Anne rose on her toes, because the look in the full, brown eyes above her forced her to throw her scorn straight into them.
"No. I shall not be able to get them out in prose—nor—in any other way—after to-night. I—I—sha'n't be taking any more at all."
"No?" he said softly, the look changing to a touch that passed hotly all over the surface of her body. "I'm extremely sorry."
"I—I—couldn't work here another day," Anne squeaked, furious at the ridiculous picture she must make, poised upon her toes, like a silly little bantam pecking in a rage.
"You needn't explain, Miss Mitchell, I understand—perfectly." And, without moving his eyes, Anne felt them now include Roger Barton. "I beg your pardon for suggesting it. Of course you couldn't—under the circumstances. I assure you—I understand."
"Oh," Anne gasped in a cracking whisper that reached only to John Lowell and deepened his touch-like look, "you are—rotten."
Then, feeling the tears rushing to her eyes, she dropped to her heels and walked back to her desk.
The telephone summoned John Lowell. Roger Barton hesitated as if he were coming to her, but she put a sheet of paper quickly into the machine and he left the room. The office routine closed over the incident.
From long practice Anne's fingers worked with accurate independence, but, beyond their flying movement, her brain tried to put in order the chaos of her thoughts. She had given up her job, the best job she had had in the five years of her working life. In another half hour she would go out of the office, never to return. She would go home and tell her people. Into the heat of her mood, this need to tell her people fell like a small, cold lump of lead. Something within herself would drive her to try to make them understand, and only one fact would emerge clearly to them—she had lost her job.
At five-thirty, Anne laid the last letter on John Lowell's desk. As she put on her things, she knew that he was aware of every motion without directly looking at her.