CHAPTER I

“SO PERFECTLY CAPABLE”

Ethel Clayton gathered the several letters with their accompanying checks in a neat sheaf and rose from her desk, which was placed nearest the door of the manager’s office. With the papers in her left hand she went to the door on which was stenciled “Mr. Barton” and opened it without waiting for a reply to her knock. She knew only Jim Mayberry was in the room with the manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company.

As she pushed the door inward she heard Frank Barton saying:

“I am puzzled what answer to make them, Jim.”

The manager was at his desk. Mayberry, leaning back in his chair, nodded understandingly and in agreement. The general manager was not in the habit of taking the superintendent of the factory into his confidence in particular instances and Mayberry was alive to that fact. He listened. Listening, and keeping one’s mouth shut, never hurt a man yet.

The girl at the door of the office waited, too. Her business with the manager was important, if not imperative.

“The Bogata people have been good customers of ours in the past,” went on Barton, reflectively. “But I have inside information that their credit is wabbly. It is strained, just as ours has been. If we tied up twenty to thirty thousand dollars in their particular line of goods, and then had the goods left on our hands, it might be fatal to the Hapwood-Diller Company, even now.

“The expansion of mercantile values and the increase in profits have not struck our kind of production, as you very well know, Jim. Our stock is not listed among the ‘war brides.’ Rather it might better be termed a ‘war widow.’ The company has had a hard pull, Jim. We can’t afford to take many chances.”

Again the superintendent sat tight and merely nodded. The declining sun delivered slanting rays in through the high windows of the general manager’s office. The two men--neither of whom had arrived at thirty years--sat with preternaturally grave faces, one ruminating upon the event that had unexpectedly arisen in the affairs of the concern they had both worked for since boyhood; the other possibly giving much more thought to his own personal matters.

For Jim Mayberry, without being in the least neglectful of his duties as superintendent of the factory, was a person given much to the contemplation of what he called “the prime law of nature: Looking out for Number One.” He did, however, suggest:

“Those Bogata people have been all right folks, Frank. The factory’s made money on their orders.”

“That’s just it,” the manager returned briskly, but with a gesture that betrayed his indecision.

He was a tall, black-haired, virile fellow, clean shaven, good color in his cheeks, and impeccably dressed. Mayberry, in contrast, had light hair which already he plastered across his crown to hide an incipient bald spot. He wore a small blond moustache and had numerous wrinkles about his eyes.

“Just the same it is not safe, I firmly believe, to accept the order. But a brusk refusal might do the Hapwood-Diller Company untold harm at some future time. The Bogata concern may come back. Miracles do happen.”

“Better accept the order then,” Mayberry put in. “We can postpone filling it. We don’t have to give a bond. If they really prove to be shaky, we can renege.”

The girl, who had come in and softly closed the door, flashed the superintendent a glance that was all scorn for business ethics thus expressed. But Barton replied quite calmly:

“Two objections to that, Jim. In the first place the Hapwood-Diller Company has always based its policy on honor. Secondly, it is unwise for us to tie up any money at all in beginning a job we do not intend to complete.”

“Aw!” grunted the superintendent. His vocabulary--at this juncture at least--seemed not to be extensive.

There had been a rising murmur in the street under the open windows for some minutes. Now the sudden crash of martial music broke upon their ears. Barton’s countenance became vivid with interest, and he swung himself erect and strode to the nearest window.

“Here come the boys,” he said, pride vibrating in his voice. He was very military looking. Nothing but the “setting up exercise” could ever have made his shoulders so very square and his splendidly muscled torso taper to so narrow a waist.

Mayberry rose and sauntered after him. “Mailsburg’s heroes,” he observed. “I suppose you’re wishing you were marching away with them, Frank.”

The other said nothing, but his eyes glowed. The marching column swung around the corner following the band--a column in khaki, a color already becoming familiar on the streets although war was not many months old.

