“Madame be damned! Let her wait! Why, confound it, Sarah, you don’t realize what this thing means! I’ve been waiting for just something like this. Wait till I tell you something.”
In the excited talk that followed, all Vinnie Smith was really aware of was the iteration of that magic word “gutter.” She stood in a kind of trance, clairvoyante, a delicate smile illuminating her.
Before her was a little boy. He was polishing a nickel on his trousers. How his eyes were dancing with pride in his discovery! Then he vanished. When she turned to Littleton, there was a look of victory on her face.
She left the theater that night, feeling as if, after crawling through a dark, mile-long tunnel, she had miraculously come out into the sunshine, to greet suddenly the half-forgotten figure of—Jean Caspian!
HOW familiar, yet how strange, the office seemed! She felt like a grandmother revisiting the scenes of her youth. Annie, the red-headed typist, had gone, yet the keys of her machine were still playing the same old tune. A new office-boy, but the same old song: “Mr. Littleton’s not seeing any folks to-day.”
How natural it sounded! But Vinnie Smith’s card worked a charm. Two mummies came to life and gaped as she calmly opened the magic door marked “Private.”
“Good afternoon. Just be seated, please,” said Littleton. He went on giving orders right and left. A messenger-boy was hurried off. A dozen letters were glanced at and rubber-stamped. Then he swung round in his chair.
“Can you keep a secret, young lady?”
Vinnie blushed. “That’s what I’ve been doing for the last eight months.”