The Wall Street Girl

It was about as foolish a thing as she had ever known a man to do.

She placed the flowers on the table when she had her supper. All night long they filled the room with their fragrance.

CHAPTER VIII

A MAN OF AFFAIRS

When, with some eighteen dollars in his pocket, Don on Sunday ordered Nora to prepare for him on that day and during the following week a breakfast of toast, eggs, and coffee, he felt very much a man of affairs. He was paying for his own sustenance, and with the first money he had ever earned. He drew from his pocket a ten-dollar bill, a five-dollar bill, a two-dollar bill, and some loose change.

“Pick out what you need,” he ordered, as he held the money toward her.

“I don’t know how much it will be, sir. I’ll ask the cook, sir.”

“Very well; ask the cook. About dinners–I think I’d better wait until I see how I’m coming out. Dinners don’t matter so much, any way, because they come after I’m through work.”

Don ate his breakfast in the dining-room before the open fire, as his father used to do. In smoking-jacket and slippered feet, he enjoyed this as a rare luxury–even this matter of breakfasting at home, which until now had been merely a negative detail of routine.

When he had finished he drew his chair closer to the flames and lighted a cigarette. He had been cutting down on cigarettes. He had always bought them by the hundred; he was now buying them by the box. Until this week he never realized that they represented money. He was paying now twenty-five cents for a box of ten; and twenty-five cents, as he had learned in the restaurant in the alley, was a sum of money with tremendous possibilities. It would buy, for one thing, five egg sandwiches; and five egg sandwiches would keep a man from being uncomfortably hungry a good many hours.

Thus a quarter, from being merely an odd piece of loose change, took on a vital, tangible character of its own. Translated into smokes, it gave a smoke a new value. He had started in to make a box of cigarettes last a day; but he was now resolved to make them last two days. This allowed him one after each meal and two in the evening.

If at first he had considered this a hardship, he was beginning to appreciate the fact that it had its compensating advantages. This morning, for instance, he felt that he had never tasted such good tobacco in his life. Like his breakfast, it was a pleasure to be prolonged–to give his thought to. He smoked slowly and carefully and keenly. With his head against the back of his chair, he watched the white cloudlets curl upward after he had inhaled their fragrance. This was no dull habit indulged in automatically.

In this moment of indulgence his thoughts turned to Miss Winthrop. It was nearing twelve, and perhaps this had something to do with it. He was going to miss that luncheon hour. He had come to look forward to it as quite the most interesting event of the day. From his comfortable position before the fire, he wondered why.

It was impossible to say she had any definite physical attractions, although her eyes were not bad. They piqued a man’s curiosity, those eyes. One remembered them. That was true also of her mouth. Don had no very definite notion of its exact shape, but he remembered how it surprised one by changing from the tenderness of a young girl’s mouth to the firmness of a man’s a dozen times in the course of a few minutes’ conversation.

It was quarter-past twelve. If he had known her telephone number he would have called her up now, just to say “Hello.” He would be taking a chance, however; for, as likely as not, she would inquire what he was doing, and would, he felt sure, scold him for having so late a breakfast.

Odd, that a woman should be so energetic! He had always thought of them as quite the opposite. Leisureliness was a prerogative of the sex. He had always understood that it was a woman’s right to pamper herself.

Undoubtedly she would object to his sitting on here before the open fire. Farnsworth would not waste a morning like this–he seemed to hear her telling him so. If he wanted that ten thousand a year, he ought to be working on those circulars. A man was not paid for what he didn’t know. Here, with nothing else to do, was a good time to get after them. Well, he had gone so far as to bring them home with him.

He rose reluctantly, went upstairs to his room, and brought them down. He began on the electric company which was offering gold bonds at a price to net four and a half per cent. Then Nora came in to call him to the telephone.

“Who is it, Nora?”

“Miss Stuyvesant, sir.”

“Oh, yes.”

He hurried to the telephone.

“Good-morning, Frances.”

“Dad and Mother have gone to church and it’s very stupid here,” she complained. “Can’t you come over?”

He hesitated the fraction of a second.

“Oh, of course,–if you don’t want to,–” she began quickly.

