He took himself away with a radiant smile upon his face.
§ 5
It was evident Martin Devlin proposed to be a factor in her life. When he came to the office to see Mr. Kipps or Miss Holland about the engraving,—and the work brought him, or he pretended it brought him, two or three times a week—he never failed to step to Jeannette’s door, open it, and give her the benefit of his flashing teeth and handsome eyes as he wished her good-day or asked her how she was. He did not intrude further. His visits were only for a minute or two. Only once when she was looking for a letter in the filing cabinet, he came in and lingered for a chat. He saw she was not typing, therefore ready to talk to him since he was not interrupting her. When she went to lunch with Beatrice Alexander a week or two later at Wanamaker’s he joined the two girls by the elevators as they were leaving the lunch-room, pretending, Jeannette noticed, with a great air of surprise, that the meeting was merely a fortuitous circumstance. The subway had a few days before begun to operate. Jeannette had never ridden upon it, so Martin piloted her down the stone steps, boarded the train, and rode with her until they reached Thirty-fourth Street. Beatrice Alexander had said good-bye as they left Wanamaker’s.
Devlin had a confident, self-assured way with him. It could not be said he swaggered, but the word suggested him. He was easy, good-natured, laughing, cajoling, irresistibly merry. His good humor was contagious. Men smiled back at him; women looked at him twice. To the subway guard, to the sour-faced little Jew at the newsstand, to the burly cop with whom they collided as they climbed the stairs to the street, he was familiar, patronizing, jocular. He called the Italian subway guard “Garibaldi,” the Jewish newsdealer “Isaac,” the burly policeman “Sergeant.” One glance at him and each was won; it was impossible to resent his familiarity. Everybody liked him; he could say the most outrageous things and give no offense. It was that Irish charm of his, Jeannette decided, back once more at her desk and clicking away at her machine, that made people so lenient with him.
She began to speculate about him a good deal. It was clear he was in hot pursuit of her, and that he intended to give her no peace. He commenced to bring little boxes of candy which he slid on to her desk with a long arm when he opened her office door to say “Hello!” Then flowers put in their appearance: sweet bunches of violets, swathed in oiled paper, their stems wrapped in purple tinfoil, the fragrant ball glistening with brilliant drops of water; there were bunches of baby roses, too, and lilies-of-the-valley, and daffodils. One day she happened to mention she had never read “The Taming of the Shrew,” and the following morning there was delivered at her home a complete set of the Temple edition of Shakespeare’s plays. She protested, she threatened to throw the flowers out of the window, she begged him with her most earnest smile not to send her anything more. She was talking into deaf ears. The very next day she found on her desk two seats for a Saturday matinée with a note scribbled on the envelope: “For you and your mother next Saturday. Have a good time and think of Martin.”
In deep distress she told her mother about him, but Mrs. Sturgis shared none of her concern.
“Well, perhaps the young man is trying to be friends with you in the only way he knows how. I wouldn’t be too hasty with him, dearie. You say he’s with an engraving company? Is that a good line of work? Does he seem well-off,—plenty of money and all that?”
“Oh, Mama!” cried Jeannette, in mild annoyance.
“There’s no harm, my dear, in a nice rich young fellow admiring a pretty girl like my daughter. If the young man’s well brought up and means what’s perfectly right and proper, I don’t see what you can object to. You’ve got to marry one of these days, lovie; you must remember that. There isn’t any sense in tying yourself down to a desk for the rest of your life! You’ve got to think about a husband!”
“Well, I don’t want him!”