“Oh yes, sure! Lemme tell you, a lady can’t be none too careful about her reputation with one of them skinny, dark devils like a Dago snooping around.”
“Why, you’re absolutely ridiculous! Besides, how do you know Mr. Babson is bad? Has he ever hurt anybody in the office?”
“No, but they say—”
“’They say’!”
“Now don’t you go and get peeved after you and me been such good friends, Miss Golden. I don’t know that this Babson fellow ever done anything worse than eat cracker-jack at South Beach, but I was just telling you what they all say—how he drinks and goes with a lot of totties and all; but—but he’s all right if you say so, and—honest t’ Gawd, Miss Golden, listen, honest, I wouldn’t knock him for nothing if I thought he was your fellow! And,” in admiration, “and him an editor! Gee!”
Una tried to see herself as a princess forgiving her honest servitor. But, as a matter of fact, she was plain angry that her romance should be dragged into the nastiness of office gossip. She resented being a stenographer, one who couldn’t withdraw into a place for dreams. And she fierily defended Walter in her mind; throbbed with a big, sweet pity for her nervous, aspiring boy whose quest for splendor made him seem wild to the fools about them.
When, just at five-thirty, Walter charged up to her again, she met him with a smile of unrestrained intimacy.
“If you’re going to be home at all this evening, let me come up just for fifteen minutes!” he demanded.
“Yes!” she said, breathlessly. “Oh, I oughtn’t to, but—come up at nine.”