At twelve o'clock the tension relaxed. Men from the different departments poured into the streets and sought the cafes and restaurants of the neighbourhood. A few, however, always remained in the building. For that hour they were no longer slaves. The head bookkeeper, an old man, stretched his legs, glad to get down from his high stool; one of the stenographers, with flying fingers resumed her work on a little red jacket for Lulu. Even Emil was affected by the sudden contagion of idleness that swept the building. Leaving the model of his press, he took time to stare from the windows at the roofs of New York. But despite his interest in his work these surroundings were beginning to tell upon him. One day in July, unable to bear the heat, he staggered out into the passage to get a drink from a pail of water that stood there. He was lifting the dripping dipper to his lips, when a pair of eyes met his with a sort of shock. When he stumbled back into the little den, Annie Lawless, springing up from a chair in her father's office, followed him.
"What's the matter?" she cried sharply, as he sank down with his head bowed on the work-bench. She started to summon someone, but a second glance at his pale face with tiny beads of perspiration around the nostrils, caused her to change her mind. She passed swiftly to the door and closed it. Then, detaching a jewelled smelling-bottle from her belt, she held it under his nose with her little shaking hand. When Emil came to himself, he saw bending over him a delicate face shaped like a pear, the cheeks white almost as his own. This face was furnished with soft open lips, like an infant's, and, by contradiction, with two blue eyes which, for the moment, looked into his with an almost maternal solicitude.
"Are you better?" The question was blended with the odour of violets, subtle and overpowering, with the gleam of diamonds, with the touch of a soft fabric, warm with life, beneath his cheek.
The next instant he sat up, flushing all over. And Annie Lawless blushed too.
"Yes, I'm all right, perfectly right," he muttered, and tried to laugh. "It's only this infernal heat," supporting his head in a strange fashion as if he feared it would drop off.
"Yes, it is awfully hot," Annie answered. "Is that the model for the cylinder press?" she asked presently. "I've heard Father speak of your inventions."
Emil, whose head was still giddy, had a childish wish that she would come near him again and put those hands, covered with rings, on his brow. He looked at her as she stood speaking. When she turned sidewise he noticed dreamily how small her waist was, he believed he could span it with his two hands; and her nose was slightly hooked, which combined with her quick movements, gave her somewhat of the appearance of a bird.
"I've heard Papa say that he thinks your press is going to be a big thing," she continued, "but I should think he ought to give you a better place to work in."
At these words Emil roused himself. He had not known before that Mr. Lawless believed in the press. "Why yes, if I had a decent place to work in—" he began.
"Papa ought to pay you more money," she said with conviction. "Why, he used to have a man who invented things and he gave him special rooms and a fine salary besides. Papa says a man with the inventive bee in his bonnet isn't fit to look after himself. But that man was," she concluded, "for he left Papa one day in the lurch and went to inventing things on his own account, and since then he has made a pile of money. You'll do that too if they aren't careful."