Susannah Ayer dragged herself out of her sleepless night and started to
get up. But halfway through her first rising motion, something seemed to
leave her--to leave her spirit rather than her body. She collapsed in a
droop-shouldered huddle onto the bed. Her red hair had come out of its
thick braids; it streamed forward over her white face; streaked her
nightgown with glowing strands. She pushed it out of her eyes and sat
for a long interval with her face in her hands. Finally she rose and
went to the dresser. Haggardly she stared into the glass at her
reflection, and haggardly her reflection stared back at her. "I don't
wonder you look different, Glorious Susie," she addressed herself
wordlessly, "because you _are_ different. I wonder if you can ever wash
away that experience--"
She poured water into the basin until it almost brimmed; and dropped her
face into it. After her sponge bath, she contemplated herself again in
the glass. Some color had crept into the pearly whiteness of her cheek.
Her dark-fringed eyes seemed a little less shadow-encircled. She turned
their turquoise glance to the picture of a woman--a miniature painted on
ivory--which hung beside the dresser.
"Glorious Lutie," she apostrophized it, "you don't know how I wish you
were here. You don't know how much I need you now. I need you so much,
Glorious Lutie--I'm frightened!"
The miniature, after the impersonal manner of pictures, made no response
to this call for help. Susannah sighed deeply. And for a moment she
stood a figure almost tragic, her eyes darkening as she looked into
space, her young mouth setting its soft scarlet into hard lines. In
another moment she pulled herself out of this daze and continued her
dressing.
An hour and a half later, when, cool and lithe in her blue linen suit,
she entered the uptown skyscraper which housed the Carbonado Mining
Company, her spirits took a sudden leap. After all, here _was_ help. It
was not the help she most desired and needed--the confidence and advice
of another woman--but at least she would get instant sympathy, ultimate
understanding.
Anyone, however depressed his mood, must have felt his spirits rise as
he stepped into the Admolian Building. It was so new that its
terra-cotta walls without, its white-enameled tiling within, seemed
always to have been freshly scrubbed and dusted. It was so high that,
with a first acrobatic impulse, it leaped twenty stories above ground;
and with a second, soared into a tower which touched the clouds. That
had not exhausted its strength. It dug in below ground, and there spread
out into rooms, eternally electric-lighted. From the eleventh story up,
its wide windows surveyed every purlieu of Manhattan. Its spacious
elevators seemed magically to defy gravitation. A touch started their
swift flight heavenward; a touch started their soft drop earthward.
Every floor housed offices where fortunes were being made--and lost--at
any rate, changing hands. There was an element of buoyancy in the air,
an atmosphere of success. People moved more quickly, talked more
briskly, from the moment they entered the Admolian Building. As always,
it raised the spirits of Susannah Ayer. The set look vanished from her
eyes; some of their normal brilliancy flowed back into them. Her mouth
relaxed-- When the elevator came to a padded halt at the eighteenth
floor, she had become almost herself again.
She stopped before the first in a series of offices. Black-printed
letters on the ground glass of the door read:
46
Carbonado Mining Company
Private. Enter No. 47
An accommodating hand pointed in the direction of No. 47. Susannah
unlocked the door and with a little sigh, as of relief, stepped in.
Other offices stretched along the line of the corridor, bearing the
inscriptions, respectively, "No. 48, H. Withington Warner, President and
General Manager; No. 49, Joseph Byan, Vice-President; No. 50, Michael
O'Hearn, Secretary and Treasurer." Ultimately, Susannah's own door would
flaunt the proud motto, "No. 51, Susannah Ayer, Manager Women's
Department."
Susannah threaded the inner corridor to her own office. She hung up her
hat and jacket; opened her mail; ran through it. Then she lifted the
cover from her typewriter and began mechanically to brush and oil it.
Her mind was not on her work; it had not been on the letters. It kept
speeding back to last night. She did not want to think of last night
again--at least not until she must. She pulled her thoughts into her
control; made them flow back over the past months. And as they sped in
those pleasant channels, involuntarily her mood went with them. Had any
girl ever been so fortunate, she wondered. She put it to herself in
simple declaratives--
Here she was, all alone in New York and in New York for the first time,
settled--interestingly and pleasantly settled. Eight months before, she
had stepped out of business college without a hundred dollars in the
world; her course in stenography, typewriting, and secretarial work had
taken the last of her inherited funds. Without kith or kin, she was a
working-woman, now, on her own responsibility. Two months of
apprenticeship, one stenographer among fifty, in the great offices of
the Maxwell Mills, and Barty Joyce, almost the sole remaining friend who
remembered the past glories of her family, had advised her to try New
York.
