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Becky would have corrupted a really industrious person, but a bilious temperament like Ardessa’s couldn’t make even a feeble stand against such willingness. Ardessa had grown soft and had lost the knack of turning out work. Sometimes, in her importance and serenity, she shivered. What if O’Mally should die, and she were thrust out into the world to work in competition with the brazen, competent young women she saw about her everywhere? She believed herself indispensable, but she knew that in such a mischanceful world as this the very powers of darkness might rise to separate her from this pearl among jobs.

When Becky came in from lunch she went down the long hall to the wash-room, where all the little girls who worked in the advertising and circulation departments kept their hats and jackets. There were shelves and shelves of bright spring hats, piled on top of one another, all as stiff as sheet-iron and trimmed with gay flowers. At the marble wash-stand stood Rena Kalski, the right bower of the business manager, polishing her diamond rings with a nail-brush.

“Hullo, kid,” she called over her shoulder to Becky. “I’ve got a ticket for you for Thursday afternoon.”

Becky’s black eyes glowed, but the strained look on her face drew tighter than ever.

“I’ll never ask her, Miss Kalski,” she said rapidly. “I don’t dare. I have to stay late to-night again; and I know she’d be hard to please after, if I was to try to get off on a week-day. I thank you, Miss Kalski, but I’d better not.”

Miss Kalski laughed. She was a slender young Hebrew, handsome in an impudent, Tenderloin sort of way, with a small head, reddish-brown almond eyes, a trifle tilted, a rapacious mouth, and a beautiful chin.

“Ain’t you under that woman’s thumb, though! Call her bluff. She isn’t half the prima donna she thinks she is. On my side of the hall we know who’s who about this place.”

The business and editorial departments of “The Outcry” were separated by a long corridor and a great contempt. Miss Kalski dried her rings with tissue-paper and studied them with an appraising eye.

“Well, since you’re such a ‘fraidy-calf,'” she went on, “maybe I can get a rise out of her myself. Now I’ve got you a ticket out of that shirt-front, I want you to go. I’ll drop in on Devine this afternoon.”

When Miss Kalski went back to her desk in the business manager’s private office, she turned to him familiarly, but not impertinently.

“Mr. Henderson, I want to send a kid over in the editorial stenographers’ to the Palace Thursday afternoon. She’s a nice kid, only she’s scared out of her skin all the time. Miss Devine’s her boss, and she’ll be just mean enough not to let the young one off. Would you say a word to her?”

The business manager lit a cigar.

“I’m not saying words to any of the high-brows over there. Try it out with Devine yourself. You’re not bashful.”

Miss Kalski shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

“Oh, very well.” She serpentined out of the room and crossed the Rubicon into the editorial offices. She found Ardessa typing O’Mally’s letters and wearing a pained expression.

“Good afternoon, Miss Devine,” she said carelessly. “Can we borrow Becky over there for Thursday afternoon? We’re short.”

Miss Devine looked piqued and tilted her head.

“I don’t think it’s customary, Miss Kalski, for the business department to use our people. We never have girls enough here to do the work. Of course if Mr. Henderson feels justified–“

“Thanks awfully, Miss Devine,”–Miss Kalski interrupted her with the perfectly smooth, good-natured tone which never betrayed a hint of the scorn every line of her sinuous figure expressed,–“I will tell Mr. Henderson. Perhaps we can do something for you some day.” Whether this was a threat, a kind wish, or an insinuation, no mortal could have told. Miss Kalski’s face was always suggesting insolence without being quite insolent. As she returned to her own domain she met the cashier’s head clerk in the hall. “That Devine woman’s a crime,” she murmured. The head clerk laughed tolerantly.