The Girl Who Had Nothing

by A. M. Williamson

"Oh, I have! I guarantee he shall be satisfied with me and not angry with you. Only I must see him alone. Tell him I come from"--Joan hesitated for an instant, but only for an instant--"from the Earl of Northmuir."

Mainbridge was impressed by the name and her air of self-confidence. Encouraged, he promised to use every effort to bring about the introduction, if possible the very next day. If he succeeded, he would telegraph Joan the time of the appointment, which would certainly not be earlier than three in the afternoon, as Sir Edmund never appeared at the office until that hour.

"Then I won't stop for the telegram and give him a chance to change his mind before I can drive from Woburn Place to Fleet Street," said Joan. "I will be at the office at three in the afternoon, and wait until something is settled, if I have to wait till three in the morning."

The next day, after luncheon, Joan chose her costume with extreme care, as she invariably did when it was necessary to arm herself for conquest. Radiant in pale blue cloth edged with sable, she presented herself at the offices of The Planet. There was a waiting-room at the end of a long corridor, and there she was bidden to sit; but instead of remaining behind a closed door, as soon as her guide was out of sight she began walking up and down near the stairway where Sir Edmund Foster must sooner or later pass. She had never seen the famous man, but she remembered his photograph in one of the illustrated papers.

Presently a tall, smooth-shaven, sallow man, with eagle features and bags under his keen eyes, came rapidly along the corridor, accompanied by a much younger, less impressive man, who might have been a secretary. Joan advanced, pretending to be absorbed in thought, then stood aside with a start of shy surprise and a look nicely calculated to express reverence of greatness. Sir Edmund Foster glanced at the apparition and let his eyes linger for a few seconds as his companion rang the bell of the lift, close to the wide stone stairway.

"When he hears that there is a young woman waiting to see him, he will remember me, and the recollection may influence his decision," thought Joan, who did not under-value her beauty as an asset.

Perhaps it fell out as she hoped (things often did), for she had not read more than three or four back numbers of The Planet, which lay on the waiting-room table, when Ralph Mainbridge, flushed and almost tremulous with excitement, came to say that Sir Edmund had consented to see her at once.

Without seeming as much overpowered as he expected, the girl prepared to enter the presence of greatness. But she was not in reality as calm as she appeared. The thunderous whirr of the printing-machines had almost bereft her of the capacity for thought, just at the moment when she wished to think clearly. Her nerves were twanging like the strings of a violin which is out of tune, and it was an intense relief to be shot up in the alarmingly rapid lift to a quieter region. The rumbling roar was deadened on Sir Edmund's floor, and as the door of his private office closed on her, it was shut out altogether.

"Miss Carthew, from Lord Northmuir," the famous editor-proprietor said. "I believe you have some interesting information for me." He smiled with a certain dry benignity, for Joan was very pretty, and he was, after all, a man. "I think I saw you downstairs."

"I saw you, Sir Edmund." Joan's manner was dignified now, rather than shy. "I trust you will not be angry, but within the last two hours everything has changed for me. Lord Northmuir, whom I know well through my cousin, Miss Mercy Milton, his ward (you may have heard of her; we are said to resemble each other), has now changed his mind about allowing the piece of information I meant for you to be published. He has forbidden his name to be used, but it was too late to stop that. I can only beg, for my cousin Miss Milton's sake more than my own, that you will not let the fact come to his ears; if it should, she will suffer."