“You’d have to work around. A girl like you has got the——” (he fumbled and decided to be a plain American) “the entry everywhere. You’d feel around, listen to them talk, draw them out. There’s things a man can’t do.”
“Yes,” agreed Horatia, wisely, “there are.”
“Now of course a thing like that would be a trial column. Might not work out at all. Couldn’t be long-winded. And then, too, it isn’t worth an awful lot. But a girl like you, living at home, doing it for experience and pin-money, would realize that we couldn’t pay too much.”
His little eyes bored through her as he tried to feel her out. Horatia felt suddenly disgusted.
“I’ll think it over,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’m not sure I could do just what you want, but I’ll think it over. And come in in a day or so.”
The man seemed a little anxious to keep her and vaguely worried lest he had said too much.
“Our little journal tries to tell the truth,” was his parting comment and it followed Horatia sardonically down the stairs.
“You’re not an adventure,” thought Horatia, proceeding. “You’re a nasty, open debauch. My chances are narrowing.”
They narrowed further. The Evening Reporter was cleaner than the other two, more brusque, more businesslike. She could not see the editor. They needed no one. There remained the Evening Journal and that Horatia hardly knew by sight. She had bought a copy at the newsstand the other day when she was getting addresses and making her plans. It was a thinner sheet than the others and seemed to have a great deal of space for semi-philosophical editorials. A kind of labor journal she classified it and then felt that she had not been complete. It had hinted at Socialism but it was not Socialist frankly. Horatia knew the strong colors of Socialist publications, to a couple of which she subscribed, just as a matter of being open-minded.
There was no buzz or stir about the office of The Journal. It was high up in a kind of office building which fronted the lake, and its rooms seemed to be very few. In one a couple of typewriting machines with papers strewn about them were deserted. In the adjoining room, open in spite of a “private” sign on the door, a big desk was also deserted. At the back of the room a big window gave on the lake, ignoring the rush and noise of the brown streets below. Horatia looked around for someone and seeing nobody went to the window. She stood there, a little tired and reflective, thinking of the queerness of being in such a spot instead of in some big classroom or lecture hall or in the sedate comfort of West Park. The adventure spirit was wearying a little. What sort of places were these to see and feel life in? And how tawdry or how conventional one might become. She thought of Edna, speeding away with her husband on some luxurious train and wondered how she was feeling today. Suddenly she herself felt lonely and ignored. No one really cared where she was or what she was doing. It was glorious to be free but it would be—— She did not finish the thought, for someone came into the office and at the sound of his step she hurriedly turned to confront business or furtiveness or whatever might be there. She saw a tall man of about thirty-five with a lean face and slow, observing, cynical eyes.