For one thing, her new friendship was proving interesting as none other had ever before interested her. Cicely had had many friends among the boys, and, later, among the young men of her acquaintance, but though they had been “jolly good fun,” as she put it, they were not especially interesting. She was easily the dominant one in every case; the chief interest afforded her by these youths was when they temporarily spoiled her theory of perfect comradeship between the sexes, which was devoid of sentiment, by falling in love with her, but this, although it interested her, displeased her. She invariably swung back into her faith in the possibility of a chum of the opposite sex, but it was annoying to find it so often a theory that failed only in its workings.
In G. Rodney Moore, Cicely had a friend of a totally new sort. He was older than she was, for one thing; he had seen immensely more of the world than she had, for another; he had read more than she had, let alone than any of her previous male friends. Most of all, he had an easy certainty of himself; an amused toleration of her insufficiently grounded opinions; a ready wit; great charm of face, voice and manner, so that, for the first time, Cicely found herself by no means able to hold the ascendency over him with which she had set out dealing with him, which had always, heretofore, been hers in dealing with young men. And, being essentially feminine beneath her boyish ways, she liked the man who dominated, while he admired her. There was much of the excitement of exploration for her in advancing constantly farther into friendship with this man.
Her work was also opening out new vistas to Cicely, daily demanding from her hitherto dormant capacity, skill of hand, but far more quickness of brain, judgment, discretion, all-around intelligence. It was transforming her day by day; although she did not definitely recognize this, yet its effect upon her was to increase the bewilderment of mind with which she was adjusting to new conditions, and to what was to prove the greatest experience of her life.
Cicely had been well educated with reference to practical ends; she and Nan had been superior to the majority of the girls amid whom they were employed; their position in the telephone exchange had been honorable, but not dignified. Now Cicely found herself surrounded by the portentous dignity of the private office of a lawyer who was, at the same time, a bank president, the great man of the city.
Solid men, both physically and financially solid, came to consult Mr. Lucas; Cis was gravely saluted by them as they entered and departed; she heard matters discussed which her keen wits soon showed her were of gravest importance in the money market, even in national affairs. All her former days had been lighted by nonsense for which she found opportunity among her companions; fun and nonsense were as the breath of life to Cicely Adair. Now from nine till four there was not only a complete dearth of opportunity to play, but the mere thought of trifling within those solemn, mahogany wainscoted walls, intruded like a profanation.
Cis was expected to be well-dressed, perfectly groomed—but this was natural to her. She was expected to take down any sort of dictation correctly, even to the dictation that she be elegantly correct in manner, reserved, silent, yet devoted, and this dictation was never given her directly but by the assumption that she was all these things. “I’m getting turned into a regular heavy damask, ten dollars a square inch,” she told Rodney.
It was true that this outward pressure inevitably had an inward effect upon the girl, yet nothing could ever quite subdue her native sense of humor, her frank friendliness to all the world.
“Miss Adair,” said Mr. Lucas one morning, “I have waited till we were mutually assured of your permanence in this office before initiating you into one of its secrets. You are quite sure that you desire to remain with me?”
“If I suit you, Mr. Lucas,” answered Cis. “I’m happy here, but I’m not sure how I’m coming on.”
“Satisfactorily, Miss Adair. On my part there is no question of severing the connection. Are you settled upon continuing?” Mr. Lucas looked at Cicely kindly, and she blushed with pleasure.