“Will you do me the favour, madam, to try it in my presence?”
“No,” she murmured; “please don’t ask me. I’d really rather not.” Again the suggestion of strain—of suffering.
“At least,” said he, “oblige me by looking at this.”
He held before her the few lines he had typed. She had averted her head during the minute he had been at work; and it was now with evident reluctance, and some force put upon herself, that she acquiesced. But the moment she raised her eyes, her face brightened with a distinct expression of relief.
“Yes,” she said; “I know there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m sure it’s all my fault. But—but, if you don’t mind. So much depends on it.”
Well, the girl was pretty; the manager was human. There were a dozen young women, of a more or less pert type, at work in the front office. I dare say he had qualified in the illogic of feminine moods. At any rate, the visitor walked off in a little with a machine presumably another than that she had brought.
“Professional?” I asked, to the manager’s resigned smile addressed to me.
“So to speak,” said he. “She’s one of the ‘augment her income’ class. I fancy it’s little enough without. She’s done an occasional job for us. We’ve got her card somewhere.”
“Can you find it?”
He could find it, though he was evidently surprised at the request—scarce reasonably, I think, seeing how he himself had just given me an instance of that male inclination to the attractive, which is so calculated to impress woman in general with the injustice of our claims to impartiality.