The senior clerk rushed forward and transfixed the new boy with a glare.
"A new boy, Mrs. Wrandall," he made haste to explain. To the new boy's surprise, the visitor was conducted with much bowing and scraping into the private offices, where no one ventured except by special edict of the powers.
"Who was it?" he asked, in some awe, of a veteran stenographer who came up and sneered at him.
"Mrs. Challis Wrandall, you little simpleton," said she, and for once he failed to snap back.
It is of record that for nearly two whole days, he was polite to every visitor who approached him and was generally worth his salt.
Sara found herself in the close little room that once had been her husband's, but was now scrupulously held in reserve for her own use. Rather a waste of space, she felt as she looked about the office. The clerk dusted an easy chair and threw open the long unused desk near the window.
"We are very glad to see you here, madam," he said. "This room hasn't been used much, as you may observe. Is there anything I can do for you?"
She continued her critical survey of the room. Nothing had been changed since the days when she used to visit her husband here on occasions of rare social importance: such as calling to take him out to luncheon, or to see that he got safely home on rainy afternoons. The big picture of a steamship still hung on the wall across the room. Her own photograph, in a silver frame, stood in one of the recesses of the desk. She observed that there was a clean white blotter there, too; but the ink wells appeared to be empty, if she was to judge by the look of chagrin on the clerk's face as he inspected them. Photographs of polo scenes in which Wrandall was a prominent figure, hung about the walls, with two or three pictures of his favourite ponies, and one of a ragged gipsy girl with wonderful eyes, carrying a monkey in a crude wooden cage strapped to her back. On closer observation one would have recognised Sara's peculiarly gipsy-like features in the face of the girl, and then one would have noticed the caption written in red ink at the bottom of the photograph: "The Trumbell's Fancy Dress Ball, January 10, '07. Sara as Gipsy Mab."
With a start, Sara came out of her painful reverie. She passed her hand over her eyes, and seemed thereby to put the polite senior clerk back into the picture once more.
"No, thank you. Is Mr. Redmond Wrandall down this afternoon?"