But Jeannette did not care. She was delighted and in high spirits. This was just the kind of a job she wanted, just the sort of an atmosphere she longed for; she felt certain that, whatever they paid her at first, she would soon make them give her what she was worth.
When Roy arrived that evening there was great hilarity in the Sturgis household. He had never seen Jeannette in such wild spirits, or found her so affectionate with him. The coldness he sometimes met in her, the reserve, the unyieldingness, were all absent now. He pulled the shabby davenport up before the fire, and they sat holding hands, watching the dying fire flicker and flicker and finally flicker out, and when the light was gone she lay close against him, his arms about her, and every now and then, as he bent his head over her, she raised hers to his, and their lips met.
§ 6
Her desk, with those of the five other stenographers employed by the publishing company, was located on the floor above the editorial offices. Here were also the circulation and mail order departments. Light entered from three broad front windows but it was far from sufficient and thirty electric bulbs under green tin cones suspended by long wire cords burned throughout the day over the rows of desks and tables that filled the congested loft. At these were some hundred girls and women, and half a dozen men. In the rear, where the daylight failed almost completely to penetrate, the cones of electric radiance flooded the dark recesses brilliantly. Old Hodgson, who was in charge of the outgoing mail, there had his domain, and it was in this quarter that the lumbering freight elevator occasionally made its appearance with a bang and crash of opening iron doors. Toward the front, near the windows, and separated from the rest by low railings, were located the desks of Miss Holland and Mr. Max Oppenheim. The former was a tall, thin-faced woman with iron-gray hair and a distinguished voice and manner. Just what her duties were Jeannette could not guess. She had her own stenographer and was forever dictating, or going downstairs with sheaves of letters in her hands for conferences with Mr. Kipps. Oppenheim was the Circulation Manager. He was a Jew, intelligent and shrewd, with a pallor so pronounced it seemed unhealthy, further emphasized by a thick mop of coal-black glistening hair that swept straight back without a parting from his smooth white forehead. Jeannette thought she recognized in him a type to be avoided; but she never saw anything either in his manner toward her or the other girls at which to take exception.
There was one other individual in the room who had a department to herself. This was a chubby, bespectacled lady with an unpronounceable German name who presided over a huddle of desks and conducted the mail order department. No one ever seemed to have anything to say to her, nor did she in her turn appear to have anything to say to anyone. She plodded on with her work, unmolested, lost sight of. Sometimes Jeannette suspected that Mr. Corey and Mr. Kipps and the other men downstairs had forgotten the woman’s existence.
The stenographers with whom she was immediately and intimately thrown were distinctly of a better class than the girls who had been her associates in the Soulé Publishing Company. Miss Foster was red-headed and given to shouts of infectious mirth, Miss Lopez was Spanish, pretty and charming, Miss Bixby was a trifle hoidenish but good-natured, and Miss Pratt was frankly an old maid for whom life had been obviously a hard and devastating struggle; there remained Miss La Farge, who, Jeannette suspected, was not of the world of decent women; her be-ribboned lingerie was clearly discernible through her sheer and transparent shirtwaists, and she was given to rouge, lavish powdering, and strong scent.
The first day in her new position was as difficult as Jeannette anticipated. She knew she gave the impression of being cold and condescending, but her shyness would not permit her to unbend. The girls were politely distant with her at first, but Jeannette was fully aware that each and every one of them was alive to her presence, and everything they did and said was for her benefit.
She made an early friend of Miss Holland. The tall woman stopped at her desk in passing, smiled pleasantly at her and asked if everything was going all right. Something of quality, of good breeding in the older woman’s face brought the girl to her feet, and it was this trifling act of courtesy that won Miss Holland’s approval and favor, which Jeannette never was to lose.
There were plenty of girls scattered among the tables where the business of folding circulars, addressing envelopes, and writing cards went on, who were of the high-heeled, pompadoured, sallow-skinned variety with which Jeannette was already familiar, but these persons came and went with the work; few of them were regular employees.
When a stenographer was needed in the editorial department a buzzer sounded upstairs and the girl next in order answered the summons. Miss Foster usually took Mr. Corey’s dictation and also that of his secretary, Mr. Smith, but the other girls went from Mr. Featherstone to Mr. Kipps to Miss Reubens and to the rest as they were required.