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At her own desk Ardessa sat down breathless and trembling. The one thing she had never doubted was her unique value to O’Mally. She had, as she told herself, taught him everything. She would say a few things to Becky Tietelbaum, and to that pigeon-breasted tailor, her father, too! The worst of it was that Ardessa had herself brought it all about; she could see that clearly now. She had carefully trained and qualified her successor. Why had she ever civilized Becky? Why had she taught her manners and deportment, broken her of the gum-chewing habit, and made her presentable? In her original state O’Mally would never have put up with her, no matter what her ability.

Ardessa told herself that O’Mally was notoriously fickle; Becky amused him, but he would soon find out her limitations. The wise thing, she knew, was to humor him; but it seemed to her that she could not swallow her pride. Ardessa grew yellower within the hour. Over and over in her mind she bade O’Mally a cold adieu and minced out past the grand old man at the desk for the last time. But each exit she rehearsed made her feel sorrier for herself. She thought over all the offices she knew, but she realized that she could never meet their inexorable standards of efficiency.

While she was bitterly deliberating, O’Mally himself wandered in, rattling his keys nervously in his pocket. He shut the door behind him.

“Now, you’re going to come through with this all right, aren’t you, Miss Devine? I want Henderson to get over the notion that my people over here are stuck up and think the business department are old shoes. That’s where we get our money from, as he often reminds me. You’ll be the best-paid girl over there; no reduction, of course. You don’t want to go wandering off to some new office where personality doesn’t count for anything.” He sat down confidentially on the edge of her desk. “Do you, now, Miss Devine?”

Ardessa simpered tearfully as she replied.

“Mr. O’Mally,” she brought out, “you’ll soon find that Becky is not the sort of girl to meet people for you when you are away. I don’t see how you can think of letting her.”

“That’s one thing I want to change, Miss Devine. You’re too soft-handed with the has-beens and the never-was-ers. You’re too much of a lady for this rough game. Nearly everybody who comes in here wants to sell us a gold-brick, and you treat them as if they were bringing in wedding presents. Becky is as rough as sandpaper, and she’ll clear out a lot of dead wood.” O’Mally rose, and tapped Ardessa’s shrinking shoulder. “Now, be a sport and go through with it, Miss Devine. I’ll see that you don’t lose. Henderson thinks you’ll refuse to do his work, so I want you to get moved in there before he comes back from lunch. I’ve had a desk put in his office for you. Miss Kalski is in the bookkeeper’s room half the time now.”

Rena Kalski was amazed that afternoon when a line of office boys entered, carrying Miss Devine’s effects, and when Ardessa herself coldly followed them. After Ardessa had arranged her desk, Miss Kalski went over to her and told her about some matters of routine very good-naturedly. Ardessa looked pretty badly shaken up, and Rena bore no grudges.

“When you want the dope on the correspondence with the paper men, don’t bother to look it up. I’ve got it all in my head, and I can save time for you. If he wants you to go over the printing bills every week, you’d better let me help you with that for a while. I can stay almost any afternoon. It’s quite a trick to figure out the plates and over-time charges till you get used to it. I’ve worked out a quick method that saves trouble.”

When Henderson came in at three he found Ardessa, chilly, but civil, awaiting his instructions. He knew she disapproved of his tastes and his manners, but he didn’t mind. What interested and amused him was that Rena Kalski, whom he had always thought as cold-blooded as an adding-machine, seemed to be making a hair-mattress of herself to break Ardessa’s fall.

At five o’clock, when Ardessa rose to go, the business manager said breezily:

“See you at nine in the morning, Miss Devine. We begin on the stroke.”

Ardessa faded out of the door, and Miss Kalski’s slender back squirmed with amusement.

“I never thought to hear such words spoken,” she admitted; “but I guess she’ll limber up all right. The atmosphere is bad over there. They get moldy.”

* * * * *

After the next monthly luncheon of the heads of departments, O’Mally said to Henderson, as he feed the coat-boy:

“By the way, how are you making it with the bartered bride?”

Henderson smashed on his Panama as he said:

“Any time you want her back, don’t be delicate.”

But O’Mally shook his red head and laughed.

“Oh, I’m no Indian giver!”

Century, May 1918