“One of the women down at the office,” Emily said, and hurried on with: “What else did Marlowe say?”
“That’s all, except that he wanted us four to dine together soon. When can you go—on a Sunday?”
“No, Monday—that’s my free day. I took it because it is also Miss Gresham’s day off. She’s the only friend I’ve made downtown thus far.”
Marlowe came to Emily’s desk one morning in her third week on the Democrat. “What did you have in the paper to-day?” he asked, after he had explained that he was just returned from Washington and Chicago.
“A few paragraphs,” she replied, drawing a space slip from a drawer and displaying three small items pasted one under the other.
“Not startling, are they?” was Marlowe’s comment. “I’ve asked Miss Duncan to bring you to dine with Demorest and me—the postponed dinner. But I’d rather dine with you alone. I don’t think Demorest shines in your society; then, too, we can talk shop. I’ve a great deal to say to you, and I think I can be of some use. We could dine in the open air up at the Casino—don’t you like dining in the open air?”
Emily had been brought up under the chaperon system. While she had no intention of clinging to it, she hesitated now that the occasion for beginning the break had come. Also, she remembered what Marlowe had said to her at her door. She wished that she were going unchaperoned with some other man first.
“There’s a prejudice against the Casino among some conventional people,” he said. “But that does not apply to us.”
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of that,” and she accepted.
She asked Miss Gresham about him a few hours afterward.