“Hello, kiddie! Where did you spring from?”
This was quite a different George. His eyes shone with pleasure at the sight of her. His animation had returned—a very different George from the dull-eyed disapproving critic of last night.
Rosie looked at him steadily, without an answering smile. She was a very different Rosie, also, from the stricken creature who had parted from him yesterday. The new suit was all and more than Miss Merridew had claimed for it. Navy blue, with short shoulders, tight sleeves and wonderful lines, it was precisely the suit of which Rosie had dreamed.
She felt decently clad at last. From the smart little straw hat, with its flowers and fruit, to the black silk stockings, with their white clocks, and the jaunty patent-leather pumps, she was precisely all that a girl would wish to be. She could hold up her head again.
And she did hold up her head, with a militant tilt of the chin. She was feeling strong and resolute. Before she left, the engagement would be broken. On that point she was as rigid as steel. If her outward appearance was all that George valued, she had done with him.
“I came to say something to you, George,” she said quietly.
George did not appear to have heard her. He looked about him. From behind doors came the click of typewriters and the sound of voices, but nobody was visible. They had the anteroom to themselves.
“Say! I got it!”
“Got it?”
“The raise! Another fifteen per.”
“Yes?”
He seemed not to notice the coolness of her voice. This man was full of his own petty triumph.
“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” he went on; “I don’t know who Elmer Otis Banks is, but he’s a prune! That dope of his may be all right with some people, but when it comes to slipping one over on Mr. Hebblethwaite it’s about as much good as a cold in the head.
“Yesterday afternoon I breezed into the boss’ office, looked him in the eye as per schedule, and said I could do with a raise. According to the dope he ought to have come across like a lamb. But all he did was to tell me to get out. I got out. The way I figured it was that if I didn’t get out then I’d be getting out a little later for keeps.”
A caller intruded, desirous of seeing the editor. George disposed of her. He returned to Rosie.
“Well, back I go to my chair out here, feeling good and sore, and presently a dame blows in and wants to see the boss. I tell her nothing doing.
” ‘You evidently don’t know who I am,’ she says, looking at me as if I was just one of the common people. ‘I am Mrs. Hebblethwaite.’
“She had a book under her arm and it looked to me like a sample. I wasn’t taking any chances.
” ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ I says, ‘but the last Mrs. Hebblethwaite that made a play round the end and scored a touchdown in the boss’ private office was a book agent. So unless you have an appointment, it’s no go. I value my job and I want to hold it.’
” ‘I shall speak to my husband about your impertinence,’ she said, and beat it.
“I thought no more about it. And that night, while I was waiting for you in the McAstor lobby, I’m darned if the boss didn’t come in with this same woman; and I heard her ask him if he’d remembered to put the cover over the canary’s cage before they left home.
“Gee! By the time you arrived I’d made up my mind it would be the gate for me first thing this morning. I don’t suppose you noticed anything, but I was feeling so sick I just wanted to creep away and die.”
Rosie leaned bonelessly against the rail. The reaction from her militant mood had left her limp. The thought of how she had wronged her golden-hearted George filled her with self-loathing. She had no right to be engaged to the most perfect of his sex.
“Oh, George!” she gasped.