Miss Gresham stopped short, seemed irritated against herself, and changed the subject abruptly.
Emily timidly joined the crowd at the cashier’s window and, when her turn came, was much disconcerted by the sharp, suspicious look which the man within cast at her. She signed and handed in her order. He searched through the long rows of envelopes in the pay drawer—searched in vain. Another suspicious look at her and he began again. “I’m not to get it after all” she thought with a sick, sinking feeling—how often afterward she remembered those anxious moments and laughed at herself. The cashier’s man searched on and presently drew out an envelope. Again that sharp look and he handed her the money. She could not restrain a deep sigh of relief.
She went home in triumph to Theresa and displayed the ten dollar bill and the two ones as if they were the proofs of a miracle. “It’s a thrilling sensation,” she said, “to find that I can really do something for which somebody will pay.” She remembered Stilson’s rudeness. “It was not so bad after all,” she thought. “He convinced me that I had really earned the money. If he’d been polite I should have feared he was giving it to me out of good-nature.”
“Oh, you’re getting on all right,” said Theresa. “I saw Marlowe last night at Delmonico’s. Frank and I were dining there, and he stopped to speak to us. I asked him about you, and—shall I tell you just what he said?”
“I want to know the worst.”
“Well, he said—of course, I asked about you the first thing—and he said that he and your City Editor had been dining at the Lotos Club—Mr. Stilson, isn’t it? And Mr. Stilson said: ‘If she wasn’t so good-looking, there might be a chance of her becoming a real person.’ Marlowe says that’s a high compliment for Mr. Stilson, because he is mad on the subject of idle, useless women and men. And, Mr. Stilson went on to say that you had judgment and weren’t vain, and that you had as much patience and persistence as Miss—I forget her name——”
“Was it Gresham?” asked Emily.
“No—that wasn’t the name. Was it Tarheel or Farheel or Farville—no—it was——”
“Oh.” Emily looked disappointed and foolish. She had seen Miss Farwell an hour before—patient and persevering indeed, but frowzier and more “put upon” than ever.
“Yes—Miss Farwell. Who is she?”