“It isn’t that, Frances. Of course I want to come; only, there were some papers I brought home from the office–”

“Well?”

“I can go over them some other time. I’ll be right up.”

A discovery that encouraged Don the following week was that by some unconscious power of absorption he grew sufficiently familiar with the financial jargon of the office to feel that it really was within the possibilities that some day he might understand it fully. He found several opportunities to talk with Powers, and the latter, after recovering from his surprise at the primitive nature of some of Don’s questions about notes and bonds, went to some trouble to answer them. Not only that, but he mentioned certain books that might supply fuller and more fundamental information.

“I know these sound like fool questions,” Don apologized, “but I’ve never been down in this end of the town much.”

“That’s all right,” replied Powers. “Come to me any time you’re stuck.”

After Powers went out, Don sat down and tried to recall some of the things he had been told. He remembered some of them and some of them he didn’t. But that day at lunch Miss Winthrop handed him a stenographic report of the entire conversation. Don looked over it in amazement. It was in the form of question and answer.

Mr. Pendleton: Say, old man, what is a gold bond, anyway?

Mr. Powers: I beg your pardon?

And so on down to Don’s final apology.

Mr. Pendleton: I know these sound like fool questions–

Mr. Powers: That’s all right–

“Read it over in your spare time,” advised Miss Winthrop; “then you won’t ask him the same questions twice.”

“But how in thunder did you get this?” he inquired.

“I wasn’t busy just then, and took it down. I knew you’d forget half he told you.”

“It was mighty good of you,” he answered. “But I wish you had left out my talk. Now that I see it in type, it sounds even more foolish than I thought it was.”

“I’ve seen a lot of things that didn’t turn out well in type,” she nodded. “But you needn’t read that part of it. What Powers said was worth while. He knows what he’s talking about, and that’s why he’s the best bond salesman in the house.”

“What sort of a salary does he draw?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “And if I were you I’d forget the salary end of my job for a while.”

“It’s a mighty important end,” he declared.

“I don’t see it,” she returned frankly. “I suppose you’re starting on twenty-five?”

“That’s all,” he admitted.

“It’s all you’re worth. Any one to support besides yourself?”

“No.”

“Then what you worrying about?”

“But, good Heavens, a man can’t live on that–any length of time.”

“Can’t? I know men who support a wife and children on less.”

“Eh?”

“And do it decently,” she nodded. “I live on half of that myself.”

“You?”

“Of course. Did you think I drew a salary like Farnsworth?”

She laughed at his open astonishment. It appeared genuine.

“You live on half of twenty-five dollars a week?” he repeated.

She did not care to pursue the subject. It was a bit too personal.

“So do hundreds of thousands of others,” she informed him. “On that and less than that. Now, you put that paper away in your pocket, and don’t ask Powers another question until you know it by heart. Then get after him again. When you run across something you don’t know, why don’t you write it down?”

He took out his engagement-book on the spot and made an entry.

“I’ve written down that you say it’s possible to live on twenty-five dollars a week,” he informed her, as he replaced the book in his pocket.

“Don’t be silly,” she warned. “You’d better write down something about not worrying about your salary at all.”

“I’ll do that,” he returned.

He took out his engagement-book again and scribbled a line.

“Miss Winthrop says not to worry about my salary.”

“I didn’t say it,” she protested.

“Them’s your very words.”

“I mean–” she grew really confused. “I mean–you needn’t put it down that I said it. You ought to say it to yourself.”

He shook his head. “That’s too deep for me.”

“Then let’s drop the subject,” she answered curtly. “Only don’t get the idea that it’s I who am worrying about your salary, one way or the other.”

“No need of getting peeved about it,” he suggested.

“Not in the slightest,” she agreed.

But she did not wait for her éclair, and went back to the office in anything but a good humor.

On the whole, Miss Winthrop was rather disappointed in him as a result of this last interview–the more so because he had begun the day so well. Her hopes had risen high at the way he approached Powers, and at the seriousness with which he had listened to what Powers had to say. He had acted like a man eager to learn. Then he had spoiled it all by placing undue emphasis on the salary end.

