Part 15

But neither Miss Clare nor any other person could have imagined what actually took place. Personally, while giving due credit to Mr. Reddiman’s kind heart, acumen, and wisdom, I am inclined to give still more credit to Miss Clare’s eyes; for I assure you that those eyes, when filled with tears and raised to your face, were terribly potent. As I said before, they were blue, but only the advertising department could adequately describe the sort of blue.

Listen to the sequel, and bear in mind that I saw her look up at Mr. Reddiman. I know that if I had been Mr. Reddiman, I, too--

Well, he went in to see Mr. Graves, whom he greatly admired and valued.

“In regard to this--er--Miss Clare,” he said. “I hear from Miss Kelly--”

“Yes, I know,” Graves answered miserably. “I’m going to discharge her this afternoon.”

“You would be doing very wrong,” said Mr. Reddiman severely.

Graves was naturally astounded.

“I’ve done all I can to place her--” he began, but Mr. Reddiman interrupted.

“Graves,” said he, “I’m afraid you are just a little inclined to overlook the human element. After all, Graves, what is more valuable in an employee than zeal? A--er--person who works with zeal and loyalty is, to my mind, very much more desirable than one of your efficient, soulless machines. The human element, Graves, the human element! This--er--Miss Clare seems to be most earnest. I learn that she comes early and remains late. To my personal knowledge, she wished to-day to forego her lunch in order to complete her work. I shall not interfere in your province, of course, but I hope--I hope strongly--that you will reconsider your decision.”

It was Graves himself who told me about the interview.

“Well,” he said, “what could I do? Heaven knows I didn’t want to say a word against the poor girl; but in duty to the company I had to tell him what I’d done. He listened, and then he said again that I overlooked the human element. He said that what she needed was encouragement, and that she could start to-morrow morning as _his secretary_!”

“Aren’t you pleased?” I asked.

“_Pleased?_” he exclaimed. “I’m--I’m horrified! I’m--it’s outrageous! It’s cruel! I can’t bear to think of it!” He paused. “It’s the end of her,” he said tragically. “She’s about as well fitted to be his secretary as she is to be president of the Chamber of Commerce. It’s bound to end in a big row!”

I didn’t agree with him.

V

Miss Clare arrived the next morning a little pale and nervous, but wonderfully happy. She was always neat and dainty, but this morning she had a sort of festive air, produced, as well as I can tell you, by little extra ruffles and by magic.

Looking into Mr. Reddiman’s private room, and seeing her there, with her fair head bent and her fragile hands so busy, in all her gallant and touching youth, I entertained serious thoughts about the human element. I understood the ancient institution of chivalry. I fancied I knew exactly how knights used to feel about forlorn damosels. It seemed idiotic to estimate a creature as valiant and sweet as she by the number of words she could turn out per minute. Indeed, I forgot all about the economic system for a time, in a long meditation upon a system considerably older.

I rejoiced in her innocent and happy triumph. I delighted in seeing her walk past Miss Kelly and smile at her before entering the august private room.

Graves was decidedly under a cloud now. We were all a little hard on him. We forgot his kindly efforts on her behalf, and remembered only that he had been on the point of discharging one who now worthily occupied an important post.

“You see, Graves, I was right,” said Mr. Reddiman.

The rest of us agreed in condemning Graves for a sort of inhuman severity.

Three days passed. Then Graves heard from Mr. Reddiman once more.

“It was naturally a--a tentative arrangement--something in the nature of an experiment,” the president said. “I am well satisfied with Miss Clare’s zeal and industry, but she lacks experience. I have no doubt she can work up to some superior position; but in the meantime, Graves, wouldn’t it be possible to find her some work that carries less responsibility? She’s very young, you know.”

The implication was that Graves had thrust monstrous responsibilities upon her young shoulders, that he was a sort of _Simon Legree_.

“She’s a young woman of education and refinement,” Mr. Reddiman continued. “I should imagine it would not be difficult to find a place for her in an organization of this size and scope. I don’t mind saying, Graves, that I am very favorably impressed with Miss Clare. Of course, if you’re convinced that she’s not useful--”

“Very well!” said Graves brusquely. “I’ll try.”

And there he was, with the whole thing to begin over again, and with the wind of public opinion dead against him. I observed him sitting at his desk, with his stubby hair ruffled, his sturdy shoulders hunched, and a look of unassuageable despair upon his not very mobile face. He looked up as I approached.

“Go on!” said he. “Tell me I’m a brute! Of course, I know that what I’m really paid a good salary for is to run a charitable institution here. I know--”

“Look here. Graves!” said I. “I’ll try your Miss Clare in my department--”

“She’s not my Miss Clare,” he returned, with vigor. “She’s--” He got up. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “She’s an albatross! You know the story about the fellow who had one tied round his neck, and couldn’t get rid of it.”

