"The girls told me yesterday," she said, "that Katie had written her father and asked him to discharge you, because you had been impudent enough to become acquainted with the exclusive young ladies of Tamawaca under false pretenses."
"But I didn't, Susie! I met them through your accident, and they never asked me how I earned a living."
"I know; but they forget that. They say you imposed upon them by assuming that you are a gentleman."
Jim laughed merrily.
"Where do you draw the line, Susie, between a gentleman and—and—what's the other thing?—an undesirable acquaintance?"
"Perhaps so. I don't draw the line, myself, so you must ask the girls to explain. Perhaps, now that you've become the private secretary of a famous lawyer, you will be cultivated instead of being snubbed. But I'm not sure of that."
Jim started work Monday morning and found his task no sinecure. Jarrod had a lot of correspondence to answer and a good many papers to be copied. Also there was an inventory to be made of the property covered by the option given by Easton and Wilder, and their books to be gone over. But Jim was both industrious and intelligent, and seemed to "fit the job" very well indeed.
Katie Glaston's triumph was brief. She had actually boosted Jim several pegs on the road to fortune, and when the girl discovered this she was so provoked that she left Tamawaca and went to visit friends at Spring Lake.
The other girls began to be properly ashamed of themselves, although the heiress refused to alter her opinion that "a poor young man had no business at a summer resort."
Gladys and Betty began nodding to Jim as he passed by, and although he returned the salutations with graceful politeness he never stopped or attempted to resume the old friendly relations. He had grown wonderfully fond of plain little Susie, who had remained his faithful adherent, and her society seemed just now fully sufficient to satisfy all his needs. He even took her to some of the dances, and found her a much more satisfactory partner than on that first evening when he met her and tested her accomplishments as a Terpsichore. She was still a bit awkward, but the little speeches they whispered to each other made them forget they were dancing until the music stopped and reminded them of the fact. The heiress had a new beau—a bulky blond named Neddie Roper—who was reputed a social lion and a railway magnate, although it afterward transpired he worked in the Pullman shops. Therefore Clara positively ignored "that Smith girl and her dry-goods clerk," who ought to have felt properly humiliated, but didn't.