The interest lessened as three days went by, and the apathy deepened. “It’s my state of mind, Glorious Lutie,” she apprised the miniature. “It’s this weight that’s on my spirit. It’s fear. Just as soon as I can get my mind off—I mean just as soon as I become convinced that I’m never going to be bothered again, it will go, I’m sure. Of course I can’t help feeling as I do. But I ought not to. I’m perfectly safe now. In a few days those crooks won’t trouble about me any more. It will be too late. And I know it.”
She reiterated those last two sentences as though Glorious Lutie were a difficult person to convince. The next morning, however, came diversion. Work—roofing—began on the shed just under her window. Susannah watched the workmen with an interest that held, at first, an element of determined concentration. The roofers, an elderly man and a younger one, incredibly dirty in their blackened overalls, which were soon matched by face and hands, were very conscious at first of the brilliant tawny head just above. Once, muffled by the window, she caught an allusion to white horses. But Susannah ignored this; continued to watch them disappearing and emerging through the open skylight, setting up their melting-pot, arranging their sheets of tin.
Before she was out of bed next morning they were making a metallic clatter with their hammers. In her normal state, Susannah was a creature almost without nerves. She even retained a little of the child’s enjoyment of a racket for its own sake. But now—the din annoyed her, annoyed her unspeakably. She crept languidly out of bed, peeped through the edge of the curtain. They were just beginning work. It would keep up all day.
“I can’t stand this!” said Susannah aloud; and then began one of her wordless addresses to the miniature.
“I guess the time has come, anyhow, to strike into pastures new. Behold, Glorious Lutie, your Glorious Susie descending from the high and mighty position of pampered secretary to that of driven slave. Tomorrow morn I apply for a job as second girl. If it weren’t for this headache, I’d do it today.”
However, the hammering only intensified her headache; she must get outside. So when the landlady arrived with her breakfast, Susannah inquired for the address of the nearest employment office. She dressed, and descended to the street. As always, of late, she had a shrinking as she stepped out into the open world of men and women. When she had controlled this, she moved with a curious apathy to the old, battered ground-floor office with yellow signs over its front windows, where girls found work at domestic service. Presently, she was registered, was sitting on a long bench with a row of women ranging from slatternly to cheaply smart. She scarcely observed them. That apathy was settling deeper about her spirits; her only sensation was her dull headache. Somehow, when she sat still it was not wholly an unpleasant headache. Then the voice of the sharp-faced woman at the desk in the corner called her name. It tore the veil, woke her as though from sleep. She rose, to face her first chance—a thin, severe woman with a mouth like a steel trap.
This first chance furnished no opening, however; neither, as the morning wore away, did several other chances. The process of getting a second maid’s job was at the same time more difficult and less difficult than she had thought. Susannah had forgotten that people always ask servants for references. She had supposed her carefully worked out explanation would cover that situation—that she had been a stenographer in Providence; that she had come to New York soon after the Armistice was signed, hoping for a bigger outlook; that the returning soldiers were snapping up all the jobs; that she had tried again and again for a position; that her money was fast going; that she had been advised to enter domestic service. Housekeepers from rich establishments and the mistresses of small ones interviewed her; but the lack of references laid an impassable barrier. In the afternoon, however, luck changed. A suburbanite from Jamaica, a round, grizzled, middle-aged woman, desperately in need of a second girl, cut through all the red-tape that had held the others up. “You’re perfectly honest,” she said meditatively, “about admitting you’ve had no experience, and you look trustworthy.”
“I assure you, madam,”—Susannah was eager, but wary; not too eager. She even laughed a little—“I am honest—so honest that it hurts.”
“The only thing is,” her interlocutor went on hesitatingly; “you must pardon me for putting it so bluntly; but we might as well be open with each other. I’m afraid you’ll feel a little above your position.”
“Well,” Susannah responded honestly, “to be straightforward with you, I suppose I shall. But I give you my word, I’ll never show it. And that’s the only thing that counts, isn’t it?”