“That’s not very chivalrous,” said I.

“Well, I’m not paid to be chivalrous,” he said. “I know she’s a fine girl--a--a lovely girl; but she’s out of place here. She can’t do one darned thing well enough to deserve a salary for it. If old Reddiman wants me to start a training school, very well, I’ll do it; but if he wants me to keep up the standard of efficiency I’ve set, then he’s got to give me a free hand--that’s all!”

“She can start in with me to-morrow,” I said rather stiffly.

VI

I had my own ideas about office management. No private room for me! I sat out with all the others, in a little railed off pen. I contended that the moral effect of my being always visible, and always busy, was admirable. Graves, on the contrary, upheld the principle of remaining invisible and popping out suddenly.

I said that my department was a little democracy.

“And you were elected the head of it by popular vote, weren’t you?” inquired Graves, with irony. “Bet you wouldn’t be willing to put it to the vote now. All bunk! Humbug! You’re an autocrat, and so am I!”

I remembered this the next morning, when Miss Clare started to work for me, and I resolved to be a benevolent autocrat. The poor girl had lost her triumphant air. She was crestfallen, anxious, apprehensive.

“I’ll let her see that I have confidence in her,” I thought.

I gave her some letters to answer herself, without my dictating. They certainly were not letters of importance. In fact, it would make small difference to the business whether they were ever answered or not.

Hypocritically, I told myself I ought to keep an eye on her. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t have helped it, because she was the most incredibly lovely creature.

Her concentration was distressing. I felt inclined to tell her that the letters weren’t worth all her trouble--that no letters could be. She was very nervous. I saw her put sheet after sheet into the typewriter, only to take it out and crumple it up.

Naturally, she knew our excessive dislike for paper being wasted; and after a while I saw her stealthily stuffing those crumpled sheets into a drawer, where they wouldn’t be noticed. Then, suddenly, she straightened her shoulders, gave a despairing glance round the office, pulled all the paper out of the drawer, and put it into the wastebasket. It was a small thing, but it touched me. Whenever I looked at her, and saw that incriminating mass in the basket beside her, in full light of day, I mentally saluted her as an honorable soul.

There had come in the morning mail a letter from a rather doubtful customer, inclosing a check for his last bill and a new order. I felt pretty sure he was ordering a bit more than the traffic would stand, yet he seemed to have substantial backing, and it wouldn’t do to risk offending him. It was Saturday, and I had meant to talk the thing over with Mr. Reddiman before putting through the order on Monday, when a telegram came:

Ship goods to-day. Wire, if impossible, and cancel order.

This was very awkward. We were somewhat overstocked just then, and not particularly busy, so that it would have been easy enough to ship the stuff; but I was reluctant to take the responsibility. At the same time I didn’t want to cancel an order of that size.

There wasn’t much time for thought. I sent for my assistant. I told him to take the check down to the bank it was drawn on and get it cashed. I also suggested his seeing the manager.

“What bank is it?” he asked.

“I don’t remember,” said I; “but you’ll see by the check.”

And then I couldn’t find the check. It was nearly eleven already, and there wasn’t a minute to waste. I turned over every paper on my desk; I made every one else do the same. Check and letter were absolutely gone.

Nothing like this had ever happened before during my régime. I couldn’t believe it. Now that it’s well in the past, I will admit that perhaps I didn’t take it very tranquilly; but, after all, it was not soothing, when I knew some one must be to blame, to have people make idiotic suggestions about my looking in my pocket. Was I in the habit of putting the mail into my pocket?

“The thing’s going to be found,” said I, “and found now. Empty the wastebaskets, and see if it’s been thrown away by mistake.”

The office boy appeared to enjoy doing this, but the rest of them failed in loyalty. No one looked worried or distressed.

“It’s sure to turn up,” said one.

Another almost suggested that such a letter had never existed.

Attracted by the excitement, Miss Kelly appeared, followed by others who had no business to come. How cool and reasonable they all were!

“Mercy!” observed Miss Kelly. “What a quantity of paper thrown away!”

She spoke, of course, of the contents of poor Miss Clare’s basket, now turned out upon a newspaper. She approached it, and picked up one or two sheets.

“It seems to me scarcely justifiable to waste a sheet merely for writing ‘Dear Bir,’” said she, “or a wrong figure in the date. Errors like that can easily be--is this the missing letter, by any chance?”

It was the letter, and the check as well, torn into fragments.

“Oh, I didn’t know!” cried Miss Clare. “I’m so awfully sorry! I must have taken it by accident and torn it up with--with some other things. I’m so sorry!”

But my exasperation was too great to be melted even by tears in those incomparable eyes.

“You ought to be sorry!” I said, and so on.

No use recounting the rest of my bad-tempered outburst. I paid for it later in very genuine regret.

