LENA'S PROGRESS
About a month after Lena had made her investment in the raw materials of
the writer's art, Dick Percival happened to drop into the sooty and
untidy office where for more than a year Norris had been engaged in
manufacturing public opinion.
"Hello!" he cried as he opened the door. Then he stood transfixed at the
vision that met his sight, for a very blond and fuzzy head was bent over
Ellery's desk and a very startled pair of blue eyes was raised to meet
his own. There stood a rosebud dressed in gray. Is there anything more
demure and innocent than a pinky girl in a mousy gown? Dick's hat came
off and a deferential look replaced the careless one.
"Hello, yourself!" said Norris. "You announce yourself like a telephone
girl. Come in. What do you mean by troubling the quiet waters of my
daily toil?"
"I beg your pardon," said Dick politely. "If you are busy I--"
"That's all right. Miss Quincy and I can postpone our confab without
inconveniencing the order of the universe." Miss Quincy was already
gathering her notes, and she smiled at Dick in a half-shy way that said,
"I remember you very plainly." As she disappeared slowly down the hall,
Dick started after her.
"Great Scott, Ellery!" he ejaculated. "How you have lied to me about the
grubbiness of your work! If this is your daily grind, I don't mind
having a whirl at the editorial profession myself."
Norris laughed.
"It isn't the sum total of my duties," he said.
"Who is Hebe?" asked Dick.
"Well, she's rather a problem," Ellery replied. "I believe she appeared
a few weeks ago at Miss Huntress' office--the woman editor, you
know--with a catchy little article on fashions. It happened that the
boss was in the office, and we consider it rather a grind on him, for he
was much taken by either the article or the eyes, and she got a little
job as a sort of reportorial maid-of-all-work. Funny, isn't it? If a
man is buying a rug, he wouldn't think of deciding on it because it was
green, without testing its wearing qualities; but in nine cases out of
ten a girl gets chosen because of her eyes. That's all I know about her.
Pretty, isn't she?"
"Pretty! Is that all the command you have of your native language? You
ought to lose your job for that. Why she's--never mind--I haven't time
now."
"Neither have I," answered Norris sharply. He remembered that long ago
Dick had called Madeline pretty. It is a cheap and easy word. "I haven't
time for you, either. Will you go away; or will you keep still while I
finish this work?"
"Waltz away." Dick sat down on the window-sill and fell into a
meditative state of mind. Once or twice he walked to the door and looked
down the hall, while Norris plugged steadily away and ignored the
presence of his friend.
After a prolonged silence, Dick spoke again, solemnly:
"I should like to meet her."
"Whom?"
"Miss--Quincy, did you call her?"
"Oh! Isn't she rather out of your class?"
"Pshaw! Don't talk of classes, now that you're out of college. Do you
know anything about her?"
"Nothing," said Ellery shortly. "I don't consider it my business to go
beyond my official relations."
"Well, I haven't any business relations not to go beyond," said Dick.
"So I mean to pursue the inquiry."
"Do as you like," Ellery answered. "Is that what you came down here to
talk about?"
"No," said Dick, changing his manner. "I came to talk up an editorial
campaign. You don't know my chum, Olaf Ericson, do you? He's the biggest
man on the force, and he's a corker. I've learned more from him about
bad smells than I did in two years of chemistry at New Haven. He knows
this town from the seventh sub-cellar up, and 'him and me is great
friends'. Seriously, Norris, I've begun to get hold of just the facts I
wanted about 'the combine', and it's information that is so very
definite and to the point that I believe I can make it hot for them. I
want the public to be kept informed on everything that is to their
discredit. Now the _Star_ is a fairly clean paper, as papers go. I want
help."
"You'll have to go up higher for that, my boy. It's not for a freshman
like myself to direct the policy of the paper. It would be a pretty
serious matter to run up against those fellows. Mr. Lewis, the old man,
is out, but when he comes back we'll go and have a talk with him."
"Talk to him! I should think so!" Dick exclaimed, and he began to pace
the room and pour out the floods of his information, in wrath of soul
and glow of spirits at his resolve to clean things up.
Meanwhile in Miss Huntress' office, farther down the hall, Lena was
discussing with that determined person the possibility of supplying the
public with more of the kind of literature for which women, in
particular, are supposed to have a mad desire. Miss Huntress was an
adept at filling her page with personalities by which those who know
nobody may have almost as great a knowledge of the great as those who
have achieved the proud distinction of being "in it". Lena had written a
highly successful series of articles on "St. Etienne as seen from the
shop windows," and she longed for new and similar fields to conquer.
"I've been wondering," said Miss Huntress, "if you couldn't get up some
catchy little things on private libraries and picture galleries. If you
can raise some photographs to go with them, you might make quite a hit.
That's the kind of thing that takes. You see it makes people able to
talk about the inside of rich folk's houses."
"I suppose you would want me to begin with Mr. Early," said Lena, hardly
knowing what reply to make.