"Susannah," he said, "now is the time to strike--now while the men are
away and while the girls are still on war jobs. Get yourself entrenched
before they come back. You've the makings of a wonderful office helper."
Susannah, with a glorious sense of adventure once she was started, took
his advice and moved to New York. For a week, she answered
advertisements, visited offices; and she found that Barty was right. She
had the refusal of half a dozen jobs. From them she selected the offer
of the Carbonado Mining Company--partly because she liked Mr. Warner,
and partly because it seemed to offer the best future. Mr. Warner said
to her in their first interview:
"We are looking for a clever woman whom we can specially train in the
methods of our somewhat peculiar business. If you qualify, we shall
advance you to a superior position."
That "superior position" had fallen into her hand like a ripe peach.
Within a week, Mr. Warner had called her into the private office for a
long business talk.
"Miss Ayer," he said, "you seem to be making good. I am going to tell
you frankly that if you continue to meet our requirements, we shall
continue to advance you and pay you accordingly. You see, our
business--" Mr. Warner's voice always swelled a little when he said "our
business"--"our business involves a great deal of letter-writing to
women investors and some personal interviews. Now we believe--both Mr.
Byan and I--that women investing money like to deal with one of their
own sex. We have been looking for just the right woman. A candidate for
the position must have tact, understanding, and clearness of written
expression. We have been trying to find such a woman; and frankly, the
search has been difficult. You know how war work--quite rightly, of
course--has monopolized the able women of the country. We have tried out
half a dozen girls; but the less said about them the better. For two
weeks we will let you try your hand at correspondence with women
investors. If your work is satisfactory, it means a permanent job at
twice your present salary."
Her work had pleased them! It had pleased them instantly. But oh, how
she had worked to please them and to continue to please! Every letter
she sent out--and after explaining the Carbonado Company and its
attractions, Mr. Warner let her compose all the letters to women--was a
study in condensed and graceful expression. At the end of the fortnight
Mr. Warner engaged her permanently. He went even further. He said:
"Miss Ayer, we're going to make you manager of our women's department;
and we're going to put your name with ours on the letterhead of the new
office stationery." When the day came that she first signed herself
"Susannah Ayer, Manager Women's Department," she felt as though all the
fairy tales she ever read had come true.
Susannah, as she was assured again and again, continued to give
satisfaction. No wonder; for she liked her job. The work interested her
so much that she always longed to get to the office in the morning,
almost hated to leave it at night. It was a pleasant office, bright and
spacious. Everything was new, even to the capacious waste basket. Her
big, shiny mahogany desk stood close to the window. And from that window
she surveyed the colorful, brick-and-stone West Side of Manhattan, the
Hudson, and the city-spotted, town-dotted stretches beyond. The clouds
hung close; sometimes their white and silver argosies seemed to besiege
her. Once, she almost thought the new moon would bounce through her
window. Snow noiselessly, winds tumultuously, assailed her; but she sat
as impervious as though in an enchanted tower. Gray days made only a
suaver magic, thunderstorms a madder enchantment, about her eyrie.
The human surroundings were just as pleasant. Though the Carbonado
Company worked only with selected clients, though they transacted most
of their business by mail, there were many visitors--some customers;
others, apparently, merely friends of Mr. Warner, Mr. Byan, and Mr.
O'Hearn--who dropped in of afternoons to chat a while. Pleasant, jolly
men most of these. Snatches of their talk, usually enigmatic, floated to
her across the tops of the partitions; it gave the office an exciting
atmosphere of something doing. And then--it happened that Susannah's way
of life had brought her into contact with but few men--everything was so
_manny_.
She stood a little in awe of H. Withington Warner, president and general
manager. Mr. Warner was middle-aged and iron-gray. That last adjective
perfectly described him--iron-gray. Everything about him was gray; his
straight, thick hair; his clear, incisive eyes; even his colorless skin.
And his personality had a quality of iron. There was about him a
fascinating element of duality. Sometimes he seemed to Susannah a little
like a clergyman. And sometimes he made her think of an actor. This
histrionic aspect, she decided, was due to his hair, a bit long; to his
features, floridly classic; to his manner, frequently courtly; to his
voice, occasionally oratorical. This, however, showed only in his
lighter moments. Much of the time, of course, he was merely brisk and
businesslike. Whatever his tone, it carried you along. To Susannah, he
was always charming.
