It was probably due to ill temper, but it was attributed to my wonderful
business foresight that I did not ship those goods. Mr. Reddiman sent
for me on Monday morning and praised my wisdom, good sense, and
judgment. That customer was to be dropped.
This praise did not make me happy, but quite the contrary. I knew I
didn’t deserve it--in this instance, that is. I was already very
remorseful on the score of Miss Clare. I remembered things of which I
hadn’t been aware at the time--her white face, her quivering lip, her
wide, tearful eyes. She had gone away, after listening to every word I
said, and she had not returned.
It would be hard to describe how startling, how conspicuous, was her
absence. I missed her from rooms, from desks, where she had certainly
never been. The wan sunshine made phantoms of her bright head in dim
corners. Other and very different voices took on fleeting resemblances
to hers. Once I saw the neat, spare form of Miss Kelly taking a drink at
the water cooler, and she seemed to melt into the gracious outlines of
that lost one.
My conscience troubled me. My heart was heavy. Very long was the day;
and at the end of it I secured her address and went off to see her.
Never mind the eloquent speech I had prepared, for I never uttered one
word of it. Suffice it to say that I intended to offer Miss Clare a
permanent position, with no possibility of being fired.
She lived in an apartment house on a side street uptown on the West
Side--a street that was just on the border of a slum--a street of woeful
and dismal gentility. I rang the bell, blundered down a black, narrow
hall, and would have gone upstairs if a voice behind me hadn’t murmured:
“Clare?”
Turning, I asserted that a Clare was what I sought, and I was bidden to
step through an open door and into a prim little sitting room. It was
dismal there, too, but light enough for me to see that I was confronted
by a mother out of a book--a gray-haired, delicate little creature with
a smile of invincible innocence and good will.
I said that I came from the office to see Miss Clare. Strictly speaking,
this was true; but the implication was not, for my business had nothing
to do with the office.
“Am sorry ma daughter’s not in,” said Mrs. Clare, in her slurred
Southern accent. “If you’d care to wait, Ah don’t think she’ll be long.”
So I sat down, and was instantly fed with tea and cake.
“Rosemary made the cake,” Mrs. Clare explained. “She’s wonderful at
baking!”
She was; nothing could have been more delectable. Naturally I praised
it, and naturally Mrs. Clare rose to the praise like a trout to a fly.
There was something very touching in her artless talk about her child,
and something still more touching in the picture she created for me of
their gracious and gentle life together.
“Ah’ve never heard a sharp word from Rosemary,” she assured me. “Ah
don’t think you could say the same of many other girls in the same
circumstances. There’s not only her business career that she’s so
interested in, but she does almost all of the housekeeping as well.
She’s a wonderful manager, and so clever with her needle! Ah never saw a
girl so handy in the house. Of co’se Ah know a girl with her brains and
education is just naturally adapted for business, but--” She stopped,
with a smile. “Ah’m an old-fashioned woman, Ah reckon. Ah’m glad
Rosemary’s going to give it up.”
“Going to give up business?” said I, astounded.
“She’s been engaged for two years,” said she. “That’s long enough. Of
co’se, dear Denby understood how she felt about proving her ability
befo’ she settled down, but Ah’m glad it’s over. He came up from No’folk
yesterday, and he persuaded her to give up her position.”
I was suddenly aware that it was late, and that I couldn’t wait another
minute.
“Ah’m sorry,” said she. “Rosemary’ll be back sho’tly. She just took
Denby to see the Woolworth Building. Ah wish you could have stayed to
see Denby.”
I said how remarkably sorry I was not to see this Denby, but go I would
and did.
As I left the house, I ran into Graves, about to enter.
“Old man,” said I, “come along with me. I want to talk to you.”