This new development in Pendleton came as a surprise. It did not seem consistent with his nature as she read it in his eyes. It was not in character. It left her doubting her judgment about him along other lines. She did not object to his ambition. That was essential. He ought to work for Farnsworth’s position–but for the position, not the salary. The position stood for power based upon ability. That was the sort of success she would be keen about if she were a man.

Curious, too, that Mr. Pendleton should be so keen about money in this one direction. She had thought his tendency all the other way, and had made a mental note that sometime she must drive home to him a few facts about having a decent respect for money. A man who would return the loan of a two-dollar bill in five dollars’ worth of roses was not the sort of man one expected to have a vaulting ambition for thousands for their own sake. One thing was sure–he was not the type of man who ought to occupy so much of her attention on a busy afternoon.

At a few minutes before five, just as Miss Winthrop was jabbing the last pin into her hat, a messenger boy hurried into the office with a parcel bearing a noticeable resemblance to a one-pound candy box. He inquired of Eddie for Miss Winthrop, and Eddie, with considerable ceremony, escorted the boy to the desk of that astonished young woman.

“Sign here,” the boy ordered.

Miss Winthrop gave a swift glance around the office. Mr. Pendleton was at work at Powers’s desk and didn’t even look up. It was a remarkable exhibition of concentration on his part. Blake, however, swung around in his chair and raised his brows.

Miss Winthrop seized the pencil and wrote her name, dotting the “i” and crossing the “t” with vicious jabs. Then she picked up the box and hurried toward the door.

“From a devoted admirer?” inquired Blake, as she passed him.

Don saw the color spring to Miss Winthrop’s cheeks, but she hurried on without a word in reply. He understood now what it was she did not like about Blake. Don was not at all of an aggressive nature, but at that moment he could have struck the man with the greatest satisfaction. It seemed the only adequate way of expressing himself. Blake was still smiling.

“Sort of caught her with the goods that time, eh?” observed Blake.

“I don’t get you,” answered Don.

“Candy by messenger? Well, I’ve been looking for it. And when those haughty ones do fall, believe me, they fall hard.”

“Maybe,” answered Don. “But I’ll bet you five dollars to a quarter you’re wrong about her.”

Blake’s eyes narrowed a trifle.

“I’ll take you,” he answered. “What’s your proof?”

“I sent her that stuff myself.”

“You? Holy smoke, that’s going some!”

“I sent her that to pay for some typewriting she did for me and because I knew she wouldn’t take any money.”

“I lose. Come out and have a drink?”

“Thanks,” answered Don. “I’m on my way uptown. Give that quarter to Eddie.”

CHAPTER IX

IT WILL NEVER DO

If Miss Winthrop ever had more than a nodding acquaintance with Mr. Pendleton, she gave no indication of that fact when she came in the next morning. With a face as blank as a house closed for the season, she clicked away at her typewriter until noon, and then hurried out to lunch as if that were a purely business transaction also. Don followed a little sooner than usual. The little restaurant was not at all crowded to-day, but she was not there. He waited ten minutes, and as he waited the conviction grew that she did not intend to come.

Don went out and began an investigation. He visited five similar places in the course of the next fifteen minutes, and in the last one he found her. She was seated in a far corner, and she was huddled up as if trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. As he strode to her side with uplifted hat, she shrank away like a hunted thing finding itself trapped.

“What did you run away for?” he demanded.

“What did you hunt me up for?” she replied.

“Because I wanted to see you.”

“And I came here because I did not want to see you.”

“Now, look here–” he began.

“So I should think you’d go along and leave me alone,” she interrupted.

“If I did that, then I’d never know what the trouble is all about,” he explained.

“Well, what of it?”

“May I sit down?”

There was an empty chair next to her.

“I can’t prevent you, but I’ve told you I want to be alone.”

“When you look that way, you’re just as much alone as if I weren’t here,” he returned, as he took the chair. “And every one knows it.”

She gave a swift glance about the room, as if expecting to find half the crowd looking at her.

“Maybe they are too polite to let on,” he continued; “but I know just what they are saying to themselves. They are saying, ‘She certainly hasn’t much use for him. You’d think he’d take the tip and get out.’”

“You don’t seem to care much, then, about what they say.”

