At exactly five minutes before ten, Martha came cool-skinned from the dampness. If Jean was in bed, Martha always sat for a few moments on the edge. They never had anything particular to talk about, because nothing ever happened in the interim of her absence. But in these visits, Martha would strip bits of the sermon from their religious setting and offer them off-hand to Jean's intelligence. She never urged Jean to go to service, but Jean knew that in this simulated comradeship on the bed, her mother was trying to keep her in touch with "holy things," to counteract in a small part the godlessness of her days. And sometimes it made her want to cry; the little figure, carefully stripping away the phrases that annoyed, and trying to link up some old, dead form with the rush of life, was so alone in all that meant most to it. Alone with God and unaware of loneliness. So content with nothing.
It was after a particularly depressing Sunday in January that Jean came back to work on Monday morning with so fixed a certainty of becoming in the end like Miss MacFarland, that not even the relief of an unexpected blue sky after days of rain, and respite of lunch in the park had been able to dispel it. Now, in mid-afternoon, she stood by the open window, waiting for Timothy with a fresh supply of books. It was one of those perfect days between rains when sunshine filters clean air, and cool little breezes lurk in the shade. The narrow strip of lawn below the window sent up a spicy sweetness that made Jean resent the walls about her, three more hours of cataloguing and all the restrictions that hemmed one in against one's will. The air had a livingness in it that mocked any gratitude for these few moments she was free to enjoy it. Looking up at the fleecy tufts of white clouds drifting in the blue, Jean felt as a very poor person feels watching the wasteful extravagance of the rich. Something in her called to the perfect freedom of the little clouds, the inexhaustible blueness in the sky, the tingle in the air. She felt stifled, held by something she could not see, kept from something she had never had.
Jean was decidedly cross. She wondered whether, if she told Miss MacFarland she was ill and wanted to leave earlier, because it was such a lovely day, the thick brown eyes would bore into the truth, and what would happen if they did? Would Miss MacFarland ever forgive an assistant who wanted to stop working because there were little white clouds in the sky?
"Oh Lord!" Jean leaned out the window, drawing deep sniffs of the damp earth.
"Miss Norris."
Jean jerked back quickly and the blood flooded under her fair skin at the sight of the Chief Librarian standing beside her.
"Miss Norris, this is Mr. Herrick. Franklin Herrick of the Sunday Times."
He beckoned to some one still in the shadow of the storeroom and the next moment a tall man with a young face and thick fair hair stood looking at Jean. Jean never knew afterwards whether it was her own embarrassment or not, but in that first glance at Franklin Herrick she had a strange impression of receiving a very distinct picture of something naturally indistinct. He gave a feeling of great physical strength and yet looked as if he would always be too lazy to use it. His eyes were clear, deep blue and far apart, as if he went through life seeing very clearly. But the lower part of his face was heavy and his mouth contradicted his eyes. It was soft and full and not at all hidden under a small, close-cropped mustache. There was something large and curved and whitish about this tall man standing before her, with the faintest touch of amusement in his eyes, that made Jean think of the big gulls that circled over the ferryboat night and morning. She bowed slightly and wished she could stop blushing.
"Mr. Herrick is doing some special work and will need Division Z 21, which I understand is not yet catalogued. If you have no objection he might work down here, as Miss MacFarland tells me you are on Z 21 now and it would save him time."
The Chief Librarian spoke in a dry, thirsty tone and with fixed pauses, so that one got the impression of hearing the punctuation. And although he asked permission, his tone conveyed that Franklin Herrick would work in the basement whether it were convenient to Jean or not.