“So Freda stayed for a while,” he said, as they went down the street his arm hanging heavy with her suit-case.
“Yes. It will be nice for her. Pleasant young girls, Mrs. Brownley’s girls, although they haven’t a great deal of mentality. Freda attracted quite a little attention. Miss Duffield is very anxious for her to stay in St. Pierre but of course Miss Duffield is an outsider and cannot exert any influence. Mrs. Flandon had some very sensible suggestions. They were going to see if there was a chance for Freda to get a place as secretary to the general Republican district committee and later do some work for the campaign committee. She can’t typewrite and that’s a drawback but they thought they might get around that. She’ll know in a day or so. It needs the consent of the chairman and he’s out of the city. But he’ll probably do just what Mrs. Flandon asks.”
“In the meantime Freda stays at Mrs. Brownley’s?”
“Yes, and if she stays for a definite work, Mrs. Flandon will find her a place to live.”
“The Flandons are nice people?”
“Oh, yes, a worldly sort, but very good. Mrs. Flandon is to be made delegate at large from the state if they can manage it.”
“That’s good stuff.”
“She’s hardly the person for it,” said Mrs. Thorstad. “As a matter of fact I am convinced that if this visiting organizer, Miss Duffield, who after all is in a most anomalous position, had not urged it (she is an intimate friend of Mrs. Flandon’s)—well, if she had not interfered I might have been made the delegate at large myself. As it is, I’ll have to try to get the Federated clubs to send me. I ought to be there. It’s important for the future. I should have been the candidate for delegate at large.”
Her husband whistled and shifted the bag to his other arm.
“I’m very glad you were saved that grave responsibility, Addie,” he said, with his unfailing tact.