“I don’t care a hang,” he admitted.

She pushed her plate away as if ready to go.

“Wait a minute,” he pleaded. “It doesn’t seem like you to go off and leave a man in the dark. How in thunder am I going to know any better next time if you don’t tell me where I made the break?”

“I don’t believe you’d know if I did tell you,” she answered more gently.

“The least you can do is to try.”

She did not want to tell him. If he was sincere–and the longer she talked with him, the more convinced she was that this was the case–then she did not wish to disillusionize him.

“The least you can do is to give me a chance,” he persisted.

“The mistake came in the beginning, Mr. Pendleton,” she said, with an effort. “And it was all my fault. You–you seemed so different from a lot of men who come into the office that I–well, I wanted to see you get started straight. In the three years I’ve been there I’ve picked up a lot of facts that aren’t much use to me because–because I’m just Miss Winthrop. So I thought I could pass them on.”

“That was mighty white of you,” he nodded.

The color flashed into her cheeks.

“I thought I could do that much without interfering in any other way with either of our lives.”

“Well?”

“There were two or three things I didn’t reckon with,” she answered.

“What were they?” he demanded.

“Blake is one of them.”

“Blake?” His face brightened with sudden understanding. “Then the trouble is all about that box of candy?”

“You shouldn’t have sent it. You should have known better than to send it. You–had no right.”

“But that was nothing. You were so darned good to me about the typewriting and it was all I could think of.”

“So, you see,” she concluded, “it won’t do. It won’t do at all.”

“I don’t see,” he returned.

“Then it’s because you didn’t see the way Blake looked at me,” she said.

“Yes, I saw,” he answered. “I could have hit him for it. But I fixed that.”

“You–fixed that?” she gasped.

“I certainly did. I told him I sent the box, and told him why.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Then they’ll all know, and–what am I going to do? Oh, what am I going to do?”

It was a pitiful cry. He did not understand why it was so intense, because he did not see what she saw–the gossip increasing in maliciousness; the constant watching and nods and winks, until in the end it became intolerable either to her or to Farnsworth. Nor was that the possible end. To leave an office under these conditions was a serious matter–a matter so serious as to affect her whole future.

“Now, see here,” he pleaded. “Don’t take it so hard. You’re making too much of it. Blake isn’t going to talk any more. If he does–”

She raised her head.

“If he does, there isn’t anything you can do about it.”

“I’ll bet there is.”

“No–no–no. There isn’t. I know! But you mustn’t come here any more. And you mustn’t talk to me any more. Then perhaps they’ll forget.”

He grew serious.

“It seems too bad if it’s got to be that way,” he answered.

“I ought to have known,” she said.

“And I ought to have known, too. I was a fool to send that box into the office, but I wanted you to get it before you went home.”

She raised her eyes to his a moment. Then a queer, tender expression softened her mouth.

“This is the end of it,” she answered. “And now I’m glad you did not know any better.”

She rose to go, and then she noticed that he had not lunched.

“I’ll wait here until you come back with your sandwich,” she said.

“I don’t want a sandwich,” he protested.

“Please hurry.”

So she waited there until he came back with his lunch, and then she held out her hand to him.

“To-morrow you go to the old place,” she said, “and I’ll come here.”

CHAPTER X

DICTATION

As far as Don was concerned, Miss Winthrop, instead of merely changing her lunch-place, might just as well have taken a steamer and sailed for Europe. He saw her at her desk every morning when he came in, and she always looked up and nodded–as she did, for that matter, to every one, including Blake. Then she turned to her work, and that was the end of her until the next morning. As far as he was able to judge, Miss Winthrop had completely and utterly forgotten the preceding weeks and even the incident that led to this disastrous climax.

But the situation that left her so unaffected got on Don’s nerves. He was by nature too much of a social being to endure being left to himself very long. This lunching alone day after day was a dreary affair. The egg sandwiches began to pall upon his taste, and he felt that he could not have eaten an éclair had he been starving.