VII

It was probably due to ill temper, but it was attributed to my wonderful business foresight that I did not ship those goods. Mr. Reddiman sent for me on Monday morning and praised my wisdom, good sense, and judgment. That customer was to be dropped.

This praise did not make me happy, but quite the contrary. I knew I didn’t deserve it--in this instance, that is. I was already very remorseful on the score of Miss Clare. I remembered things of which I hadn’t been aware at the time--her white face, her quivering lip, her wide, tearful eyes. She had gone away, after listening to every word I said, and she had not returned.

It would be hard to describe how startling, how conspicuous, was her absence. I missed her from rooms, from desks, where she had certainly never been. The wan sunshine made phantoms of her bright head in dim corners. Other and very different voices took on fleeting resemblances to hers. Once I saw the neat, spare form of Miss Kelly taking a drink at the water cooler, and she seemed to melt into the gracious outlines of that lost one.

My conscience troubled me. My heart was heavy. Very long was the day; and at the end of it I secured her address and went off to see her.

Never mind the eloquent speech I had prepared, for I never uttered one word of it. Suffice it to say that I intended to offer Miss Clare a permanent position, with no possibility of being fired.

She lived in an apartment house on a side street uptown on the West Side--a street that was just on the border of a slum--a street of woeful and dismal gentility. I rang the bell, blundered down a black, narrow hall, and would have gone upstairs if a voice behind me hadn’t murmured:

“Clare?”

Turning, I asserted that a Clare was what I sought, and I was bidden to step through an open door and into a prim little sitting room. It was dismal there, too, but light enough for me to see that I was confronted by a mother out of a book--a gray-haired, delicate little creature with a smile of invincible innocence and good will.

I said that I came from the office to see Miss Clare. Strictly speaking, this was true; but the implication was not, for my business had nothing to do with the office.

“Am sorry ma daughter’s not in,” said Mrs. Clare, in her slurred Southern accent. “If you’d care to wait, Ah don’t think she’ll be long.”

So I sat down, and was instantly fed with tea and cake.

“Rosemary made the cake,” Mrs. Clare explained. “She’s wonderful at baking!”

She was; nothing could have been more delectable. Naturally I praised it, and naturally Mrs. Clare rose to the praise like a trout to a fly. There was something very touching in her artless talk about her child, and something still more touching in the picture she created for me of their gracious and gentle life together.

“Ah’ve never heard a sharp word from Rosemary,” she assured me. “Ah don’t think you could say the same of many other girls in the same circumstances. There’s not only her business career that she’s so interested in, but she does almost all of the housekeeping as well. She’s a wonderful manager, and so clever with her needle! Ah never saw a girl so handy in the house. Of co’se Ah know a girl with her brains and education is just naturally adapted for business, but--” She stopped, with a smile. “Ah’m an old-fashioned woman, Ah reckon. Ah’m glad Rosemary’s going to give it up.”

“Going to give up business?” said I, astounded.

“She’s been engaged for two years,” said she. “That’s long enough. Of co’se, dear Denby understood how she felt about proving her ability befo’ she settled down, but Ah’m glad it’s over. He came up from No’folk yesterday, and he persuaded her to give up her position.”

I was suddenly aware that it was late, and that I couldn’t wait another minute.

“Ah’m sorry,” said she. “Rosemary’ll be back sho’tly. She just took Denby to see the Woolworth Building. Ah wish you could have stayed to see Denby.”

I said how remarkably sorry I was not to see this Denby, but go I would and did.

As I left the house, I ran into Graves, about to enter.

“Old man,” said I, “come along with me. I want to talk to you.”

I believe I took his arm. Anyhow, I felt like doing so.

“Graves,” I said, “I hope you won’t thing I’ve been underhand or treacherous about this. I’d have told you, only that it came on pretty suddenly. I didn’t really know until this morning, and then it put everything else out of my head. I acted upon impulse, Graves--upon my word I did! I missed her so much in the office to-day--”

“Yes,” said he, with a sigh. “It was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”

“And I just hurried off, you know--to call upon her. Graves, old man, it’s--in fact, there’s nothing doing. She’s engaged--she’s been engaged for two years to some young--”

“Oh, I knew that,” said Graves.

“What?” I cried.

“She told me in the very beginning,” said Graves. “Naturally she didn’t want it talked about, but she explained it to me. It seems this fellow didn’t take her seriously enough. He had plenty of money, but he expected her to settle down there in Norfolk and just be his wife. She didn’t say so, but I gathered that he’s a domineering sort of young chap. She said that if they started in that way, they’d never be happy. She had to show him that she amounted to something on her own account; and he was impressed when she got a job here with us. She showed me a letter, or a part of a letter, from him about it. He got down from his high horse, I can tell you--said he knew she’d be making a sacrifice to give up her career and marry him, but he’d do his best to make it up to her, and so on.”

