'Doubtless. He's cutting down expenses. I mind, of course, after all these years. I've worked very hard. And on the money side, I shall mind a little.'
'You don't mean——'
'Oh, yes. Half the former wage. And they don't pension old teachers in Sunbury. But this is what I want to tell you——'
'Oh, but Miss Dittenhoefer, I don't——'
'Never mind, Henry; it's done. Of course I shouldn't have said as much as this. Though perhaps I had to say it to somebody. Forget what you can of it. But now—I wanted to give you this list. There's a good lot of society for summer. Never knew the old town to be so gay. Two or three things in South Sunbury that are important. They feel that we've been slighting them down there this year. I've noted everything down. And I've written the church societies, asking them to send announcements direct to the office after this.'
'I don't want your work,' said Henry, colouring up. 'It ain't—isn't—square.'
'But it's business, Henry. Mr. Boice explained that in his note. You'll find I've written everything out in detail—all my plans and the right ladies to see. Good-bye now.'
Henry, pained, unable to believe that Miss Dittenhoefer's day could pass so abruptly, walked moodily back to Stanley's and, as usual, bolted his lunch. The unkindness to Miss Dittenhoefer directly affected himself. It meant still more of the routine desk-work and more running around town.
Then, slowly, as he sat there staring at the pink mosquito-bar that was gathered round the chandelier, his eyes filled. It was hard to believe that even Mr Boice could do a thing like that to Miss Dittenhoefer. Coolly cutting her pay in half! It seemed to Henry wanton cruelty. It suggested to his sensitive mind other tales of cruelty—tales of the boys who had gone into Chicago wholesale houses for their training and had found their fresh young dream-ideals harshly used in the desperate struggle of business.
Henry, I am certain, thought of Mr Boice at this moment with about as much sympathy as a native of a jungle village might feel for a man-eating tiger. That look about Miss Dittenhoefer's mouth when she smiled! It was a world, this of placid-appearing Sunbury and the big city, just below the town line, in which men fought each other to the death, in which young boys were hardened and coarsened and taught to kill or be killed, in which women were tortured by hard masters until their souls cried out.