Outside of the work I did for the school, I had secured bits of
copying for a few people in the building; but I had made very little
above my salary. The head of the school was an imposing and majestic
woman of about fifty, very handsome and charming and gracious in her
manner, though I always resented the difference between her tone to
me and that she assumed to her pupils and the people who frequented
her studios--she called them studios. She had a little salon in a way.
Nearly all Chicago's important people, and especially the celebrities,
came to her "afternoons." I had a chance to see authors who had
"arrived."
There was one very tall woman who wore glasses and talked through her
nose. She was very well known at that time, having had a witty serial
published in the very magazine that bought my first little story.
She was much sought after, and was suffering from a bad case of what
O'Brien always called "the big head." She looked and talked as if she
were a personage of great superiority, and her sharp retorts and witty
comments, always a bit malicious, were quoted everywhere in Chicago. I
think she believed me to be one of her many silent admirers. I was not.
I knew that when one has reached a stage of complete satisfaction with
oneself, one has reached one's limitation. Chicago's popular writer at
the zenith of her fame was not to me a particularly attractive object.
Then there was a celebrated Western author who was a giant in size
and a giant in heart. I secretly adored him both as a writer and as a
man. He wore his straight hair rather long, and though his face was
becoming florid and full, he had a fine, almost Indian-like, profile.
He was tremendously popular in Chicago, and Mrs. Martin, my employer,
flattered and courted him despite his careless and rather grimy clothes
and utterly unmanicured nails. Behold the measure of my sophistication!
I who knew not the meaning of the word "manicure" less than a year
before, took pride in my own shining nails now, and remarked the
condition of those of a great author!
There was another less famous, but more exclusive, author who
fascinated me chiefly because he had a glass eye. I had never before
seen a glass eye.
I have mentioned the authors because they interested me more than
the artists, sculptors, musicians, and actors and actresses who also
came to these studios where I worked. The building itself was full of
artists' studios.
Do not think of me as being one of this distinguished "set." I was,
in fact, simply on the outskirts, a rather wistful, perhaps envious,
and sometimes amused observer of these great people who had obviously
"arrived."
Few of these celebrities noticed me. Several of the artists asked me to
pose for them. I did not pose, because I had no time. I did go up to
the studio of a hunchback artist who painted divinely and had a pretty
wife and an adorable baby. I became very friendly with that lovely
family, and even shyly confessed to them that I wrote. Just fancy!
I, who only a few months before had forced every one to listen to my
poems, now when I was in contact with people who did the very things I
wished to do, experienced a panic at the thought of their finding out
about it or of revealing myself to them!
Even Mrs. Martin never suspected me. I was simply a stenographer who
had come to her from a mercantile firm. The only thing about me that
ever appealed to her was my looks. Think of that! She said to me one
day as I was going out:
"Miss Ascough, you look like a poster girl. Where did you get your hat?"