To her great surprise and joy, the article was accepted, and she received a check for fifteen dollars, the first money she had ever earned in her life. Realizing that she had been lucky, she made a quick follow-up with an account of conditions in the House of Detention for Women, of which I happened to be a member of the visiting board. This brought another and larger check, and a polite note from the City Editor, asking her to call on him at the Recorder office.
Then the incredible thing happened. As Nora Nolan, she got a job on the Recorder, and was assigned to write daily signed articles, at space rates; brief word pictures of the inside workings of the various city institutions. Her earnings now, at the least, would amount to forty dollars a week. She was given part-time use of a desk and typewriter, which she shared with an oldish, pleasant-mannered woman, who conducted a column for housewives.
What happened after this had all the accessories of fiction. The first day on her job, late in the afternoon, she was seated at her desk, in a far corner of the general news-room, nervously picking at the keys of a dilapidated typewriter, and trying to bring order out of the chaos of notes, taken at random during an inspection of the Children's Clearing Bureau. Conscious of the curious, covert glances of a dozen or so men and women reporters working in the room, she began to feel terribly embarrassed and nervous; she couldn't concentrate on her notes. But she kept picking away. Then suddenly she became conscious of another and closer gaze. She looked up, and met McGinity's amazed and inquiring eyes. Something seemed to fill her throat; she tried to swallow but the lump would not go down.
Then suddenly her courage returned, for she had caught in his glance something contemptuous. She held out a small hand, and he took it for an instant and released it.
"I hope you're well, Bob," she said. "I haven't seen you for several weeks. At least, you might say you're glad to see me."
"I congratulate you," he said, a little sternly.
"Oh, that's nice," she rejoined. "I feel that I have you to thank for what I'm doing now."
"I have done nothing," he said.
"Oh, but you have, Bob!" she replied. "You've been my inspiration. Otherwise, how could I have turned to newspaper writing practically over-night? I never knew it was in me, really, to do reporting. I've only written a few insignificant things, but your City Editor liked them, and he's given me regular employment. Isn't it wonderful that—"
"That what?" he interrupted, sourly.