"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."
What a monotonous narrow little life! He wanted to pity her, but somehow
he could not. There was no suggestion in her manner that she was an
object of pity. "What did Miss Burroughs say to you--if I may ask?"
"Certainly. You sent me, and I'm much obliged to you. I realize it was
an opportunity--for another sort of girl. I half tried to accept because
I knew refusing was only my--queerness." She smiled charmingly. "You are
not offended because I couldn't make myself take it?"
"Not in the least." And all at once he felt that it was true. This girl
would have been out of place in service. "What was the offer?"
Suddenly before him there appeared a clever, willful child, full of the
childish passion for imitation and mockery. And she proceeded to "take
off" the grand Miss Burroughs--enough like Josephine to give the satire
point and barb. He could see Josephine resolved to be affable and equal,
to make this doubtless bedazzled stray from the "lower classes" feel
comfortable in those palatial surroundings. She imitated Josephine's
walk, her way of looking, her voice for the menials--gracious and
condescending. The exhibition was clever, free from malice, redolent of
humor. Norman laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks.
"You ought to go on the stage," said he. "How Josephine--Miss Burroughs
would appreciate it! For she's got a keen sense of humor."
"Not for the real jokes--like herself," replied Miss Hallowell.
"You're prejudiced."
"No. I see her as she is. Probably everyone else--those around her--see
her money and her clothes and all that. But I saw--just her."
He nodded thoughtfully. Then he looked penetratingly at her. "How did
you happen to learn to do that?" he asked. "To see people as they are?"
"Father taught me." Her eyes lighted up, her whole expression changed.
She became beautiful with the beauty of an intense and adoring love.
"Father is a wonderful man--one of the most wonderful that ever lived.
He----"
There was a knock at the door. She startled, he looked confused. Both
awakened to a sense of their forgotten surroundings, of who and what
they were. She went and Mr. Sanders entered. But even in his confusion
Norman marveled at the vanishing of the fascinating personality who had
been captivating him into forgetting everything else, at the
reappearance of the blank, the pale and insignificant personality
attached to a typewriting machine at ten dollars a week. No, not
insignificant, not blank--never again that, for him. He saw now the full
reality--and also why he, everyone, was so misled. She made him think of
the surface of the sea when the sky is gray and the air calm. It lies
smooth and flat and expressionless--inert, monotonous. But let sunbeam
strike or breeze ever so faint start up, and what a commotion of
unending variety! He could never look at her again without being
reminded of those infinite latent possibilities, without wondering what
new and perhaps more charming, more surprising varieties of look and
tone and manner could be evoked.
And while Sanders was talking--prosing on and on about things Norman
either already knew or did not wish to know--he was thinking of her. "If
she happens to meet a man with enough discernment to fall in love with
her," he said to himself, "he certainly will never weary. What a pity
that such a girl shouldn't have had a chance, should be wasted on some
unappreciative chucklehead of her class! What a pity she hasn't
ambition--or the quality, whatever it is--that makes those who have it
get on, whether they wish or no."
During the rest of the day he revolved from time to time indistinct
ideas of somehow giving this girl a chance. He wished Josephine would
and could help, or perhaps his sister Ursula. It was not a matter that
could be settled, or even taken up, in haste. No man of his mentality
and experience fails to learn how perilous it is in the least to
interfere in the destiny of anyone. And his notion involved not slight
interference with advice or suggestion or momentarily extended helping
hand, but radical change of the whole current of destiny. Also, he
appreciated how difficult it is for a man to do anything for a young
woman--anything that would not harm more than it would help. Only one
thing seemed clear to him--the "clever child" ought to have a chance.
He went to see Josephine after dinner that night His own house, while
richly and showily furnished, as became his means and station,
seemed--and indeed was--merely an example of simple, old-fashioned
"solid comfort" in comparison with the Burroughs palace. He had never
liked, but, being a true New Yorker, had greatly admired the splendor of
that palace, its costly art junk, its rotten old tapestries, its
unlovely genuine antiques, its room after room of tasteless
magnificence, suggesting a museum, or rather the combination home and
salesroom of an art dealer. This evening he found himself curious,
critical, disposed to license a long-suppressed sense of humor. While
he was waiting for Josephine to come down to the small salon into which
he had been shown, her older sister drifted in, on the way to a late
dinner and ball. She eyed him admiringly from head to foot.
"You've _such_ an air, Fred," said she. "You should hear the butler on the
subject of you. He says that of all the men who come to the house you
are most the man of the world. He says he could tell it by the way you
walk in and take off your hat and coat and throw them at him."