Marlitt’s Shoes
by
I
Through the open window the spring sunshine fell on Calvert’s broad back. Tennant faced the window, smoking reflectively.
“I should like to ask a favor,” he said; “may I?”
“Certainly you may,” replied Calvert; “everybody else asks favors three hundred and sixty-five times a year.”
Tennant, smoking peacefully, gazed at an open window across the narrow court-yard, where, in the sunshine, a young girl sat sewing.
“The favor,” he said, “is this: there is a vacancy on the staff, and I wish you’d give Marlitt another chance.”
“Marlitt!” exclaimed Calvert. “Why Marlitt?”
“Because,” said Tennant, “I understand that I am wearing Marlitt’s shoes–and the shoes pinch.”
“Marlitt’s shoes would certainly pinch you if you were wearing them,” said Calvert, grimly. “But you are not. Suppose you were? Better wear even Marlitt’s shoes than hop about the world barefoot. You are a singularly sensitive young man. I come up-town to offer you Warrington’s place, and your reply is a homily on Marlitt’s shoes!”
Calvert’s black eyes began to snap and his fat, pink face turned pinker.
“Mr. Tennant,” he said, “I am useful to those who are useful to me. I am a business man. I know of no man or syndicate of men wealthy enough to conduct a business for the sake of giving employment to the unsuccessful!”
Tennant smoked thoughtfully.
“Some incompetent,” continued Calvert, “is trying to make you uncomfortable. You asked us for a chance; we gave you the chance. You proved valuable to us, and we gave you Marlitt’s job. You need not worry: Marlitt was useless, and had to go anyway. Warrington left us to-day, and you’ve got to do his work.”
Tennant regarded him in silence; Calvert laid one pudgy hand on the door-knob. “You know what we think of your work. There is not a man in New York who has your chance. All I say is, we gave you the chance and you took it. Keep it; that’s what we ask!”
“That is what I ask,” said Tennant, with a troubled laugh. “I am sentimentalist enough to feel something like gratitude towards those who gave me my first opportunity.”
“Obligation’s mutual,” snapped Calvert. The hardness in his eyes, however, had died out. “You’d better finish that double page,” he added; “they want to start the color-work by Monday. You’ll hear from us if there’s any delay. Good-bye.”
His expression verged on the idiotic; they were a scared pair, and it was only when the bright flush of guilt flooded her face that he recovered his senses in a measure and took off his hat.
“I–I hadn’t the slightest notion that you would come,” he stammered. “This is the–the most amazing example of telepathy I ever heard of!”
“Telepathy?” she repeated, faintly.
“Telepathy! Thought persuasion! It’s incredible! It’s–it’s a–it was a dreadful thing to do. I don’t know what to say.”
“Is it necessary for you to say anything to–me?”
“Can you ever pardon me?”
“I don’t think I understand,” she said, slowly. “Are you asking pardon for your rudeness in speaking to me?”
“No,” he almost groaned; “I’ll do that later. There is something much worse–“
Her cool self-possession unnerved him. Composure is sometimes the culmination of fright; but he did not know that, because he did not know the subtler sex. His fluency left him; all he could repeat was, “I’m sorry I’m speaking to you–but there’s something much worse.”
“I cannot imagine anything worse,” she said.
“Won’t you grant me a moment to explain?” he urged.
“How can I?” she replied, calmly. “How can a woman permit a man to speak without shadow of excuse? You know perfectly well what convention requires.”
Hot, uncomfortable, he looked at her so appealingly that her eyes softened a little.
“I don’t suppose you mean to be impertinent to me,” she said, coldly.
He said that he didn’t with so much fervor that something perilously close to a smile touched her lips. He told her who he was, and the information appeared to surprise her, so it is safe to assume she knew it already. He pleaded in extenuation that they had been neighbors for a year; but she had not, apparently, been aware of this either; and the snub completed his discomfiture.