Ethel had gone to the other window and was likewise looking out upon the quota of the National Guard, with packs and rifles, on their way to the railroad station. A little group of women, girls and children clung to the column and kept pace with it. The men spectators seemed rather ashamed to follow on, but stood, nevertheless, on the curb to watch the boys go by.

“I expect they’ll have a hot old time down at that training camp,” drawled Mayberry.

Barton did not seem to hear him. His hand came to salute as the colors went by.

A volume of voices rose from below as the band music drifted into the distance.

“And mebbe marching to their graves!”

“It’s a shame that some that can least be spared have to go while them that would never be missed keep out of it.”

“You’re right! Some of ’em’s got fathers an’ mothers, an’ wives!” cried a shrill voice, “while them that ain’t got a soul dependent on ’em----”

“There’s one yonder,” was the quick rejoinder. “And had all the benefit of Guard training too!” And the speaker, a woman, directed the gaze of her companions to the office window.

Mayberry chuckled. “They’ve pinned you to the wall, Frank,” he murmured in the ear of the white-faced manager.

Ethel Clayton had turned suddenly from the window. “Have you time to sign these checks and letters before the outgoing mail, Mr. Barton?” she asked.

He took the papers, but did not verbally reply for a moment. His countenance had become calm again, if still pale, when he had seated himself in his chair and turned in it so that the others could both observe him.

“I will sign them at once, Miss Clayton,” Barton said quite composedly. “But first----”

For a moment his gaze centered upon her. There was something wholly good to look at in the girl’s face and figure. Had she not dressed so practically for her work her personal attractions would have been further enhanced. Mayberry was watching her, too; and his gaze betrayed a certain eagerness, whereas the manager’s eyes merely revealed expectancy. Then he flicked a glance in Mayberry’s direction.

“Perhaps Miss Clayton might give us a word of advice upon this matter, Jim?” he said questioningly, and with a quizzical little smile.

The superintendent, a little startled, shifted his gaze from the girl’s face to the manager’s countenance. Ethel, perfectly composed, waited for the explanation of Barton’s observation.

“Woman’s intuition forever!” the latter ejaculated.

“What do you mean, Frank?” hastily demanded Jim Mayberry. “If you and I don’t know what to do----”

Ethel flushed faintly, but looked questioningly at the manager. The implied doubt of her ability in Mayberry’s tone possibly piqued her. Frank Barton said in his good-natured, easy manner:

“Oh, we know _what_ to do. But it’s the way the thing is done. You know about this new Bogata order, Miss Clayton?”

“Of course, Mr. Barton.”

“I do not see how we can accept it. The Bogata Company is not in good financial standing. But we must not offend them. The refusal must be one to which they cannot take exception. It is a big order, and they have sent it in without question, just as though they expected us to get to work on it with merely an acknowledgment of the favor.”

“I see,” the girl said in her composed way.

“You are so perfectly capable, Miss Clayton,” laughed the general manager. “See what you can do with the matter. Do you think we can keep within the lines of safety, and yet make no enemy of the Bogata people?”

“I believe it can be done, Mr. Barton,” replied the girl.

There was a decision in her manner of speaking that revealed Ethel Clayton as being quite what the general manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company had said she was--“capable.”

“See what you can do with a letter, then,” Barton went on, producing the order sheets in question and handing them to her along with the letters and checks he had signed.

She left the private office without further word. Jim Mayberry was frowning.

“You’re trusting a good deal to that girl, Frank,” he growled.

“I’ve never trusted anything to her yet that she hasn’t handled all right,” the manager replied easily. “If I manage to--to get away, Jim, you’ll find her a great help here.”

“Uh-huh!” grunted the superintendent. “Maybe.”

“You are insular,” laughed Frank Barton. “The women are forging to the front, man. Miss Clayton is far more capable than some of the heads of departments who have grown gray here.”

“Maybe,” agreed the superintendent. “But I don’t want to see her out there in overalls, bossing my men around. Don’t forget that, Frank.”

