Emily’s thoughts were painful as she studied her fellow-journalist, “Why do women get themselves up in such rubbish?” she said to herself as she noted Miss Farwell’s slovenly imitation of an imported model. “And why don’t they make themselves clean and neat? and why do they let themselves get fat and pasty?” Miss Farwell’s hair was in strings and thin behind the ears. Her hands were not well looked after. Her face had a shine that was glossiest on her nose and chin. Her dress, with its many loose ends of ruffle and puff, was far from fresh. She looked a discouraged young woman of the educated class. And her querulous voice, a slight stoop in her shoulders, and soft, projecting, pathetic eyes combined to give her the air of one who feels that she is out of her station, but strives to bear meekly a doom of being down-trodden and put upon. “If ever she marries,” thought Emily, “she will be humbly grateful at first, and afterwards a nagger.”
In the hope of seeing a less depressing object, Emily sent her glance straying about the room. The men had suspended work and were watching her with interest and frank pleasure. “No wonder,” she thought, as she remembered her own neatness, the freshness and simplicity of her blue linen gown—she had been able to get it at a fashionable shop for fifty dollars because it was a model and the selling season was ended. In the far corner sat another woman. Miss Farwell, noting on whom Emily’s glance paused, said: “That is Miss Gresham. She’s a Vassar girl who came on the paper last year. She’s a favorite with Mr. Stilson, so she gets on.”
Miss Gresham looked up from her writing and Miss Farwell beckoned. Emily’s spirits rose as Miss Gresham came. “This,” she thought, “is nearer my ideal of an intelligent, self-respecting working woman,” Miss Gresham was dressed simply but fitly—a properly made shirt-waist, white and clean and completed at the neck with a French collar; a short plain black skirt that revealed presentable feet in presentable boots. She shook hands in a friendly business-like way, and Emily thought; “She would be pretty if her hair were not so severely brushed back. As it is, she is handsome—and so clean.”
“I was just going out to lunch. Won’t you come with me?” asked Miss Gresham.
“I don’t know what I’m permitted to do.” Emily looked toward Mr. Coleman’s desk. He was watching her and now called her. As she approached, his grin became faintly flirtatious.
“Here is a little assignment for you,” he said graciously, extending one of his unpleasant looking arms with a cutting from the Evening Journal held in the large, plump hand. As he spoke the door of Mr. Stilson’s office immediately behind him opened, and Mr. Stilson appeared.
“What are you doing there?” he demanded.
Coleman jumped guiltily. “I was just going to start Miss Bromfield.” His voice was a sort of wheedling whine, like that of a man persuading a fractious horse on which he is mounted and of which he is afraid.
“Let me see.” Stilson took the cutting. “Won’t do. Send her with Miss Gresham.” And he turned away without looking at Emily or seeming conscious of her presence. But she sent a grateful glance after him. “How much more sensible,” she thought, “than turning me out to wander helplessly about alone.”
Miss Gresham’s assignment was a national convention of women’s clubs—“A tame affair,” said she, “unless the delegates get into a wrangle. If men squabble and lose their tempers and make fools of themselves, it’s taken as a matter of course. But if women do the very same thing in the very same circumstances, it’s regarded as proof of their folly and lack of capacity.”