IV
IN GAY BOHEMIA
The office door opened with a rush and shut with a bang. In the little whirlwind caused by the draught it made, the papers on our desks rose, swirled in the air, and played tag upon the floor. Everybody but me stopped work and glanced up to nod or frown at the woman who had come in. I did not stop. I knew too well who it was. There was only one person on the Searchlight whose entrance caused that sort of commotion. Besides, I had heard the whisper of silk petticoats, and smelled the strong odor of peau d'Espagne which always preceded Miss Mollie Merk to her desk.
Mollie Merk was Mr. Hurd's most sensational woman reporter—the one who went up in air-ships and described her sensations, or purposely fell in front of trolley-cars to prove that the fenders would not work. She was what she herself called a "breezy writer," but her breeziness did not exhaust itself in her literature. She was a breezy person generally—small and thin and dark, and so full of vitality that she always arrived anywhere as if she had been projected by some violent mechanical force. She spoke very rapidly, in short explosive sentences. She openly despised the young and made epigrams about them to show her scorn. Before I had been on the Searchlight a week she announced that I would be endurable if I had a redeeming vice; and our fellow-reporters went around quoting that remark and grinning over it. After I had written a few "big stories" her manner changed to one of open wonder, and she began to call me "the convent kid" and give me advice, addressing me as if I were an infant class. When she was in the same room with me I felt that she was mentally patting my head. I appreciated her kind heart and her value to the Searchlight; but I did not really like Mollie Merk.
Usually when she catapulted into the office she exchanged a few shouts of greeting with "the boys" and then went directly to her desk, where she dropped into her chair like a bag of ballast from a balloon, and began to write with a pen that scratched louder than any other. But to-night she followed the peau d'Espagne across the room to me and clapped her hand on my shoulder.
"'Lo, Iverson," she said, in her loud and breathless way. "Still on the job? 'Can' it. I'm your vesper-bell."
I felt myself instinctively drop away from her hand. In her greeting she had done two things I particularly disliked. She had called me "Iverson"—it was a vulgar habit of hers to address other women by their last names—and she had spoken of something connected with my convent life, which was too sacred to be joked about. Still, I knew she meant well. I looked up at her and tried to smile, but all I could do was to drag one side of my mouth down to my chin in humble imitation of Mr. Hurd when he is talking to a member of the staff. Mollie Merk seemed to appreciate it. She roared, and her hand clapped my shoulder again.
"Cheer up, Iverson," she said. "Worst's yet to come." And she added, all in one breath, "I'm-going-to-give-a-party-for-you!"
I dropped my pen and turned in my chair to stare at her.
"Been meaning to do it right along," she jerked out. "Couldn't pull it off. To-night's my chance. Nothing to do. Fell down on my story. Hurrah! Give you a Bohemian dinner. Show you life outside the cloister. Purple pasts. Crimson presents. All the rest of it. Make your hair curl and your eyes stick out. Come on!"
Her words gave me a thrill, on which I immediately put down the stern brake of conscience. As a student of life I wanted to see and learn all I could—especially as I intended to be a nun in three years and would have no further chances. But was I justified in deliberately turning aside to seek such knowledge, when in the broad path of my daily duty I was already acquiring more than one person could understand? Also, would it be right to accept Mollie Merk's hospitality when I did not approve of her? I decided that it would not; and I tried to think of some polite and gracious way of declining her invitation, but the right words did not come. I had no social engagements, for I was still a stranger in New York, and Mollie Merk knew it; and I had not learned to tell lies with unstudied ease.