But the bitterness of living in that house, on terms which she felt were charity, increased daily. She tried to make as little trouble as possible, stealing in at the back door so that no one would have to answer her ring, making her bed neatly, and slipping out early so that she would not meet any of the family. She spent her evenings at the office or at the library, where she could forget herself in books and in writing long letters. For some inexplicable reason this seemed to exasperate Mrs. Campbell, who inquired where she had been and did not hide a belief that her replies were lies. Helen felt like a suspected criminal. She would have left the house if she could have found another room that she could afford.
It was only at the office that she could breathe freely. She worked from eight in the morning to six at night, and then until the office closed at nine o'clock she could practise on the telegraph instrument behind the tables where the real wires came in. She worked hard at it, for at last she was on the road to the little station where she would work with Paul. She felt that she could never be grateful enough to Mr. Roberts for giving her the chance.
He was very kind. Often he came behind the screen where she was studying and talked to her for a long time. He was surprised at first by her working so hard. He seemed to think she had not meant to do it. But his manner was so warmly friendly that one day when he took her hand, saying, "What's the big idea, little girl—keeping me off like this?" she told him about everything but Paul. She told him about the farm and the mortgage and the failure of the fruit crop, even, shamefaced, about Mr. Weeks' drinking, and that she did not know what she would have done if she had not got the job. She was very grateful to him and tried to tell him so.
He said drily not to bother about that, and she felt that she had offended him. Perhaps her story had sounded as if she were begging for more money, she thought with burning cheeks. For several days he gave her a great deal of hard work to do and was cross when she made mistakes. She did her best, trying hard to please him, and he was soon very friendly again.
His was the only friendliness she found to warm her shivering spirit, and she became daily more grateful to him for it. Though she was puzzled by his displays of affectionate interest in her and his sudden cold withdrawals when she eagerly thanked him, this was only part of the bewildering atmosphere of the office, in which she felt many undercurrents that she could not understand.
The young operator with the green eye-shade, for instance, always regarded her with a cynical and slightly amused eye, which she resented without knowing why. When she laid messages beside his key, he covered her hand with his if he could, and sometimes when she sat working he came and put his hand on her shoulder. She was always angry, for she felt contempt in his attitude toward her, but she did not know how to show her resentment without making too much of the incidents.
"Mr. McCormick, leave me alone!" she said impatiently. "I want to work."
"Just what is the game?" he drawled.
"What do you mean?" she asked, reddening under that cool, satirical gaze. He looked at her, grinning until she felt only that she hated him. Or sometimes he said something like: "Oh, well, I'm not butting in. It's up to you and the boss," and strolled away, whistling.
Much looking at life from the back-door keyhole of the telegraph-operator's point of view had made him blasé and wearily worldly-wise at twenty-two. He knew that every pretty face was moulded on a skeleton, and was convinced that all lives contained one. Only virtue could have surprised him, and he could not have been convinced that it existed. When he was on duty in the long, slow evenings, Helen, practising diligently behind her screen, heard him singing thoughtfully: