Club-women, patriotic women, stay-at-home women were followed by women from the poorer classes who had waited until their morning's work was done before coming to tell the Mayor how glad they were to have her back. Then noon came, bringing young women from the stores and offices and factories, all eager to add their bit of welcome; and the school children, to shake her hand and go home and tell of this wonderful day, which afterward became a memory for a lifetime. When four o'clock came, Gertrude prepared to go home; to rest and sleep in her own bed, worn out with the welcome of thousands of her people. Mary Snow had already succumbed to the demand on her energies and had gone an hour before.
"It's worth the whole gamut of experience," Gertrude said to herself as she closed her desk, "just to find out what it is to get at the heart of the American people. It's a great experience, and I shall be a better woman for it, all my days."
A step on the bare floor behind her. She looked up.
"I haven't had a chance to tell you in words how very, very glad I am," said Allingham, holding out his hand. "But—you know—"
"Yes," she said, taking it; "I know."
"Excuse me," said a voice, and a burly form pushed in from the outer office; "but I couldn't go home until I came to have one word with you, Miss Van Deusen. You don't—you can't believe I had anything to do with getting you into that scrape?"
"No, Newton, I never believed it for a minute," said the mayor, "not after I realized you were not there, sick and in trouble. I know you too well."
"Thank you," said Fitzgerald. "I'm ready to go on the witness stand for you, any time. More than that, I'll run down the rascals that played you such a d—d trick, if it takes the last cent I've got."