At ten o'clock the next morning, reading page four of the current
_Wall Street Journal_, Orison was interrupted by the click of a pair
of leather heels. The gentleman whose heels had just slammed together
was bowing. And she saw with some gratification that he was not
wearing earmuffs. "My name," the stranger said, "is Dink Gerding. I am
President of this bank, and wish at this time to welcome you to our
little family."
"I'm Orison McCall," she said. A handsome man, she mused. Twenty-eight?
So tall. Could he ever be interested in a girl just five-foot-three?
Maybe higher heels?
"We're pleased with your work, Miss McCall," Dink Gerding said. He took
the chair to the right of her desk.
"It's nothing," Orison said, switching off the microphone.
"On the contrary, Miss McCall. Your duties are most important," he said.
"Reading papers and fairy-tales into this microphone is nothing any
reasonably astute sixth-grader couldn't do as well," Orison said.
"You'll be reading silently before long," Mr. Gerding said. He smiled,
as though this explained everything. "By the way, your official
designation is Confidential Secretary. It's me whose confidences you're
to keep secret. If I ever need a letter written, may I stop down here
and dictate it?"
"Please do," Orison said. This bank president, for all his grace and
presence, was obviously as kookie as his bank.
"Have you ever worked in a bank before, Miss McCall?" Mr. Gerding
asked, as though following her train of thought.
"No, sir," she said. "Though I've been associated with a rather large
financial organization."
"You may find some of our methods a little strange, but you'll get used
to them," he said. "Meanwhile, I'd be most grateful if you'd dispense
with calling me 'sir.' My name is Dink. It is ridiculous, but I'd enjoy
your using it."
"Dink?" she asked. "And I suppose you're to call me Orison?"
"That's the drill," he said. "One more question, Orison. Dinner this
evening?"
Direct, she thought. Perhaps that's why he's president of a bank, and
still so young. "We've hardly met," she said.
"But we're on a first-name basis already," he pointed out. "Dance?"
"I'd love to," Orison said, half expecting an orchestra to march,
playing, from the elevator.
"Then I'll pick you up at seven. Windsor Arms, if I remember your
personnel form correctly." He stood, lean, all bone and muscle,
and bowed slightly. West Point? Hardly. His manners were European.
Sandhurst, perhaps, or Saint Cyr. Was she supposed to reply with a
curtsy? Orison wondered.
"Thank you," she said.
He was a soldier, or had been: the way, when he turned, his shoulders
stayed square. The crisp clicking of his steps, a military metronome,
to the elevator. When the door slicked open Orison, staring after Dink,
saw that each of the half-dozen men aboard snapped off their hats (but
not their earmuffs) and bowed, the earmuffed operator bowing with them.
Small bows, true; just head-and-neck. But not to her. To Dink Gerding.
* * * * *
Orison finished the _Wall Street Journal_ by early afternoon. A
page came up a moment later with fresh reading-matter: a copy of
yesterday's _Congressional Record_. She launched into the _Record_,
thinking as she read of meeting again this evening that handsome
madman, that splendid lunatic, that unlikely bank-president. "You read
so _well_, darling," someone said across the desk.