III
The last of a number of errands she had undertaken for her mother brought Grace to Shipley’s a little before twelve. She observed the young women who waited on her with a particular attention inspired by the feeling that she too might soon be standing behind a counter. Some of the clerks at Shipley’s were women well advanced in middle life, whom she remembered from her earliest visits to the establishment. These veterans contributed to Shipley’s reputation for solidity and permanence. They enjoyed the friendly acquaintance of many customers, who relied upon their counsel in their purchases. There were many more employees of this type in Shipley’s than in any other establishment in town; they were an asset, a testimony to the consideration shown the employees, the high character of the owners. Grace’s imagination played upon her own future: what if she should find herself in ten or twenty years behind a counter, ambition and hope dead in her and nothing ahead but the daily exhibition of commodities and the making out of sale slips!
But this cloud was only the tiniest speck on her horizon. She had already set a limit upon the time she would spend in such a place if her services were accepted; it was the experience she wanted, and when she had exhausted the possibilities of Shipley’s or some similar place she meant to carry her pitcher of curiosity to other fountains.
While waiting for Irene outside the lunch room she found amusement in watching the shoppers, studying them, determining their financial and social status. Some one had told her that she was endowed with special gifts for appraising character, and she had the conceit of her inexperience as a student of the human kind. Her speculations as to the passers-by were interrupted by the arrival of Irene.
“It’s perfectly wonderful to see you again! I was that delighted to hear your voice over the wire last night. You’re looking marvelous! I always adored your gypsy effect! Come along—there’s a particular table in a far corner they keep for me and we can buzz for just one hour.”
She had put on her coat and hat, to disguise the fact, she explained, that she was one of Shipley’s hired hands. She was a tall blonde, with a wealth of honey-colored hair, china blue eyes and a dear brilliant complexion. Grace’s admiration, dating from high school days, quickened as she noted the girl’s ease and the somewhat scornful air with which she inspected the lunch card. Irene’s father was a locomotive engineer and the family lived in a comfortable house on a pleasant street in the East End, not far from the railway shops. Irene had brothers and sisters, but they did not share her good looks or her social qualities. Irene met the rest of the world with a lofty condescension which fell short of being insufferable only by reason of her good humor. Selfishness with Irene was almost a virtue, it manifested itself so candidly. She had no intention of being bored, or of putting herself out. Ugliness and clumsiness were repugnant to her. Disagreeable things did not trouble her because she had schooled herself not to see them. She was clever, adroit, resourceful, and wise with the astonishing worldly-wisdom that is the heritage of the children of the Twentieth Century. In school she had been a fair scholar but the grand manner and a ready wit had assisted her even there. When puzzled by Irene’s ability to dress better than most of her girl companions in the high school, Grace had been impressed by the revelation that Irene made her own clothes and could retouch last year’s hat with a genius that brought it into conformity with the latest and most exclusive designs.
“You still have the same queenly look, Irene,” Grace remarked.
“Queenly nothing! You’re nearly as tall as I am and I haven’t a thing on you when it comes to hauteur. I suppose the Lord made me tall and gave me square shoulders just to hang clothes on for women with money to look at. I wish I had your black hair. Being a blonde is an awful handicap if you’re doomed to work for a living. And a complexion like mine, which is called good by experts, is a nuisance. I’ve refused an offer about once a month to go on the road selling and demonstrating cosmetics. Can you see me?”
“I supposed you’d be married before this, Irene. You must have had loads of chances.”
“Chances but not opportunities,” replied Irene with a shrug. “Don’t tell me you’ve quit college to get married; it’s not a professor, I hope! I’d hate to see you sacrificing yourself in the noble cause of education.”
“Nothing like that. I quit because we’re broke—father couldn’t afford to keep me in college any longer. Some one had to drop out and as Roy has only a year more in the law school it seemed better for him to keep on.”
“Roy?” Irene repeated the name languidly as though Roy were a negligible figure in the affairs of the Durlands.
“My brother,” said Grace.
“Oh, yes!” Irene’s eyes lighted as with some memory. “Oh, yes—brothers do rather have the best of it, don’t they? But it’s too bad you couldn’t finish. You’re just the type of girl that ought to be rounded out at college.”
“Oh, it’s all right; I’m rather glad to be free.”
