not sleep very well that night. But by morning she had recovered her poise. ”Glorious Lutie,” she said wordlessly from her bed, ”I think I'll go seriously to the business of getting a job. It'll take my mind off--things. I'm going to ignore that little _rencontre_ of yesterday. Don't you despair. The handsome young employer with his romantic eyes and movie-star eyelashes awaits me somewhere. And just as soon as we're married, you shall be hung in a manner befitting your birth and station in a drawing-room as big as Central Park. I wish it weren't so darn hot. Somehow too, I don't feel so strong about answering ads in _person_ as I did two days ago.”

On her way to breakfast she bought all the newspapers. She spent her morning answering advertis.e.m.e.nts by letter. She received no replies to this first batch; but she pursued the same course for three days.

”Glorious Lutie,” she addressed the miniature a few days later, ”this is beginning to get serious. I am now almost within sight of the end bill in my wad. In point of fact I will not conceal from you that today I p.a.w.ned my one and only jewel--my jade ring. You don't know how naked I feel without it. It will keep us for--perhaps it will last three weeks.