A little boy's just come in with a toy balloon, and it got away from him and it's bumping up around on the gilded ceiling, and I wish you could hear him howl. It must be fun for the balloon, though, after being dragged around for hours, tugging all the time to get away, to escape at last and go up and up and up—
I felt just like that this morning. Just think, Paul, I sent the last of the hundred dollars home, and another fifty besides! Isn't that gorgeous? I'm making over ninety dollars a month now, with my extra work at SF office, and my salary here—
She paused, biting her pencil. That would give him a start, she thought. He had been so self-satisfied when he got his raise to being day-operator and station-agent. She had not quite got over the hurt of his taking it without letting her know that the night-operator's place would be vacant. He had explained that a girl couldn't handle the job, but she knew that he did not want her to be working with him.
In the spring, she thought, she would be able to get some beautiful new clothes and go home for a visit. Paul would come, too, when he knew she would be there. He would see then how well she could manage on a very little money. In a few months more she would be able to save enough for a trousseau, tablecloths, and embroidered towels—
"Blank, please!" A customer leaned on the counter. She gave him the pad and watched him while he wrote. His profile was handsome; a lock of fair hair beneath the pushed-back hat, a straight forehead, an aquiline nose, a thin, humorous mouth. He wrote nervously, dashing the pencil across the paper, tearing off the sheet and crumpling it impatiently, beginning again. When he finished, shoving the message toward her with a quick movement, he looked at her and smiled, and she felt a charm in the warm flash of his eyes. His nervous vitality was magnetic.
She read the message. "'G. H. Kennedy, Central Trust Company, Los Angeles. Drawing on you for five hundred. Must have it. Absolutely sure thing this time. Full explanations follow by letter. Gilbert.' Sixty-seven cents, please," she said. She wished that she could think of something more to say; she would have liked to talk to him. There was about him an impression of something happening every instant. When, turning away, he paused momentarily, she looked at him quickly. But he was speaking to the rival operator.
"Hello, kid!"
"On your way," the girl replied imperturbably. Her eyes laughed and challenged. But with an answering smile he went past, and only his hat remained visible in glimpses through the crowd. Then it turned a corner and was gone.
"Fresh!" the girl murmured. "But gee, he can dance!"
Helen looked at her with interest. She was a new girl, on relief duty. The regular operator for her company was a sober, conscientious woman of thirty, who studied German grammar in her leisure moments. This one was not at all like her.