"Never mind Mr. Early. Everybody knows just what he's got and how his
place looks. You might include him later, but I should start with people
who are more exclusive and yet whose names everybody knows. Now there's
Mr. Windsor and Mrs. Percival. By the way, Mr. Norris is awfully
intimate at the Percivals'. Perhaps he'd help you to an introduction. If
Mrs. Percival would let you write up her library, you may be sure
there'd be a lot of others who would follow her example. You might try
it, anyway. Go and see her. Tell her what a hard time you are having to
earn your own living. Your looks will carry you a long way."
"I think young Mr. Percival is in Mr. Norris' office now. Some one came
in while I was there and I think he called him Percival," said Lena
faintly.
"Say! is that so?" exclaimed Miss Huntress. "Now's your chance! Go in
and ask while he's there. He'll find it hard to refuse to your face."
"You go," interposed Lena. "If I go, it will look as though I knew. But
you can walk in all innocent."
Therefore the conversation on matters which were to change the destiny
of a city was interrupted by a smart knock on the assistant editor's
door, and Miss Huntress, eminently self-possessed, walked in on the two
young men.
"Beg pardon, Mr. Norris, I didn't know you had any one here," she began.
"But I won't keep you a moment. The truth is, I want a series of
articles on the private libraries of the city, and, knowing that you are
acquainted with Mrs. Percival, I thought you'd help the paper to an
opening there."
"Let me introduce Mr. Percival," said Norris. "He can give you more
information than I can."
"Well, this is lucky!" ejaculated Miss Huntress.
"Our library isn't a show affair," Dick said stiffly. "My mother, I am
sure, would be very unwilling to submit to that kind of a write-up. My
father was a book-lover, not a book-fancier. It's essentially a private
collection."
"I'm sorry you feel that way about it," Miss Huntress rejoined equably.
"Of course, nowadays, I can't admit that there's any such thing as
privacy. And it isn't only that I want the articles, Mr. Percival. I
want to help along a girl that needs the work, and an awfully nice girl
she is. We haven't any regular job for her, and all I can do is to throw
odd bits of work in her way. She has an old mother to support, and it
would be a real charity to her if you'd look at it in that light. Miss
Quincy is a perfect lady, and you may be sure she'd take no advantage of
you to write up anything sensational or impertinent."
Dick started and glanced consciously at Norris, who grinned back.
"Of course that puts another light on it," Mr. Percival said after a
decent pause, and trying to compose his face to a judicial expression.
"I'd hate to put a stumbling-block in the way of a girl like that.
Ah-um--I'll speak to my mother about it, Miss Huntress, and I dare say
I can persuade her to allow it."
"That's very good of you," Miss Huntress answered,--with sad
comprehension that a complexion like Lena's was a great aid to a
literary career. "You couldn't manage to let Miss Quincy go up this
afternoon, could you?" she went on with characteristic energy in pushing
an advantage. "It would be a good thing if she could get her first stuff
ready for the Saturday-night issue."
"My mother, I suppose, is driving this afternoon," Dick said
hesitatingly. He went through a hasty calculation and saw reasons for
cutting out certain of his own engagements. "See here, Miss Huntress, if
you're in such a hurry, I don't mind taking Miss Quincy up and telling
her what I know about old editions and rare folios. I'll make it right
with mother afterward."
Miss Huntress' face cleared perceptibly.
"You're awfully good, Mr. Percival. Won't you come down to my office
now, and I'll introduce you to Miss Quincy? This is a real favor." Dick
shot a glance of triumph at Ellery, believing himself a skilled sly dog
of a manipulator, and not knowing that he was the manipulated. Norris
spoke in scorn.
"I suppose righteousness and reform can wait now."
"You can bet they will. I'll call on you to-morrow afternoon, Norris."
"That's the usual fate of reform. Don't be a fool, Dick." But Dick was
already disappearing down the corridor in pursuit of the able woman
editor.
The girl waiting in the disordered office looked more than ever like a
bridesmaid rose, pink and ruffled and out of its proper setting, as she
saw Mr. Percival coming.
"Miss Quincy," said Dick, "I have a motor down stairs, and I'll take you
up to the house right away, if you don't mind."
If she didn't mind!
When youth starts out to revolutionize the world, it meets with many
distractions. Even in the hour that Dick spent in the quiet old library
with Miss Quincy, he met with distractions. He tried to keep her mind on
missals and Aldine editions, but she persisted in poring over old copies
of _Godey's Lady's Book_, which she found tucked away in a forgotten
corner. Nobody but Lena could have scented them out.
"The fashions are so funny, Mr. Percival!" she insisted. "Do look at
these preposterous hoop-skirts and the little short waists. Did you say
that no one knows how that gold leaf was put on that ugly old book? How
absurd! I must put that down. I suppose that is the kind of thing I have
to write up."
"Be sure you don't get mixed up and describe monkish fichus and gold
leaf on the bias, or you'll be everlastingly disgraced in the office."