“Well, I’d dreamed of seeing you land high as a writer or something like that. I’ll hand you this right now: women can’t know too much these days. It’s a big advantage to a woman to know how to talk to men; I don’t mean the pool room boys but the real men—the men who draw the large mazuma. They have the brains themselves and they respect the same ingredient in girls, a lot of silly ideas to the contrary notwithstanding. Just by knowing Thackeray I’m the assistant manager of the ready-to-wear department of this spacious emporium—the youngest assistant in the house. Funny, but it’s true!”
Asked for an elucidation of the statement, Irene explained that the general superintendent of Shipley’s, who had power of life and death over everything pertaining to the establishment, was Thackeray-mad. Learning this she had carelessly referred to “Becky Sharp” in a chance conversation with him in the elevator on a day when he deigned to notice her. In a week she had been called to his office and promoted.
“Oh, don’t imagine he was leading up to anything; he’s a gentleman with a wife and three children and teaches a Sunday-school class. But he yearns to talk to some one—any one who has a scrap of interest in Thackeray. His wife invited me to their house for Sunday dinner awhile back and I was never so bored in my life. But I did manage to show an intelligent interest in his library, so I guess I’ll hold my job.”
Irene had finished at the high school two years before Grace, but the difference in their ages was not to be calculated in years. Irene had always seemed to Grace to be endowed with the wisdom of all the centuries.
“About those correspondence courses, Grace,” Irene was saying, “I’ve had most of the stuff on the schedule of that English course I wrote you about. I wouldn’t read Carlyle’s ‘Heroes and Hero-worship’ again for a farm in Texas.”
“Or Bacon’s ‘Novum Organum’,” groaned Grace.
“Well—I’m concentrating on French. You know I had French in high school, and I’m keeping it up in the hope the house will send me to Paris next year. You know Shipley’s is one of the most progressive houses in the whole west; they certainly do treat you white.”
“Mother’s not wildly enthusiastic about my going into a store. You know mother; she thinks——”
“I know,” Irene caught her up, “she thinks it’s not as respectable as working in an office or teaching a kindergarten. I met Ethel on the street the other day and she told me she’d taken a place with an insurance firm. That’s all right for Ethel but no good for you. I looked over the office game before I decided to come here and there’s nothing to it, my dear. You can make a good thing of this if you have selling talent. My salary is nothing to speak of but I get a bonus—I drew seventy-five dollars last week and I expect to hit the hundred mark before Christmas. They steer the customers who look like real money to me. When you’ve learned the trick you can make them think it’s a disgrace not to buy the highest priced thing we carry. The women from the country towns whose husbands have grabbed the water power on ’Possum creek or foreclosed on ninety per cent of the farmers in the township, bring said husbands along and they are the easiest. I throw the wrap or whatever it is on my own stately person, then clap it on the wife and hubby doesn’t dare let his wife suspect he doesn’t think her as much of a Venus de Milo as I am! A modest little violet!”
“Oh, Irene!” cried Grace, enchanted with her friend’s wisdom.
She marveled at Irene’s poise, and envied her the light ironic flick she gave to the business of bargain and sale. Irene complained in the most ladylike manner of the chicken salad, which Grace had thought very good. The head-waitress listened respectfully and offered to substitute something else, but Irene declined, with the indifference of one to whom petty annoyances are merely incidental and to be mentioned merely for the good of the service.
As they ate their chocolate eclairs Grace became impatient to broach the matter of her own ambition to become a factor in Shipley’s, but it seemed a pity to break in upon Irene, who went on tranquilly discussing their old companions of high school days. Presently, after paying the checks, she brought her wrist watch within range of her eyes with a graceful gesture, and disposed of the matter with characteristic ease.
“I’ve spoken to Miss Lupton—she manages our employment bureau—about you. She’s a very good friend of mine; and I mentioned you to Miss Boardman, the head of my department. I didn’t wait to ask where you’d rather be; but of course I’d like to have you with me. I can’t just see you in the toilet goods or infants’ wear. They’re pretty full in all departments, but I think I’ve got you fixed.”
“Oh, Irene——”
“All you do is to fill out an application blank—they always require that—and give two references. You’ve had no experience, but your figure and general intelligence will more than balance that. They do their best to keep the standard high and it won’t be lost on them that you’re of good family and have taken a whirl at college.”
“I’m certainly obliged to you, Irene. I didn’t know it would be as easy as this—but”—she laughed, “they haven’t seen me yet!”
“Don’t fish! Your appearance is nothing to complain of; you know that as well as I do. It will be fine to have you where we can talk and play together as we did in school. Between us we ought to be able to give tone to our end of the shop!”