As fortune would have it, the senior partner, Mr. Baines, arrived soon after, and to him the head-clerk took his tale.
Mr. Baines heard him in silence. 'Mr. James says she's a very good clerk, and I should imagine she is trustworthy; but one never knows. I've never seen the young lady myself. They say she is good-looking and very proud,' he remarked at last.
'She is both, sir; in fact, she's the prettiest young lady I've ever seen in my life. But proud!—proud isn't the word for it; she positively freezes you up. She looked so odd when I asked her why she wanted the letters that, upon my word, I didn't half like it; one never knows with women, not the best of them, sir,' said the head-clerk.
Mr. Baines laughed. 'Anyway, I should not worry about it; you did quite right not to give the letters to her, and if Mr. James says anything to me about it I shall take your part. If he had wished her to open his correspondence he should have given her his written authority; it would never do if any clerk who liked could ask for our letters, and so I shall tell him,' he declared.
The head-clerk went away, and hoped that he had done right. And Stella waited, with what patience she could, for Mr. James Jones's arrival, which was not until half-past ten, when she heard his step along the passage—there was no mistaking it, because it was so light and springy, the step of a man who loved and lived as much as was possible in the country. In fact, Stella had owned to herself that if she had met him in society she should have taken him for a country gentleman or a sailor, certainly not for a business man, which he clearly was from choice, since Mrs. Ryan said that he was very rich, and that he could retire from business to-morrow.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE JUNIOR PARTNER.
Some months later it would have seemed impossible to Stella that she had worked herself into a state about such a trifle as a foolish letter from Vava to the junior partner, which, as she owned to herself, said nothing but the truth, for she knew she was stiff and proud, and that poverty made her stiffer and prouder, and that Mr. Jones knew it, and was far too friendly with Vava to resent her familiarity. But this morning the one thought that possessed her was that she must get that letter whatever happened. She could never face Mr. Jones after he had been asked by her younger sister to put up with her stiffness because she was poor and could not help it. So when his step was heard she just waited until he was in his office and had time to take off his hat and coat, and then she knocked at the door.
There was a murmur of voices within, and then the head-clerk opened the door, and said to Mr. Jones, 'Miss Wharton, sir.'