"Never mind. I'll learn your horrid old pieces of information in a few
minutes. Do let me look at this a little longer," Lena answered so
prettily, and pointed with so dainty a finger, and glanced up so
pathetically, that Dick too became absorbed in _Godey's Lady's Book_.
"Weren't they frightful guys?" Lena went on. "But I dare say the men of
that time--what is the date?--1862--thought they were lovely."
"Very likely, poor men! You see they hadn't the privilege of knowing the
girls of to-day and they thought their own women were the top-notch."
"Now you are horrid and sarcastic," said Lena.
"Never a bit. I find it impossible to believe that there was ever
before so much beauty in the world. There was here and there a pretty
girl, like Helen of Troy, and they made an awful fuss over her."
"But she must have been really wonderful."
"Yes, if a girl is as much run after as that, she must either be a
raving beauty or else she lives in the far West."
"But, you know, there aren't so very many real beauties nowadays, are
there?" She glanced sidewise at him in an adorable manner.
"I can't remember more than one--or two," said Dick judicially.
Lena laughed softly.
"I think it must have been very nice to be one of the few and be made a
fuss over, instead of--"
"Instead of what?"
"Instead of having to grub and struggle for your bread," Lena
answered,--and there was a misty look in the big eyes she turned up to
him.
"Poor little girl!" said Dick. "You certainly are not of the kind who
ought to battle with the world. Haven't you any man who could shelter
you a little?"
Lena shook her head, with an air of patient suffering.
"My father is dead," she said. "He was of a good family, as you might
know by my name, but he was wounded in the war, and he never got over
it. Of course he was very young then. He wasn't married till long
afterward. He died when I was a little thing."
"That was the history of my father, too!" Dick felt a glow of kindred
experience. "See, that is his portrait over the mantel."
Lena looked very lovely and spiritual as she gazed up at the quiet face
that looked back at her, and Dick watched her. Then she drew a full
breath and turned her eyes on him.
"You are like him," she said softly, and something in her voice made the
words a thrilling tribute.
Then she added: "Yes, but he left you in comfort, and we--my mother and
I--"
"Will you let me come to see your mother some time?"
Lena's heart beat fast with mingled fear and hope, but all Dick saw was
a startled and sweet surprise.
"I should be almost ashamed to have you come," she said with a soft
blush and a look of shy invitation. "We are so poor and we live in such
a shabby place."
"If your shabbiness comes because of your father's sacrifice for his
country it is something to be proud of," Dick answered.
Through Lena's mind there passed a swift memory of quarrels and
bickerings, of daily smallnesses, which were her chief recollection of
her father. She looked frankly up into Dick's face.
"Yes," she said. "That ought to make it easy to bear. Now I must not
talk about myself any more. What did you tell me about that funny old
book?"
"And I may come to see you and your mother?" Dick persisted.
"If you do not forget us to-morrow,"--Lena glanced at him out of the
corner of her eyes in a way calculated to make him remember.
"I shan't forget," said Dick.
He took out a small note-book and wrote down the address she gave him.
And she gave herself a little shake and pulled out a much larger
note-book. "I ought not to waste my time and yours this way, but, you
see, I'm not much of a business woman. I sometimes forget altogether."
Dick thought her very preposterous and charming as she set to work with
an air of severity; and so she was--the last thing on earth made to do
serious work. They leaned together over one treasure after another, in
that electric nearness that moves youth so easily, and sends a tingling
sensation up the backbone.
When she suddenly rose, her cheeks were pinker and more transparent than
ever, and her eyes softer and dreamier.
"Let me take you home in the motor," said Dick.
"Dear me, no," Lena exclaimed. "I'm afraid you think me entirely too
informal already. I--I'm so stupid and impulsive. I'm always doing wrong
things and not thinking till afterward. Good-by, and thank you, Mr.
Percival."
After he had bowed her out, Dick plunged into a big chair and spent a
few moments in analyzing his own character. He perceived that in some
ways he differed from most of his friends. Now Ellery and Madeline and
most of the others lived along certain conventional lines, with certain
fixed interests and habits. That kind of existence would be intolerable
to him. He liked to star his days with all kinds of colored incidents
that had no particular relation to his main work. He liked to run down
every by-path, explore it a bit, and then come back to the highway.
Those small excursions were apt to take a man into leafy dells where
there were ferns and flowers too shy to fringe the dusty plodding
thoroughfare. Dick liked that figure. It revealed to him a certain
lightness of heart and poetry in himself that distinguished him from the
prosy grubbers. This sprinkling of life with episodes was like a little
tonic. It kept him vivid and alive.
Take this very afternoon just passed. It meant little, of course, either
to him or to the pretty little pathetic reporter girl, but it had
injected a bit of pleasure into her routine, and given him an insight
into another kind of maiden from the well-kept, sheltered women he knew
best. Such things help a man's larger sympathies. He was glad that he
could enjoy many types of men and women.
A rumble of wheels outside brought him out of this particular by-path
into the highway.
"What a dispensation that the mater didn't come home in the middle of
it!" he said with a sigh of satisfaction.