"I have made up my mind," quoth Dorothy, the moment Richard was inside the door, and speaking in the loud, dead-level monotone which she conceived to be the voice for business conversations as against the giggling, gurgling ups and downs of conversations purely social, "I have made up my mind to come in every morning and help Uncle Pat. I'm tired of being a useless encumbrance."
Delivering which, Dorothy wore the resolved manner of a new Joan of Arc who had come seeking fields of politics rather than those of war.
"And I have been of use to you, haven't I, Uncle Pat?" demanded Dorothy.
"Of measureless use, dear," said Senator Hanway. Then, turning to his secretary, who had taken a score of letters shorthand and was about to seek his own quarters and run them off upon the typewriter: "Have those copied by three o'clock and bring them here for signature."
Senator Hanway had no more than given Richard good-morning when Senator Loot was announced.
"He won't stay long," said Senator Hanway; "but while he's here, dear, won't you take Mr. Storms into the library?" This request was preferred to Dorothy.
"Yes," began Dorothy, when she and Richard found themselves in the library, and nothing to interrupt them but the distant slumbrous rumble of Senator Loot. "Yes, I'm going to help Uncle Pat. And I'm going to learn how to be a newspaper woman, too. I think every girl should be capable of earning her own living. Not that I expect to be obliged to do so; but it is best to be prepared." Dorothy's face was funereal, as though disasters, clawed and fanged, were roaming the thickets of the future to spring upon her. "So I shall learn the newspaper trade; go in and be a writer as you are—only not so brilliant—and then, if it were necessary, I could earn my own way."
Now Richard knew these industrious resolutions to be the veriest webs of subterfuge. Their duplicity was apparent, and they were spun for him. Dorothy owned no thought of missing his morning calls, and had met Senator Hanway's courtesies of the veranda door with a move in flank. The news cocked up the spirits of Richard excessively, and gave to his Farnese shoulders an insolent swing as he strutted up and down the library. He had expected Dorothy to reproach him for the soft violence done her fingers; but she made no mention of it. Whereupon—in such manner do unchecked iniquities multiply upon themselves—Richard turned towards her with a purpose of again outraging those little fingers with the burden of a fresh caress. The little fingers, grown wary, however, were in discreet retirement behind Dorothy, as, with her back to the window, she stood facing him. Defeated in his campaign against the fingers before it had begun, Richard was driven to discuss Dorothy's work-a-day resolves.
"Newspaper work? Do society, I suppose?"
Richard had gotten hold of the idioms of the craft, and spoke of "doing society" as though reared among the types.