A FORCED ADVANCE.
IT was the talk of the Sunday office that Emily was being “frozen
out.” The women said it was her own fault--her looks had at last
failed to give her a “pull.” The men said it was some underhand scheme
of Gammell’s--what was more likely in the case of an attractive
but thoroughly business-like woman such as Emily and such a man as
Gammell, oriental in his ideas on women and of infinite capacity for
meanness. Both the men and the women reached their conclusions by
ways of prejudice; the men came nearer to the truth, which was that
Gammell was bent upon punishing Emily, and that Emily, discouraged and
suffering under a sense of injustice, was aiding him to justify himself
to his superiors. The mere sight of her irritated him now. Success
had developed his natural instinct to tyranny, and she represented
rebellion intrenched and defiant within his very gates. One day he
found Stilson waiting in his office to look over and revise his Sunday
schedule. He hated Stilson because Stilson was his superior officer,
and each week--in the interest of the reputation of the paper--was
compelled to veto the too audacious, too “yellow” projects of the
sensational Gammell.
That day at sight of Stilson he with difficulty concealed his hate. He
had just passed one of his enemies--Emily in a new dress and new hat,
in every way a painful reminder of his discomfiture. And now here was
his other enemy lying in wait, as he instinctively felt, to veto an
article in which he took especial pride.
Stilson was not covert in his aversions. Diplomatic with no one, he
rasped upon Gammell’s highly-strung nerves like a screech in the ear of
a neurotic. The wrangle began quietly enough in an exchange of veiled
sarcasms and angry looks--contemptuous from Stilson, venomous from
Gammell. But the double strain of Emily and Stilson was too strong for
Gammell’s discretion. From stealthy sneers, he passed to open thrusts.
Stilson, as tyrannical as Gammell, if that side of his nature was
roused, grew calm with rage and presently in an arrogant tone ordered
Gammell to “throw away that vicious stuff, and let me hear no more
about it.”
“It is a pity, my dear sir,” he went on, “that you should waste your
talents. Why roll in the muck? Why can’t you learn not to weary me with
this weekly inspection of insanity?”
Gammell’s eyes became pale green, his cheeks an unhealthy bluish gray.
He cast about desperately for a weapon with which to strike and strike
home. Emily was in his mind and, while he had not the faintest notion
that Stilson cared for her or she for him, he remembered Stilson’s
emphatic compliments on her work. “Perhaps if I were supplied with
a more capable staff, we might get together articles that would be
intelligent as well as striking. But what can I do, handicapped by such
a staff, by such useless ornamentals as--well, as your Miss Bromfield.”
“That reminds me.” Stilson recovered his outward self-control at
once. “I notice she has little in the magazine nowadays. Instead of
exhausting yourself on such character-destroying stuff as this,” with a
disdainful gesture toward the rejected article, “you might be arranging
for features such as she used to do and do very well.”
“She’s not of the slightest use here any longer.” Gammell shrugged his
shoulders and lifted his eyebrows. “She’s of no use to the paper. And
as the present Sunday editor doesn’t happen to fancy her, why, she’s of
no use at all--now.”
With a movement so swift that Gammell had no time to resist or even to
understand, Stilson whirled him from his chair, and flung him upon the
floor as if he were some insect that had shown sudden venom and must be
crushed under the heel without delay.
“Don’t kill me!” screamed Gammell, in a frenzy of physical fear, as he
looked up at Stilson’s face ablaze with the homicidal mania. “For God’s
sake, Stilson, don’t murder me!”
The door opened and several frightened faces appeared there. Stilson,
distracted from his purpose, turned on the intruders. “Close that
door!” he commanded. “Back to your work!” and he thrust the door into
its frame. “Now, get up!” he said to Gammell. “You are one of those
vile creatures that are brought into the world--I don’t know how,
but I’m sure without the interposition of a mother. Get up and brush
yourself. And hereafter see that you keep your foul mind from your lips
and eyes.”
He stalked away, his footsteps ringing through the silent Sunday room
where all were bending over their work in the effort to obliterate
themselves. Within an hour the story of “the fight” was racing up and
down Park Row and in and out of every newspaper office. But no one
could explain it. And to this day Emily does not know why Gammell gave
her late that afternoon the best assignment she had had in three months.
In the following week she received a letter from Burnham, general
manager of Trescott, Anderson and Company, the publishers in
Twenty-third Street. It was an invitation to call “at your earliest
convenience in reference to a matter which we hope will interest
you.” She went in the morning on her way downtown. Mr. Burnham was
most polite--a twitching little man, inclined to be silly in his
embarrassment, talking rapidly and catching his breath between
sentences.
“We are making several changes in the conduct of our magazines,” said
he. “We wish to get some young blood--newspaper blood, in fact, into
them. We wish to make them less--less prosy, more--more up-to-date.
No--not ‘yellow’--by no means--nothing like that. Still, we feel that
we ought to be a little--yes--livelier.”
“Closer to the news--to current events and subjects?” suggested Emily.
“Yes,--precisely--you catch my meaning at once.” Mr. Burnham was
looking at her as if she were a genius. He was of those men who are
dazzled when they discover a gleam of intelligence in a beautiful
woman. “Now, we wish to get you to help us with our _World of Women_.
Mrs. Parrott is the editor, as you perhaps know. She’s been with
us--yes--twenty-three years, eighteen years in her present position.
And after making some inquiries, we decided to invite you to join the
staff as assistant to Mrs. Parrott.”
“I know the magazine,” said Emily, “and I think I see the directions
in which the improvements you suggest could be made. But I’m not
dissatisfied with my present position. Of course--if--well--” She
looked at Mr. Burnham with an ingenuous expression that hid the
business guile beneath--“Of course, I couldn’t refuse an opportunity to
better myself.”
