“Surely.”
“Well, here’s the stuff. Just single-space that introductory spiel at the top, will you?”
Una rudely turned out of her typewriter a form-letter which she was writing for S. Herbert Ross, and began to type Walter’s publicity, her shoulders bent, her eyes intent, oblivious to the steady stream of gossip which flowed from stenographer to stenographer, no matter how busy they were. He needed her! She would have stayed till midnight. While the keys burred under her fingers she was unconsciously telling herself a story of how she would be working half the night, with the office still and shadowy, of how a dead-white face would peer through the window near her desk (difficult of accomplishment, as the window was eight stories up in air), of how she was to be pursued by a man on the way home; and how, when she got there, her mother would say, “I just don’t see how you could neglect me like this all evening.” All the while she felt herself in touch with large affairs—an article by the Governor of the State; these very sheets that she was typing to go to famous newspapers, to the “thundering presses” of which she had read in fiction; urgency, affairs, and—doing something for Walter Babson.
She was still typing swiftly at five-thirty, the closing hour. The article was long; she had at least two hours of work ahead. Miss Moynihan came stockily to say good-night. The other stenographers fluttered out to the elevators. Their corner became oppressively quiet. The office-manager gently puttered about, bade her good-night, drifted away. S. Herbert Ross boomed out of his office, explaining the theory of advertising to a gasoleny man in a pin-checked suit as they waddled to the elevator. The telephone-girl hurried back to connect up a last call, frowned while she waited, yanked out the plug, and scuttled away—a creamy, roe-eyed girl, pretty and unhappy at her harassing job of connecting nervous talkers all day. Four men, editors and advertising-men, shouldered out, bawling over a rather feeble joke about Bill’s desire for a drink and their willingness to help him slay the booze-evil. Una was conscious that they had gone, that walls of silence were closing about her clacking typewriter. And that Walter Babson had not gone; that he was sharing with her this whispering forsaken office.
Presently he came rambling out of the editorial-room.
He had taken off his grotesque, great horn-rimmed glasses. His eyes were mutinous in his dark melancholy face; he drew a hand over them and shook his head. Una was aware of all this in one glance. “Poor, tired boy!” she thought.
He sat on the top of the nearest desk, hugged his knee, rocked back and forth, and said, “Much left, Miss Golden?”
“I think I’ll be through in about two hours.”
“Oh, Lord! I can’t let you stay that late.”
“It doesn’t matter. Really! I’ll be glad. I haven’t had to stay late much.”