And then, sitting calmly with his silvery head against a Washington's Birthday poster so that three scarlet cherries stuck above him in the manner of a scalp-lock, he said something else remarkably real:
"I have—we have—a little matter of business to discuss with you to-morrow night, my dear; an offer, I may say, of a different line of work. And I want you to satisfy yourself thoroughly—thoroughly, my dear child, of my reputableness. Mr. Johnstone, the chief of the city library, whose office I believe to be in this branch, is one of my oldest friends. I am, I think I may say, well known as a lawyer in this my native city. I should be glad to have you satisfy yourself personally on these points, because——" could it be that the eminently poised Mr. De Guenther was embarrassed? "Because the line of work which I wish, or rather my wife wishes, to lay before you is—is a very different line of work!" ended the old gentleman inconclusively. There was no mistake about it this time—he was embarrassed.
"Oh, Mr. De Guenther!" cried Phyllis before she thought, out of the fulness of her heart, catching his arm in her eagerness; "Oh, Mr. De Guenther, could the Very Different Line of Work have a—have a rose-garden attached to it anywhere?"
Before she was fairly finished she knew what a silly question she had asked. How could any line of work she was qualified to do possibly have rose-gardens attached to it? You can't catalogue roses on neat cards, or improve their minds by the Newark Ladder System, or do anything at all librarious to them, except pressing them in books to mummify; and the Liberry Teacher didn't think that was at all a courteous thing to do to roses. So Mr. De Guenther's reply quite surprised her.
"There—seems—to be—no good reason," he said, slowly and placidly, as if he were dropping his words one by one out of a slot;—"why there should not—be—a very satisfactory rose-garden, or even—two—connected with it. None—whatever."
That was all the explanation he offered. But the Liberry Teacher asked no more. "Oh!" she said rapturously.
"Then we may expect you to-morrow at seven?" he said; and smiled politely and moved to the door. He walked out as matter-of-coursely as if he had dropped in to ask the meaning of "circumflex," or who invented smallpox, or the name of Adam's house-cat, or how long it would take her to do a graduation essay for his daughter—or any such little things that librarians are prepared for most days.
And instead—his neat gray elderly back seemed to deny it—he had left with her, the Liberry Teacher, her, dusty, tousled, shopworn Phyllis Braithwaite, an invitation to consider a Line of Work which was so mysteriously Different that she had to look up the spotless De Guenther reputation before she came!
One loses track of time, staring at a red George Washington poster, and wondering about a future with a sudden Different Line in it.... It was ten minutes past putting-out-children time! She stared aghast at the ruthless clock, then created two Monitors for Putting Out at one royal sweep. She managed the nightly eviction with such gay expedition that it almost felt like ten minutes ago when the place, except for the pride-swollen monitors, was cleared. While these officers watched the commonalty clumping reluctantly upstairs toward the umbrella-rack, the Liberry Teacher paced sedately around the shelves, giving the books that routine straightening they must have before seven struck and the horde rushed in again. It was really her relieving officer's work, but the Liberry Teacher felt that her mind needed straightening, too, and this always seemed to do it.
She looked, as she moved slowly down along the shelves, very much like most of the librarians you see; alert, pleasant, slender, a little dishevelled, a little worn. But there was really no librarian there. There was only Phyllis Narcissa—that dreaming young Phyllis who had had to stay pushed out of sight all the seven years that Miss Braithwaite had been efficiently earning her living.