If she stood a little in awe of H. Withington Warner, she made up by
feeling on terms of the utmost equality with Michael O'Hearn, secretary
and treasurer of the Carbonado Mining Company. Mr. O'Hearn--the others
called him "Mike"--was a little Irishman. He had a short stumpy figure
and a short stumpy face. Moreover, he looked as though someone had
delivered him a denting blow in the middle of his profile. From this
indentation jutted in one direction his long, protuberant, rounded
forehead; peaked in another his upturned nose. The rest of him was sandy
hair and sandy complexion, and an agreeable pair of long-lashed Irish
eyes. He was the wit of the office, keeping everyone in constant good
temper. Susannah felt very friendly toward Mr. O'Hearn. This was
strange, because he rarely spoke to her. But somehow, for all that, he
had the gift of seeming friendly. Susannah trusted him as she trusted
Mr. Warner, though in a different way.
In regard to Joseph Byan, the third member of the combination, Susannah
had her unformulated reservations. Perhaps it was because Byan really
interested her more than the other two. Byan was little and slender;
perfectly formed and rather fine-featured; swift as a cat in his darting
movements. In his blue eyes shone a look of vague pathos and on his lips
floated--Susannah decided that this was the only way to express it--a
vague, a rather sweet smile. Susannah's job had not at first brought her
as much into contact with Mr. Byan as with Mr. Warner. His work, she
learned, lay mostly outside of the office. But once, during her third
week, he had come into her office and dictated a letter; had lingered,
when he had finished with the business in hand, for a little talk. The
conversation, in some curious turn, veered to the subject of firearms.
He was speaking of the various patterns of revolvers. He stood before
her, a slim, perfectly proportioned figure whose clothes, of an almost
feminine nicety and cut, seemed to follow every line of the body
beneath. Suddenly, one of his slight hands made a swift gesture. There
appeared--from where, she could not guess--a little, ugly-looking black
revolver. With it, he illustrated his point. Since, he had never passed
through the office without Susannah's glance playing over him like a
flame. Nowhere along the smooth lines of his figure could she catch the
bulge of that little toy of death. Despite his suave gentleness, there
was a believable quality about Byan; his personality carried conviction,
just as did that of the others. Susannah trusted him, too; but again in
a different way.
On the very day when Mr. Byan showed her the revolver, she was passing
the open door of Mr. Warner's office; and she heard the full, round
voice of the Chief saying:
"Remember, Joe, rule number one: no clients or employ--" Byan hastily
closed the door on the tail of that sentence. Sometimes she wondered how
it ended.
A cog in the machine, Susannah had never fully understood the business.
That was not really necessary; Mr. Warner himself kept her informed on
what she needed to know. He explained in the beginning the glorious
opportunity for investors. From time to time, he added new details, as
for example the glowing reports of their chief engineer or their special
expert. Susannah knew that they were paying three per cent dividends a
month--and in April there was a special dividend of two per cent.
Besides, they were about to break into a "mother lode"--the reports of
their experts proved that--and when that happened, no one could tell
just how high the dividends might be. True, these dividend payments were
often made a little irregularly. One of the things which Susannah did
not understand, did not try to understand, was why a certain list of
preferred stockholders was now and then given an extra dividend; nor why
at times Mr. Warner would transfer a name from one list to another.
"I'm thinking of saving my money and investing myself in Carbonado
stock!" said Susannah to Mr. Warner one day.
"Don't," said Mr. Warner; and then with a touch of his clerical manner:
"We prefer to keep our office force and our investors entirely separate
factors for the present. We are trying to avoid the reproach of letting
our people in on the ground floor. When our ship comes in--when we open
the mother lode--you shall be taken care of!"
So, for six months, everything went perfectly. Susannah had absorbed
herself completely in her job. This was an easy thing to do when the
business was so fascinating. She had gone for five months at this pace
when she realized that she had not taken the leisure to make friends.
Except the three partners--mere shadows to her--and the people at her
boarding-house--also mere shadows to her--she knew only Eloise. Not that
the friendship of Eloise was a thing to pass over lightly. Eloise was a
host in herself.
