Patience did not find her paragraphs as easy as she expected. It was one thing to work on a given idea, and another to supply idea and execution both; but after a time her sharpened brain grew more magnetic and life fuller of ideas than of lay figures. The men in the office frequently gave her tips, and one clever young reporter, who worshipped her from afar, fell into the daily habit of presenting her with a slip of suggestions.
Her choicest paragraphs were usually edited by Steele’s ruthless hand, and now and again she was moved to wrath. Upon such occasions Mr. Steele merely smiled, and she was forced to smile in return or retire with the sulks.
VIII
Patience was writing busily in her little bedroom. The March winds were howling down the street. Her door opened, and a very elegant young woman entered.
“Hal!” cried Patience.
“You dear bad girl!”
They kissed a half dozen times, then sat down and looked at each other. Hal had quite the young married woman air, and held herself with a mien of conscious importance, entirely removed from conceit: she was grande dame, and the late object of attentions from smart folks abroad.
“Well, how are you?” asked Patience. “Oh, but I am glad to see you. Tell me all about yourself. When did you get back?”
“Day before yesterday. I’ve returned with thirty-two trunks, the loveliest jewels you ever saw, and quite a slave of a husband. I must say I never thought Latimer would keep up such a prolonged bluff, but he fills the rôle as if he’d been husbanding all his life. Oh, no. Don’t look at me like that. I’ve forgotten it, and I’ve no regrets. Mon Dieu! To think that I might be in Boston on four hundred a month! I shall be a leader, my dear. You can do as much with a hundred and fifty thousand a year as you can with a million, for you can only spend just so much money anyhow. All that the big millionaires get out of their wealth is notoriety. Nobody’d remember about them if it wasn’t for the newspapers. But you bad bad girl! What have you been and gone and done? Why didn’t you wait for me? I would have rescued you.”
“Oh, you couldn’t, Hal dear. I didn’t want to be rescued for a day or a month. I’ve run away for good and all.”