Over on Pennsylvania Avenue at Fifteenth Street government clerks and secretaries were leaving the Treasury Building. They glanced up at the clearing skies and set off in their several directions. Helen Pitts paused a moment at the top of the steps. She and Elsie Baker usually walked home together; but Elsie did not come, so Helen started walking rather slowly down the street.
It was nice to stroll along like this after the busy day. Her work had settled into a regular routine. Life in the civil service was by no means dull. There was always the possibility of being let in on some “important secret.” Anything could and often did happen in Washington.
And now there was not even the slightest chance of her getting homesick. Her first lodging place had been respectable enough, but she used to look forward to times when she could go home. Now she was thinking about having her mother come down and spend a week with her. She’d love it.
Her good luck had come on a particularly cold night when Elsie, whom she knew then only as the Senior Clerk, had spoken to her.
“You have an awfully long ways to go, don’t you, Miss Pitts?”
“Yes, it is far. But it’s only in weather like this that I really mind it.”
Mrs. Baker—she was a war widow—regarded her for a few minutes and then murmured, “I wonder!”
“You wonder what?” asked Helen pleasantly.
“I was just wondering if maybe Miss Amelia wouldn’t let you have Jessie Payne’s room.”
“And why should I have Jessie Payne’s room? I don’t know the lady.”