“We--that is--” Mr. Burnham looked miserable and plucked wildly at his
closely-trimmed gray and black beard. “May I ask what--what financial
arrangement would be agreeable to you?”
“The offer must come from you, mustn’t it?” said Emily, who had not
been earning her own living without learning first principles.
“Yes--of course--naturally.” Mr. Burnham held himself rigid in his
chair, as if it required sheer force to restrain him from leaping forth
and away. “Might I ask--what you are--what--what--return for your
services the _Democrat_ makes?”
“Sixty-five dollars a week,” said Emily. “But my position there is
less exacting than it would be here. I have practically no editorial
responsibility. And editorial responsibility means gray hair.”
“Yes--certainly--you would expect compensation for gray hair--dear me,
no--I beg your pardon. What _were_ we saying? Yes--we could hardly
afford to pay so much as that--at the start, you know. I should
say sixty would be quite the very best. But your hours would be
shorter--and you would have the utmost freedom about writing articles,
stories, and so forth. And of course you’d be paid extra for what you
wrote which proved acceptable to us. Then too, it’s a higher class of
work--the magazines, you know--gives one character and standing.”
“Oh--work is work,” said Emily. “And I doubt if a magazine could give
me character. I fear I’d have to continue to rely on myself for that.”
“Oh--I beg your pardon. I’m very stupid to-day--I didn’t mean----”
As he hesitated and looked imploringly at her, she said
good-humouredly, “To suggest that my standing and not the standing of
your magazine, was what you were trying to help?”
They laughed, they became friendly and he had difficulty in keeping
his mind upon business. He presently insisted upon sending for Mrs.
Parrott--a stout, motherly person with several chins that descended
through a white neck-cloth into a vast bosom quivering behind the dam
of a high, old-fashioned corset. Emily noted that she was evidently
of those women who exaggerate their natural sweetness into a pose of
“womanly” sentiment and benevolence. She spoke the precise English of
those who have heard a great deal of the other kind and dread a lapse
into it. She was amusingly a “literary person,” full of the nasty-nice
phrases current among those literary folk who take themselves seriously
as custodians of An Art and A Language. Emily’s manner and dress
impressed her deeply, and she soon brought in--not without labour--the
names of several fashionable New Yorkers with whom she asserted
acquaintance and insinuated intimacy. Emily’s eyes twinkled at this
exhibition of insecurity in one who but the moment before was preening
herself as a high priestess at the highest altar.
In the hour she spent in the editorial offices of Trescott, Anderson
and Company, Emily was depressed by what seemed to her an atmosphere
of dulness, of staleness, of conventionality, of remoteness from the
life of the day. “They live in a sort of cellar,” she thought. “I don’t
believe I could endure being cut off from fresh air.” After pretending
to herself elaborately to argue the matter, she decided that she would
not make the change.
But her real reason, as she was finally compelled to admit to herself,
was Stilson. Not to see him, not to feel that he was near, not to be
in daily contact with his life--it was unthinkable. She knew that she
was so unbusiness-like in this respect that, if the _Democrat_ cut her
salary in half, she would still stay on. “I’m only a woman after all,”
she said to herself. “A man wouldn’t do as I’m doing--perhaps.” She did
not in the least care. She was not ashamed of her weakness. She was
even admitting nowadays a liking for the idea that Stilson could and
would rule her. And she was not at all sure that the reason for this
revolutionary liking was the reason she gave herself--that he would not
ask her to do anything until he was sure she was willing to do it.
Two days after she wrote her refusal, Stilson sent for her. At first
glance she saw that he was a bearer of evil tidings. And in the next
she saw what the evil tidings were--that he had penetrated her secret
and his own self-deception, and was remorseful, aroused, determined to
put himself out of her life.
“You have refused your offer from Burnham?” He drew down his brows and
set his jaw, as if he expected a struggle.
“Yes--I prefer to stay here. I have reasons.” She felt reckless. She
was eager for an opportunity to discuss these “reasons.”
“You must accept.”
“_I?--Must?_” She flushed and put her face up haughtily.
“Yes--I ask it. The position will soon be an advancement. And you
cannot stay here.”
“How do you know about this offer--so much about it?”
“I got it for you when--when I found that you must go.”
She looked defiance. She saw an answering look of suffering and appeal.
“Why?” she said, in a low voice. “Why?”
“For two reasons,” he replied. “I may tell you only one--Gammell. He
will find a way to injure you. I know it. It would be folly for you to
stay.”
“And the other reason?”
He did not answer, but continued to look steadily at her.
“I--I--understand,” she murmured at last, her look falling before his,
and the colour coming into her face, “I will go.”
“Thank you.” He bowed with a courtesy that suggested the South in
the days before the war. He walked beside her to the elevator. His
shoulders were drooped as if under a heavy burden. His face was white
and old, and its deep lines were like scars.
“Down, ten!” he called into the elevator-shaft as the car shot past on
the up-trip. Soon the descending car stopped and the iron door swung
back with a bang.
The door closed, she saw him gazing at her; and that look through
the bars of the elevator door, haunted her. She had seen it in his
face once before, though not so strongly,--when she said good-bye to
him as she was going away to Paris. But where else had she seen it?
Weeks afterward, when she was talking to Mrs. Parrott of something
very different, there suddenly leaped to the surface of her mind a
memory--the public square in a mountain town, a man dead upon the
stones, another near him, dying and turning his face toward the shelter
whence he had come; and in his face the look of farewell to _the_ woman.
“What is it, dear? Are you ill this morning?” asked Mrs. Parrott.
“Not--not very,” answered Emily brokenly, and she vanished into her
office and closed its door.