They had met at the Dorothy Dorr, a semi-charitable home for young
business women, at which Susannah stayed during her first week in New
York. Eloise was an heiress, of that species known to the newspapers as
a "society girl." Pretty, piquant, gay, extravagant, she dabbled in
picturesque charities, and the Dorothy Dorr was her pet. Sometimes in
the summer, when she ran up to town, she even lodged there. By natural
affinity, she had picked Susannah out of the crowd. By the time Susannah
was established in her new job and had moved to a boarding-house, they
had become friends. But the friendship of Eloise could not be very
satisfactory. She was too busy; and, indeed, too often out of town. From
her social fastnesses, she made sudden, dashing forays on Susannah; took
her to luncheon, dinner, or the theater; then she would retreat to upper
Fifth Avenue, and Susannah would not see her for a fortnight or a month.
Then, that terrible, perplexing yesterday. If she could only expunge
yesterday from her life--or at least from her memory!
Of course, there were events leading up to yesterday. Chief among them
was the appearance in the office, some weeks before, of Mr. Ozias
Cowler, from Iowa. Mr. Cowler, Susannah gathered from the manner of the
office, was a customer of importance. He was middle-aged. No, why mince
matters--he was an old man who looked middle-aged. He was old, because
his hair had gone quite white, and his face had fallen into areas broken
by wrinkles. But he appeared to the first glance middle-aged, because
the skin of those areas was ruddy and warm; because his eyes were as
clear and blue as in youth. He looked--well, Susannah decided that he
looked _fatherly_. He was quiet in his step and quiet in his manner.
Though he appeared to her in the light of a customer rather than that of
an acquaintance, Susannah was inclined to like him, as she liked
everyone and everything about the Carbonado offices.
Susannah gathered in time that Mr. Cowler had a great deal of money, and
that he had come to New York to invest it. Of course the Carbonado
Mining Company--and this included Susannah herself--saw the best of
reasons why it should be invested with them. But evidently, he was a
hard, cautious customer. He came again and again. He sat closeted for
long intervals with Mr. Warner. Sometimes Mr. Byan came into these
conferences. Mr. Cowler was always going to luncheon with the one and to
dinner with the other. He even went to a baseball game with Mr. O'Hearn.
But, although he visited the office more and more frequently, she
gathered that the investment was not forthcoming. Susannah knew how
frequently he was coming because, in spite of the little, admonitory
black hand on the ground-glass door, he always entered, not by the
reception room, but by her office. Usually, he preceded his long talk
with Mr. Warner by a little chat with her. Evidently, he had not yet
caught the quick gait of New York business; for as he left--again
through Susannah's office--he would stop for a longer talk. Once or
twice, Susannah had to excuse herself in order to go on with her work.
She had been a little afraid that Mr. Warner would comment on these
delays in office routine. But, although Mr. Warner once or twice glanced
into her office during these intervals, he never interfered.
Then came--yesterday.
Early in the morning, Mr. Warner said:
"Miss Ayer, I wonder if you can do a favor for us?" He went on, without
waiting for Susannah's answer: "Cowler--you know what a helpless person
he is--wants to go to dinner and the theater tonight. It happens that
none of us can accompany him. We've all made the kind of engagement
which can't be broken--business. He feels a little self-conscious. You
know, his money came to him late, and he has never been to a big city
before. I suspect he is afraid to enter a fashionable restaurant alone.
He wants to go to Sherry's and to the theater afterward--" Mr. Warner
paused to smile genially. "He's something of a hick, you know, and
especially in regard to this Sherry and midnight cabaret stuff." Mr.
Warner rarely used slang; and when he did, his smile seemed to put it
into quotation marks. "True to type, he has bought tickets in the front
row. After the show, he wants to go to one of the midnight cabarets.
Would you be willing to steer him through all this? The show is _Let's
Beat It_."
Susannah expressed herself as delighted; and indeed she was. To herself
she admitted that Mr. Cowler was no more of a "hick" in regard to
Broadway, Sherry's, and midnight cabarets than she herself. But about
admitting this, she had all the self-consciousness of the newly arrived
New Yorker.
"That is very good of you, Miss Ayer," said Mr. Warner, appearing much
relieved. "You may go home this afternoon an hour earlier." Again Mr.
Warner passed from his incisive, gray-hued sobriety to an expansive
geniality. "I know that in these circumstances, ladies like to take time
over their toilettes." He smiled at Susannah, a smile more expansive
than any she had ever seen on his face; it showed to the back molars his
handsome, white, regular teeth.