The door was already half open.
"Reference before Murray. Back at one," was all Mr. Juddson deigned to say.
"Alexander!" cried Mrs. Tarbell,—when the office-boy was in, she called her brother Mr. Juddson,—"Alexander!"
"Well?" said Mr. Juddson. He was late as it was.
"You will make the office very cold if you leave the door—but never mind. Don't let me keep you. I only wanted to tell you that I should like to talk to you about something some time to-d—" The rest of the sentence was lost upon Mr. Juddson, who had already shut the door behind him, and Mrs. Tarbell felt aggrieved.
So much aggrieved, in fact, that she found it impossible to return to the law-journal.
"I suppose I need a sedative," she said to herself. "If I were a man, I would put my feet up on the table and light a cigar, or—no! I would never practise that vilest form of the vice." (What she meant by this last phrase I cannot imagine, unless she referred to something which Mr. Juddson had been driven to do because he could not very well smoke while his sister was in the office.) "What," continued Mrs. Tarbell, "what can there be to recommend the position?" She looked at the desk.
"Is it an easy position?" she said. She looked down at her feet.
"Is it even a graceful position?" She swung herself to and fro on her revolving-chair.
She looked about her. The office was empty; the office-boy had gone on a very long errand. "I will try it," she said, with determination.