McDowell's defection, from the Underground was presently followed by an
addition to its working force. One morning, a month or so later, Ogden,
in an interval of leisure, glanced across to the window before which
Burton Brainard had railed in his desk, and saw a young woman within
the enclosure. She sat there alone, before a desk of the peculiar kind
that has been contrived for the typewriter, and her effect at the
moment was that of leisure finally and elegantly achieved.
He was at once struck by her peculiar facial expression; she had one
eye open and the other shut. All at once she effected an instantaneous
change which closed the open eye and opened the closed one. Then
she opened both and gave out a smile of recognition, surprise, and
pleasure, which he now perceived to be the work of the features of
Cornelia McNabb.
"Here we are!" she seemed to say.
She had followed Burt's elevation to the vice-presidency, along with
the new desk and the handsome rail-work enclosing it. Burt's concerns,
despite his rise in rank, were now, as heretofore, largely outside
the hank proper; he did something in stocks now and then, and he kept
the run of things on the Board of Trade. But he was like his father in
looking upon the bank as a personal and family matter--a point of view
which the action of the body of stockholders somewhat justified: as a
general thing they made up a chorus that huddled in the wings--several
of them declining to come "on" even for the election that advanced
Brainard, Jr., to the second place. So he saw no very good reason why
the bank generally should not foot the bill for his own clerk-hire.
"Why can't you use the man we've got here already?" his father had
asked him, however. "Ain't one enough?"
"No. Somebody else has always got him. If I could have one for myself
just for an hour or so, it would be a great help."
"Why don't you get one of those girls that circulate around upstairs? I
hear there's one or two of 'em."
"I believe I will." And thus Cornelia McNabb came in for a brief daily
attachment to the Underground.
She sat in her place quite unoccupied for an hour or so, looking about
inquiringly, fidgeting a little, and watching the clock. Ogden glanced
over in her direction once or twice. He saw that she had contrived to
express her rise by several subtile alterations in her dress, and that
she had succeeded in enveloping herself in a promising atmosphere of
gentility. She, in her turn, kept an eye on him and contrived to time
her own luncheon along with his. She thrust her hat-pin into place just
as he buttoned on his cuffs, and she drew a black-dotted veil across
the tip of her nose just as he was reaching up for his hat.
They sauntered out separately, but came together in the hallway.
"Do I look nice, or don't I?" she asked him, as she passed one of her
gloves over the smooth surface of the massive marble balustrade. "You
needn't think the Pewaukee girls are jays; they're too near Lakeside
and Waukesha for that."
"You do, indeed. But where are the chains and rings?"
"Fiddle! I hope I know better than that, now."
The elevators were sliding up and down behind their gilded _grilles_
with great rapidity, and hundreds of hungry helpers were stepping out
of them in search of brief refreshment. Some of these stopped in the
basement vestibule, and our young people, looking over the balustrade,
saw them buying packages of cigarettes or the noon papers. There
came to them, too, the voice of the man who stood at the foot of the
elevator shafts and who regulated the movements of the various cabs
by calling out their numbers with a laconic yawp. He wore a blue
uniform with gilt buttons and he had a gold band on his cap. He was as
important as Ingles himself--perhaps more so.
"I believe I'll go up to the restaurant to-day," said Cornelia, with
a precious little intonation. Her mincing tone intimated a variety of
things--altered conditions among them.
"I go up there occasionally myself," said Ogden. "You have entertained
me several times downstairs, and you ought to give me my chance now,
don't you think?"
"Quite happy, I'm sure," she murmured demurely.
"Up!" called Ogden, and up they went.
"Well," said Cornelia, a few minutes later, taking off her gloves with
a self-conscious grace, and pushing aside her tumbler so as to find a
place to lay them, "I can't say I've been overworked _this_ morning. I
haven't seen my new man at all."
"He's out a good deal."
"But the old one was on deck."
"In what way?"
"Oh, he put me through a regular drill. Had quite a number of remarks.
I shouldn't care to take _him_ down. May have to, though, if he gets
too bossy. Eh?--oh, well, I don't know that I care for so very much,
thank you. What are _you_ going to have? Chicken-soup?--all right. Yes,
chicken-soup, John."
She leaned hack in her chair with a genteel grace, and looked out of
the window down on the snow-piled roofs below.
"Do you know, I used to think I was a pretty smart girl, but I begin to
believe I'm a good deal of a dummy, after all. That man has been in the
building all this time, and I have just found it out."
Ogden's eye involuntarily followed the waiter.
"Not that black man--nix. But how could I be expected to spot his name
among all the 'steen hundred on that bulletin by the door? I did see it
there this morning, though--just by accident."
"Whose?"
"Oh, Ingles's. Arthur J. Ingles. Think of his being in this very
building all this time!" She put the rim of her tumbler up under the
edge of her veil.
"In it?" repeated Ogden. "He owns it."
"He does? Great Scott!" she choked and spluttered, setting her glass
down suddenly. "Well, I'll be switched!"