Once more the business in hand took possession of his mind. He became unconscious of her presence. He dictated slowly, carefully choosing his words, for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Then he stopped and paced up and down, revolving a new idea, a new phase of the business, that had flashed upon him. When he had his thoughts once more in form he turned toward the girl, the mere machine. He gazed at her in amazement.
When he had last looked, he had seen an uninteresting nonentity. But that was not this person, seated before him in the same garments and with the same general blondness. That person had been a girl. This time the transformation was not into the sweet innocence of lovely childhood, but into something incredibly different.
He was gazing now at a woman, a beautiful world-weary woman, one who had known the joys and then the sorrows of life and love. Heavy were the lids of the large eyes gazing mournfully into infinity--gazing upon the graves of a life, the long, long vista of buried joys. Never had he seen anything so sad or so lovely as her mouth. The soft, smooth skin was not merely pale; its pallor was that of wakeful nights, of weeping until there were no more tears to drain away.
"Miss Hallowell--" he began.
She startled; and like the flight of an interrupted dream, the woman he had been seeing vanished. There sat the commonplace young person he had first seen.
He said to himself: "I must be a little off my base to-night," and went on with the dictation. When he finished she withdrew to transcribe the letter on the typewriter. He seated himself at his desk and plunged into the masses of documents. He lost the sense of his surroundings until she stood beside him holding the typewritten pages. He did not glance up, but seized the sheets to read and sign.
"You may go," said he. "I am very much obliged to you." And he contrived, as always, to put a suggestion of genuineness into the customary phrase.
"I'm afraid it's not good work," said she. "I'll wait to see if I am to do any of it over."
"No, thank you," said he. And he looked up--to find himself gazing at still another person, wholly different from any he had seen before. The others had all been women--womanly women, full of the weakness, the delicateness rather, that distinguishes the feminine.
This woman he was looking at now had a look of strength. He had thought her frail. He was seeing a strong woman--a splendidly healthy body, with sinews of steel most gracefully covered by that fair smooth skin of hers. And her features, too--why, this girl was a person of character, of will.
He glanced through the pages. "All right--thank you," he said hastily. "Please don't stay any longer.
Leave the other thing till to-morrow."
"No--it has to be done to-night."
"But I insist upon your going."
She hesitated, said quietly, "Very well," and turned to go.
"And you mustn't do it at home, either."
She made no reply, but waited respectfully until it was evident he wished to say no more, then went out.
He bundled together his papers, sealed and stamped and addressed his letter, put on his overcoat and hat and crossed the outer office on his way to the door.
It was empty; she was gone. He descended in the elevator to the street, remembered that he had not locked one of his private cases, returned. As he opened the outer door he heard the sound of typewriter keys.
In the corner, the obscure, sheltered corner, sat the girl, bent with childlike gravity over her typewriter. It was an amusing and a touching sight--she looked so young and so solemnly in earnest.
"Didn't I tell you to go home?" he called out, with mock sternness.
Up she sprang, her hand upon her heart. And once more she was beautiful, but once more it was in a way startlingly, unbelievably different from any expression he had seen before.
"Now, really. Miss--" He had forgotten her name.
"You must not stay on here. We aren't such slave drivers as all that. Go home, please. I'll take the responsibility."
She had recovered her equanimity. In her quiet, gentle voice--but it no longer sounded weak or insignificant--she said, "You are very kind, Mr. Norman.
But I must finish my work."
"Haven't I said I'd take the blame?"
"But you can't," replied she. "I work badly. I seem to learn slowly. If I fall behind, I shall lose my place--sooner or later. It was that way with the last place I had. If you interfered, you'd only injure me.
I've had experience. And--I must not lose my place."
One of the scrub women thrust her mussy head and ragged, shapeless body in at the door. With a start Norman awoke to the absurdity of his situation--and to the fact that he was placing the girl in a compromising position. He shrugged his shoulders, went in and locked the cabinet, departed.
"What a queer little insignificance she is!" thought he, and dismissed her from mind.
