Thus simply she found herself established in San Francisco. Her first venture into the St. Francis had been no more exciting. After a panic-stricken plunge into its magnificence she was accepted noncommittally by the day-operator, a pale girl with eye-glasses, who was already putting on her hat. She turned over a few unsent messages, gave Helen the cash-box and rate-book, and departed.
Thereafter Helen met her daily, punctually at five o'clock, and saw her leave. Helen rather looked forward to the moment. It was pleasant to say, "Good evening," once a day to some one.
In the afternoon she walked about, looking at the city, and learned to know many of the streets by name. She discovered the public library and read a great deal. The library was also a pleasant place to spend Sundays, being less lonely than the crowded parks, and if the librarian were not too busy one might sometimes talk to her about a book.
The dragging of the days, as much as her need for more money, had driven her to asking for extra work at the main office. But here, too, she had been dropped into the machine and put down before her telegraph-key, with barely a hurried human touch. A beginner, rated at forty-five dollars, she replaced a seventy-five-dollar operator on a heavy wire, and the days became a nerve-straining tension of concentration on the clicking sounder at her ear, while the huge room with its hundreds of instruments and operators faded from her consciousness.
Released at four o'clock, she ate forlornly in a dairy lunch-room and hurried to the St. Francis. Here, at least, she could watch other people's lives. Gazing out at the changing crowd in the hotel corridor she let her imagination picture the romances, the adventures, at her finger-tips. A man spoke cheerfully to the cigar-boy while he lighted his cigarette at the swinging light over the news-stand counter. He was the center of a scandal that had filled the afternoon papers, and under her hand was the message he had sent to his wife, denying, appealing, swearing loyalty and love. A little, soft-eyed woman in clinging laces, stepping from the elevator to meet a plump man in evening dress, was there to put through a big mining deal with him. The ends of the intrigue stretched out into vagueness, but her telegrams revealed its magnitude.
Helen's cramped muscles stirred restlessly. There was barely room to move in the tiny office, crowded with table and chair and wastebasket. Spaciousness was on the other side of the counter.
She snatched the pencil from the counter and began a letter to Paul. Her imagination, at least, was released when she wrote letters.
Dear Paul:
I wonder what you are doing now! It's eight o'clock and of course you've had your supper. Your mother's probably finishing up the kitchen work and putting the bread to rise, and you haven't anything to do but sit on the porch and look at the stars and the lighted windows here and there in the darkness, and listen to the breeze in the trees. And here I am, sitting in a place that looks just like a hothouse with all the flowers come to life. There's a ball up-stairs, and a million girls have gone through the corridors, with flowers and feathers and jewels in their hair, and dresses and evening cloaks as beautiful as petals. How I wish you could see them all, and the men, too, in evening dress. They're the funniest things when they're fat, but some of the slim ones look like princes or counts or something.
What kind of new furniture was it your mother got? You've never told me a word about the place you're living since you moved, and I'm awfully interested. Do please tell me what color the wall-paper is and the carpets, and the woodwork, and what the kitchen is like, and if there are rose-bushes in the yard. Did your mother get new curtains, too? There is a lovely new material for curtains just out—sort of silky, and rough, in the loveliest colors. I see it in the store windows, and if your mother wants me to I'd love to price it, and get samples for her.