The Man in the Twilight

by Ridgwell Cullum

She was a happy blending of soul and mentality. Heredity seemed to have done its best for her. The Gaelic fire and the brilliance and irresponsibility of her misguided father seemed to have been balanced and tempered by the gentle woman soul of her mother. And through the eyes of both she gazed out upon the world, inspired and supported by a tireless nervous energy.

Since the memorable day of her interview with her appointed trustee, Charles Nisson, her development had been rapid. The events which had suddenly been flung into her life at the interview seemed to have unloosed a hundred latent, unguessed emotions in her child heart, and translated her at once into a thinking, high-spirited woman.

She honestly strove to banish bitterness against the man who had deprived her of that mother love which had been her childhood's treasure, but always a shadow of it remained to colour her thought, and influence her impulse. She had studied the deed of settlement as she had promised. She had studied it coldly, dispassionately. She had looked upon it as a mere document aimed to benefit her, without regard for her feelings for the man who had made it. She had thought over it at night when passion was less to be controlled. She had consulted those she had been bidden to consult, and had listened to, and had weighed their kindly advice. And when all was done she took her own decision as she was bound to do. It was a decision that had no relation to reason, only to passionate impulse.

She would not accept the things the deed offered her. She would not accept this reparation so coldly held out. She would not live a leisured, vegetable life, with no greater ambition than to marry and bear children. The simple prospect of marriage and motherhood could never satisfy in itself. That would be a happy incident, but not the whole, and acceptance of that deed would surely have robbed her of the rest.

There were times when she felt the disabilities of her sex. She knew she was deprived of the physical strength which the battle of life seemed to demand. But to her the world was wide, and big, and, in her girl's imagination, teeming with appealing adventure. The world alone could not satisfy her.

Once her decision was taken all the kindly efforts of her mentors at Marypoint were rallied in her support. They had advised out of their wisdom, but acted from their hearts. And the day on which the principal of the college notified her that the Skandinavia Corporation of Quebec had signified its willingness to absorb her into its service as typist and stenographer, at one hundred dollars per month, was the happiest she had known since her well-loved mother had been taken out of her life.

Now, after three years of unwearying effort, there was still no shadow to mar her happiness, or temper her enthusiasm. On the contrary, there was much to stimulate both. In that brief period she had succeeded almost beyond her dreams. Was she not already the trusted, confidential secretary to the ruling power in the great offices of the Skandinavia Corporation? Had she not been taken out of the ranks of the many capable stenographers, and been given a private office, a doubled salary, and work to do which left her wide scope for the play of those gifts with which she was so liberally endowed? Yes. All these things had been showered upon her in three years. She was a figure of authority in the great establishment. And furthermore, the man she served—this man, Elas Peterman—had hinted, and even definitely talked of, further rapid promotion.

She had worked hard for it all. Oh, yes. She had worked morning, noon, and night. When other girls had been content to study fashions and styles, and chatter "beaus" and husbands, she had given herself up to the study of the wood-pulp trade, and the world's market of the material she was interested in. She had saturated herself with the whole scheme, and purpose, and methods of her employers, till, as Peterman himself had once told her in admiration at her grasp of the business, she knew as much of the trade as he did himself. And even after that her mirror, that oracle of a woman's life, failed to yield her the real truth it is always ready to tell to its devotees.

The pre-occupation suddenly passed out of the girl's eyes. She stirred. Then she stood up and collected a number of papers into a small leather attaché case. A moment later she pressed the bell push on the desk.

Her summons was promptly answered by a slim figured girl, with fair hair, and "jumpered" in the latest style.