Sometimes he had only a cup of coffee, and then hurried out and wandered about the streets for the remainder of his hour. It was a long hour–a tedious hour. Most of the time he spent in the hope that, by some lucky chance, he might meet her. He did not hunt for her. He avoided her usual course. If he met her, it must be honestly by chance. But he never met her. He passed thousands of other young women, but he never met her. He used to return to the office sometimes doubting that she existed. But at one o’clock she was always there back of her machine.

He spent a good deal of time that week with Powers; and seemed to make some progress. He had now a definite knowledge of bonds and notes, and had even mastered, in a general way, the important details of some of the issues the house was handling. Twice he had taken home his papers and actually spent several hours upon them. Some of them he knew almost by heart. It was encouraging, but it would have been much more encouraging if he had been able to tell Miss Winthrop about it.

Somehow, he did not feel that he really knew those things until he had told her he knew them. This was a curious frame of mind to be in, but it was a fact.

As far as he was concerned, he would have broken through this embargo long ago. But she had made him see, and see clearly, that he was not alone concerned. That was the whole trouble. If Blake talked only about him, and let it go at that, no harm would be done.

One Friday morning, toward eleven o’clock, Blake was out of the office, and Don had just finished a long talk with Powers, when he noticed that Miss Winthrop was not for the moment busy.

Don had an inspiration. He caught Powers just as he was about to leave.

“Look here, old man,” he said in an undertone. “Is there any objection to my dictating a letter to Miss Winthrop?”

“Why, no,” answered Powers. “She’s there for the use of the staff.”

“Thought I’d like to have her take down some of the things we’ve been talking about,” he explained.

“Good idea,” nodded Powers.

A minute later Miss Winthrop caught her breath as Don calmly walked to her desk, seated himself in a chair near her, and, producing a circular from his pocket, followed Blake’s formula in asking:–

“Can you take a letter for me, Miss Winthrop?”

Almost as automatically as she answered Blake, she replied:–

“Certainly.”

She reached for her notebook and pencil.

“My dear Madame,” he began.

“Any address, Mr. Pendleton?”

“I don’t know the exact address,” he answered. “Just address it to the little restaurant in the alley.”

She looked up.

“Mr. Pendleton!”

“To the little restaurant in the alley,” he continued calmly. “Do you use Madame or Mademoiselle to an unmarried lady?” he inquired.

“I suppose this is a strictly business letter, or you would not be dictating it in office hours,” she returned.

“I’ll make it partly business,” he nodded. “Ready?”

“Yes, Mr. Pendleton; but I don’t think–”

“Who is introducing the personal element now?” he demanded.

“Ready, Mr. Pendleton.”

My dear Madame:–

In reply to your advice that I acquire certain information relative to the securities which our firm is offering for sale, I beg to report that, after several talks with our Mr. Powers, I am prepared to give you any information you may desire.

“Try me on one of them?” he suggested, interrupting himself.

She raised her eyes and glanced anxiously around the office. Then she replied, as if reading from her notebook:–

“You forget, Mr. Pendleton, that I am taking a letter from you.”

“Try me on one of the bonds,” he insisted.

“You mustn’t act like this. Really, you mustn’t.”

“Then I’ll dictate some more. Ready?”

“Yes, Mr. Pendleton.”

Our Miss Winthrop has just informed me that you have lost your interest in the whole matter.

“I didn’t say that, Mr. Pendleton,” she interrupted.

“What did you say, then?”

“I said that here in the office–”

“Oh, I see. Then scratch that sentence out.”

She scratched it out.

“Have it read this way”:–

Our Miss Winthrop informs me–

“Why need you bring me in at all?” she asked.

“Please don’t interrupt.”

– informs me that, owing to the lack of privacy in the office, you cannot discuss these matters here with me. Therefore I suggest that, as long as the luncheon hour is no longer convenient (for the same reasons), an arrangement be made whereby I may have the pleasure of dining with you some evening.

Miss Winthrop’s brows came together.

“That is absolutely impossible!” she exclaimed.

If the idea does not appeal to you as a pleasure,–

he went on in the most impersonal of tones,–

perhaps you would be willing to consider it as a favor. Our Miss Winthrop informs me that the suggestion is impossible, but personally I don’t see how anything could be more easily arranged. I would prefer Saturday evening, as on that date I am quite sure of being sufficiently well provided with ducats–