The superintendent arose and strolled out of the private office. In the larger desk room he halted and watched the “capable” girl at her desk nearest the manager’s door. Ethel was the “buffer” between much outside annoyance and the general manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company.

There were gold and red lights in her chestnut hair; the pallor of her countenance was not unhealthy; merely she was not enough in the open. But where the sun had kissed the bridge of her nose there was a sprinkle of tiny freckles. There were flecks of gold, too, in her brown eyes. Her mouth and chin were firm rather than soft, and the gaze of her eyes direct; nevertheless there was nothing unfeminine about her appearance.

The severest critic could hold no brief against the charms of her figure. Her arms were beautifully rounded, her wrists tapering, her hands just the right size. She had a naturally small waist, and the lines of her hips showed that her limbs were slenderly yet strongly built. She was a tall girl.

The superintendent caught her eye after a moment, she looking up thoughtfully from the papers before her.

“You want to handle that business with gloves, Ethel,” he advised in a low voice. “Barton’s hardly himself to-day--the boys going away and all. He thinks that, with three years’ experience in bossing those sappies around the armory, he should jump right into this war. Get to be a general or something right off the handle,” and he chuckled.

Again the girl’s face flushed softly and she dropped her gaze. She made him no reply at all, but Mayberry went on:

“And that Fuller girl’s got him running around in circles, too. You can see he isn’t himself, or he would not balk at such an order as this from the Bogata people. Why, they’re all right folks. The factory’s made a lot of money out of their orders. And here----”

“Did Mr. Barton ask you to discuss this matter with me, Mr. Mayberry?” asked the girl coldly and without looking up again. “If not, please remember that he has commissioned me to write a letter to them that will meet his approval. Don’t bother me now.”

“Oh, pshaw, Ethel!” the man said, smiling down at her unctuously. “Don’t take every little thing so blame seriously. Frank Barton and I were kids together. I can’t fall down and worship him the way some of you do. Anyway, you’d better show him how to take a chance with these Bogata people--if you really want to _help_. I know they’re all right.”

“Why don’t you tell that to Mr. Barton?” the girl asked rather tartly.

“Oh, pshaw!” chuckled the superintendent. “Let it go till to-morrow. It’s almost closing time, anyway. Take a little spin in that car of mine before supper, will you?”

“Thank you; no.”

“Aw! don’t act so offishly, Ethel. You’ve never been to ride with me yet.”

“I understand that other girls have--to their sorrow,” Miss Clayton responded in a tone that cut through even Jim Mayberry’s skin. He flushed dully and his lazy eyes began to glow.

“Don’t believe everything you hear, Ethel,” he said. “I want to talk to you about that. Let me drive you home to-night and I’ll explain these stories that you have heard.”

He strolled away as Little Skinner came across the room to ask a question. Could it be that Little Skinner had received a secret signal to break in upon the superintendent’s objectionable line of conversation? At least, her business with Ethel was brief.

The latter’s attention immediately returned to the problem the manager had put up to her for solution. She was made proud whenever Frank Barton did anything like this, and of late it was not infrequent that he had shown his trust in her ability.

Yet there was a sting in the way he had spoken, too. She knew well enough that the sting was unintentional on his part. Never had the general manager been other than scrupulously polite to her. She was always “Miss Clayton” to him, and he deferred to her in many ways and was as courteous in his busiest moments as he could have been meeting her at a social affair. That was Frank Barton’s way.

But--

She found that her gaze had wandered from the papers before her to the small mirror set into the rather ornate inkstand that stood upon her desk--a birthday present from her office mates not many months before. The girl reflected there was, Ethel Clayton very well knew, better looking than the average girl. Her even features were quietly beautiful. She perhaps lacked the verve and dash possessed by some girls. She had one particular girl in mind as she thought this. She lacked the tricks of the social trade too, that that same girl possessed.

She shrugged her shoulders and brought her attention back with a jerk to the matter in hand. But there was faint disgust in her tone as she murmured:

“Yes, just as he says: ‘Miss Clayton is so perfectly capable.’ Pah!”