Thus what threatened to be her greatest trial proved no trial at all.
On the last day of her first week, Mr. Stilson sent for her and gave her an order on the cashier for twelve dollars. “Are they treating you well?” he asked, his eyes kind and encouraging.
“Yes, you are treating me well.”
Stilson coloured.
“And I honestly don’t think I’ve earned so much money,” she went on.
“I’m not in the habit of swindling the owners of the Democrat,” he interrupted curtly.
Emily turned away, humiliated and hurt. “He is insulting,” she said to herself with flashing eyes and quivering lips. “Oh, if I did not have to endure it, I’d say things he’d not forget.”
She was sitting at her desk, still fuming, when he came out of his office and looked round. As he walked toward her, she saw that he was limping painfully. “Pardon me, Miss Bromfield,” he said. “I’m suffering the tortures of hell from this infernal rheumatism.” And he was gone without looking at her or giving her a chance to reply.
“So, it’s only rheumatism,” she thought, mollified as to the rudeness, but disappointed as to the office romance of the City Editor’s “secret sorrow.” She did not tell Miss Gresham of the apology, but could not refrain from saying: “I have heard that Mr. Stilson is rude because he is rheumatic.”
“That may have something to do with it. I remember when he got it. He was a writer then, and went down to the Oil River floods. The correspondents had to sleep on the wet ground, and endure all sorts of hardships. He was in a hospital in Pittsburg for two months. But there’s something else besides rheumatism in his case. Long before that, I saw——”