Part 19 (2/2)
There came a knock on the door, and a breezy young woman demanded,
”D'you want a stenographer?”
George wanted a stenographer, and wanted one badly. He put from him the whole vexed question in the press of work, and by lunch time he made up his mind to have it out with Betty. There was no use putting it off, and he knew that he could have no peace with himself until he did. He felt very tired--as though he had been doing actual physical work. He thought of yesterday as a land of lost content. But he couldn't find Betty.
He bent his steps toward home, and as he did so affection for Genevieve flooded his heart. He so wanted yesterday back--things as they had been.
He so wanted her love and her admiration. He wanted to put his tired head on her shoulder. He couldn't bear, not for another moment, to be at odds with her.
He wondered what she had been doing, and how she had spent the morning.
He imagined her crying her heart out. He leaped up the steps and ran up to his room. In it was Alys Brewster-Smith. She started slightly.
”I was just looking for some cold cream,” she explained.
”Where's Genevieve?” George asked.
”Oh, she's out,” Alys replied casually. ”She left a note for you.”
The note was a polite and noncommittal line informing George that Genevieve would not be back for lunch. He felt as though a lump of ice replaced his heart. His disappointment was the desperate disappointment of a small boy.
He went back to the gloomy office and worked through the interminable day. Late in the afternoon Mr. Doolittle lounged heavily in.
”Have some gum, George?” he inquired, inserting a large piece in his own mouth.
He chewed rhythmically for a s.p.a.ce. George waited. He knew that chewing gum was not the ultimate object of Mr. Doolittle's visit.
”Don't women beat the Dutch?” he inquired at last. ”Yes sir, mister; they do!”
”What's up now?” George inquired. ”The suffragists again?”
”Nope; not on the face of it they ain't. It's the Woman's Forum that's doin' this. They've got a sweet little idea. 'Seein' Whitewater Sweat'
they call it.
”They're goin' around in bunches of twos, or mebbe blocks o' five, seein' all the sights; an' you know women ain't reasonable, an' you can't reason with them. They're goin' to find a pile o' things they won't like in this little burg o' ours, all right, all right. An'
they'll want to have things changed right off. I want to see things changed m'self. I'd like to, but them things take time, an' that's what women won't understand.
”Jimminee, I've heard of towns all messed up and candidates ruined just because the women got wrought up over tenement-house an' fire laws an'
truck like that. Yes sir, they're out seein' Whitewater this minut, or will be if you can't divert their minds. Call 'em off, George, if you can. Get 'em fussy about sumpen else.”
”Why, what have I to do with it?” George inquired.
”Well, I didn't know but what you might have sumpen,” said Mr. Doolittle mildly. ”It's that young lady that works here, Miss Sheridan, an' your wife what's organizin' it. Planning it all out to Thorne's at lunch they was, an' Heally was sittin' at the next table and beats it to me. You can see for yerself what a h.e.l.l of a mess they'll make!”
CHAPTER IX. BY ALICE DUER MILLER
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