He paused.

“So you see,” he said, “it would have been a very bad thing for her--a very serious thing--if she’d been fired. Might have spoiled her whole future life. After she told me that, and appealed to me, why, I had to--don’t you see?”

“But, Graves,” said I, “didn’t you--weren’t you--personally--”

“Pshaw!” said Graves, turning red. “D’you know, my boy, I read a story once about a hangman who was a pretty good sort of fellow when he was at home. Ever occur to you that even the matador mayn’t be as black as he’s painted?”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

JULY, 1923 Vol. LXXIX NUMBER 2

A Hesitating Cinderella

THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF MADELINE, THE PRETTY WAITRESS AT COMPSON’S CHOPHOUSE

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“I’m no jazz baby,” Madeline declared indignantly.

“Well, I never said you were, did I?” demanded Mr. Ritchie.

“Well, you think so,” she replied.

“Well, if you can read my mind, it’s no use me trying to talk,” said he.

“I never asked you to talk!”

They were both aware that their badinage had lost its fine edge.

“Well, I never asked you to listen,” Mr. Ritchie said valiantly, but he knew very well that this was not a clever retort.

At that moment he was greatly dissatisfied both with his wit and his person. He thought it brutal on the part of fate that a young man as passionate and resolute as himself should have so frail a form, and that after having taken a correspondence course in rhetoric and oratory he should still be so tongue-tied--especially with Madeline.

He could see himself in the mirror opposite. He sat so straight that he leaned over backward a little, but this did not disguise the fact that his shoulders were narrow and not quite even, and his chest somewhat hollow. Neither had his studies or his burning thoughts left any visible impress on his sallow, rather ratlike face; and all this hurt his terribly sensitive soul.

“I never said you were a jazz baby,” he insisted. “I only said lots of girls were--and that’s a fact. Why, a lot of those girls wouldn’t spend a cent to get a decent, well balanced meal! All they care about is clothes and--”

“I don’t guess you know such a lot about girls,” Madeline interrupted.

Her tone was scornful, and the outrageously sensitive Mr. Ritchie at once saw all sorts of implications. She meant that girls wouldn’t bother with him. She meant that he was nothing but a mechanic. She meant that his clothes were shabby, and that he was small and slight. She meant everything that could affront his manly pride.

His face grew crimson.

“All right!” he said loftily. “Have it your own way!”

He turned away his head, though he was a little alarmed as he did so. He had always felt that chivalry required him to keep his head turned rigidly toward Madeline, to atone for the fact that she stood while he sat. Of course, that was not his fault. Madeline being a waitress, and he a customer, anything more gallant was impossible.

He certainly did not enjoy being waited on by this splendid girl. In fact, he so bitterly disliked it that he would have ceased coming to Compson’s Chophouse, if he had not realized that in his absence she would very likely be waiting on some other man, possibly not so chivalrous.

It was altogether a sacrifice on his part, because the food did not conform to his standards. He could not get here the well balanced rations necessary for building up his physique. Of what use to work night and morning with a patent exerciser, if he did not get the proper muscle-building foods? This worried him very much, for he desired a fine physique as greatly as he desired a master mind.

Then, too, he often had to wait a long while for Madeline to be free to attend to him, and he fretted at the waste of time. He couldn’t light a cigarette to beguile his tedium, for he knew that the smoker cannot have a fine physique. If he saw a smoker who looked as if he had one, Ritchie knew him to be a whited sepulcher, with a failing heart, exhausted lungs, and no will power.

To be sure, he might have passed the time with some improving book. He always carried in his pocket a volume of a set he had bought--a set guaranteed to broaden his mind, and to contain all that he ought to read; but he couldn’t keep his mind on a book when Madeline was about.

“Have it your own way,” he repeated.

This time he said it with a new significance. He meant that, as far as he was concerned, Madeline might have everything her own way forever.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t there to hear him. She was waiting on a man at another table. She never so much as glanced at Ritchie. He knew she wouldn’t look at him, and he took a gloomy pleasure in staring at her.

She was worth looking at, was Madeline. Tall, spare, straight, in an austere white uniform and a sleek coiffure, she was a miracle to irradiate any chophouse. Her features were subtle--a delicate nose, a rounded chin, a mouth very red in her pale face. Her black brows made an incomparable line above her dark, steady eyes.

In spite of her thinness and her pallor, in spite of twenty years of bad air and wretched food, she was strong and tireless, with muscles like steel--a heritage from ancestors of Slavic peasant stock. She had a cool, careless manner, inclined to sudden hauteur when she thought it necessary, but she could also chat with the greatest affability--as she was doing now.

“Trying to make me jealous!” thought Ritchie. “What do I care?”