And Audrey was not cut out for solitude. She did not mind poverty. She found it rather a relief to acknowledge what had always been the fact. But she did mind loneliness. And her idea of making herself over into something useful was not working out particularly well. She spent two hours a day, at a down-town school, struggling with shorthand, and her writing-table was always littered with papers covered with queer hooks and curves, or with typed sheets beginning:
“Messrs Smith and Co.,: Dear Sirs.”
Clayton Spencer met her late in December, walking feverishly along with a book under her arm, and a half-desperate look in her eyes. He felt a little thrill when he saw her, which should have warned him but did not.
She did not even greet him. She stopped and held out her book to him.
“Take it!” she said. “I've thrown it away twice, and two wretched men have run after me and brought it back.”
He took it and glanced at it.
“Spelling! Can't you spell?”
“Certainly I can spell,” she said with dignity. “I'm a very good speller. Clay, there isn't an 'i' in business, is there?”
“It is generally considered necessary to have two pretty good eyes in business.” But he saw then that she was really rather despairing. “There is, one 'i,'” he said. “It seems foolish, doesn't it? Audrey dear, what are you trying to do? For heaven's sake, if it's money?”
“It isn't that. I have enough. Honestly, Clay, I just had some sort of an idea that I'd been playing long enough. But I'm only good for play. That man this morning said as much, when we fussed about my spelling. He said I'd better write a new dictionary.”