THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE - I

Even during the latter hour of lunch time the editorial room of the Dress Daily could never be quiet. The feel of the presses stayed like audible dust in the air and now and then heavy trucks, passing by, seemed to jar the building. But the desks of the Fashion Department were void of life; a solitary man pecked at a machine in the Woolens Department. All the stenographers except one were gossiping in the dressing room.

When the entrance door opened a draught made this one girl at the typewriter scowl and clutch her papers, and a piece of paper in the Fashion Department blew up and fell listlessly to the floor. Such vagrant sheets strewed the ground in poor imitation of autumn leaves.

The girl looked up. Because of a way of carrying her head, all her features, which were regular, seemed to tilt upward, even her small, cruelly firm mouth. She saw a man from the Advertising Department followed by a young woman in a sealskin coat. At once she made her shoulders uncompromising and began to click her typewriter. Her desk was first from the entrance; people insisted on stopping at it for directions.

The story about an exhibition of blouses—which, as a great favor, Mr. Milford had permitted her to visit during lunch time and write about herself—sprang into being willy-nilly. All the same, she had noticed the other girl. "We might—wait—over there, Joe," this girl said, with a pause before and after the word "wait" that emphasized it slightly.

They sat down in the Fashion Department, facing the girl at the typewriter, and she heard a low murmur of conversation. She finished a page, busily rolled it from the machine and put it on the desk. She inserted another sheet and sat gazing at it, conscious in spite of herself of the voices, especially the low, deliberate, penetrating voice of the girl. Somebody looking for a job, she thought. All sorts of girls came to Mr. Milford for jobs. Then she shrugged, and wondered why she was bothering her head about this particular girl. "Anyhow, it can't be my job she's after. Nobody would want this lousy job."

Her fingers were still moving almost subconsciously on the keys when she heard the voice of the advertising man behind her, a bit deferential, for she had frightened him with coldness once before. "Can you tell me when Mr. Milford will be in?"

She glanced at him. "He never tells me," she said, with a slight smile to remove the pertness. The man smiled back, a little humbly, and she relented. "He usually comes in about this time."

The man seemed to take this as an entering wedge. He beckoned to the girl in the sealskin coat. She walked over, her enormous eyes, deep brown pools, so wide open, so steadily focused, that they appeared to cling to whatever was in the range of vision, fastening themselves ahead of her on the other girl's face. Her head was bent forward, as if with the weight of her eyes, and so were her shoulders.

"Miss Vestry," said the advertising man, "I want you to meet Miss Kline. Miss Vestry is Mr. Milford's secretary—and assistant," he concluded with unction.

Miss Kline made a move to draw her right hand out of its sealskin cuff. Miss Vestry only smiled briefly.

"Now I have to go downstairs for a while, Grace," said the advertising man. "Miss Vestry will take care of you."

The large eyes moved slowly toward him and clung to him.

"But—you'll be back, Joe? You know—I want you—to introduce me."

There was a curious halt between groups of her words which Anita Vestry had noticed.

"Sure, I'll be back."

The two girls faced each other only for a second. Miss Vestry turned to her machine. She could feel the eyes of this Miss Kline lingering on the back of her head, but she could not think of anything to say to her, even if she had wished to speak. She felt impatient, as if she wanted to shake her off. "Why doesn't she go and sit down?" Miss Kline took a few steps and stood by the side of the desk. The first page of the story lay face up. Her eyes immediately attached themselves to it. She picked up the page casually. Holding it at arm's length, with her head cocked to one side, she looked it over. When she was through she put the page down without comment, glanced at the continuation in the typewriter, then sauntered over to a chair by Mr. Milford's desk.

The breath that Miss Vestry had been holding in was expelled through her wide nostrils, distended to reject it. She seemed to rise several inches in her chair as, grabbing the sheet of paper on her desk, she turned it face down with a distinct, hard, angry thud as her hand fiercely struck the wood. She did not look at Miss Kline but she had a glimpse of eyes startled and wider than ever.

Miss Kline touched her on the arm. "I—didn't mean to be rude. I didn't think you'd mind. I'm—awfully sorry," she said hurriedly.

"Oh, very well," said Miss Vestry with a curl of her lip. At this moment Mr. Milford opened the door, followed by the advertising man. "There's Mr. Milford now," she said coldly, and went back to her work.

She heard the introductions, Mr. Milford's admiring voice. They had grouped themselves near her and, though she would not look up and pounded hard, taking pleasure in making as much noise as she could, she had glimpses of Mr. Milford's soggy cheeks, painfully shaven in that effort at spruce youthfulness which she so disliked about him; of the girl's tenacious eyes that, while she smiled at Mr. Milford, now and then cast a baffled glance in her direction. Finally they seated themselves around Mr. Milford's desk, and his shaking hands of an old man, which he tried to keep so firm and gallant, began to fuss with little disquiet motions among his papers. That was always his preliminary to dictation. Miss Vestry heard him say:

"I'll send you to Harry. He's an old friend of mine—great chap. He'll find work for a bright girl like you."

He called, in the tone of special dignity which he kept for her, "Miss Vestry, bring your book, please."

She picked up the notebook, opened it with a swift, professional gesture, and set her face in stony abstraction, as if she were on another planet, with words reaching her through the air from no one and nothing in particular—her special defense against that flow of easy inanities which fell from the lips of people in dictation and which she had to collect like so many choice pearls. The other girl's head was bent, her eyes intent on her lap. "That'll be all, Miss Vestry."

She put the book on her desk and walked by into the dressing room, to get away from them—from the girl's low voice, from the two men who now listened to her with attention and looked at her with a soothed softening of their faces and let their minds be filled for the while with her needs. The girls who came to Mr. Milford Anita Vestry disliked because of the nuisance of taking down and writing the letters of introduction, and then forgot. But this girl filled her with such an intense nervous dissatisfaction—was it envy?—that she sat and clenched her hands to control the loosened odds and ends of nerves that whirled within her. It was a state of discontent not uncommon with her, but this Miss Kline—not altogether by the inadvertent rudeness—had managed to make her lot seem so poor, so mean, so inferior, that it became a state beyond what she could bear.