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“Er-r-r—Hang it, let’s be conversational! I find myself lots dumber than an oyster. Or a fried scallop. ”

She laid her elbows on the table, smiled inquiringly, suggested: “Very well. But tell me who you are. And what does your office do? I’ve decided you dealt in Christmas mottoes. You have cardboard things round the walls. ”

He was eloquent about the Carstop Indicator. The device was, it seemed, everything from a city guide to a preventive of influenza. All traction magnates who failed to introduce it were—

“Now I shall sell you a lot at Floral Heights,” she interrupted.

“Oh, you’re right. I’m office mad. But it really is a good thing. I handle the Eastern territory. I’m a graduate—now I shall be autobiographical and intimate and get your sympathy for my past—I come from Shef. —Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. My father was a chemical engineer, and I wrote one poem, at the age of eleven, and I have an uncle in Sing Sing for forgery. Now you know all about me. And I want to know if you really are Emily?”

“Meaning?”

“I didn’t—er—exactly call you Emily because of my mother, but because the name means old gardens and a charming family. I have decided that your father was either a bishop or a Hartford banker. ”

She was exploring hors d’oeuvres. She laid down her fork and said evenly: “No. My father was a mill superintendent in Fall River. He was no good. He drank and gambled and died. My mother was quite nice. But there is nothing romantic about me. I did have three years in college, but I work because I have to. I have no future beyond possibly being manager of the girls in some big office. I am very competent but not very pleasant. I am horribly lonely in New York, but that may be my fault. One man likes me—a man in my office. But he laughs at my business ambitions. I am not happy, and I don’t know what’s ahead of me, and some day I may kill myself—and I definitely do not want sympathy. I’ve never been so frank as this to anyone, and I oughtn’t to have been with you. ”

She stopped dead, looked at the trivial crowd below, and Bates felt as though he had pawed at her soul.

Awkwardly kind he ventured: “You live alone?”

“Yes. ”

“Can’t you find some jolly girls to live with?”

“I’ve tried it. They got on my nerves. They were as hopeless as I was. ”

“Haven’t you some livelier girl you can play with?”

“Only one. And she’s pretty busy. She’s a social worker. And where can we go? Concerts sometimes, and walks. Once we tried to go to a restaurant. You know—one of these Bohemian places. Three different drunken men tried to pick us up. This isn’t a very gentle city. ”

“Emil
y—Emily—I say, what is your name?”

“It’s as unromantic as the rest of me: Sarah Pardee. ”

“Look here, Miss Pardee, I’m in touch with a good many different sorts of people in the city. Lived here a good while, and classmates. Will you let me do something for you? Introduce you to people I know; families and—”

She laid down her fork, carefully placed her hands flat on the table, side by side, palms down, examined them, fitted her thumbs closer together, and declared: “There is something you can do for me. ”

“Yes?” he thrilled.

“Get me a better job!”

He couldn’t keep from grunting as though he had quite unexpectedly been hit by something.

“The Floral Heights people are nice to work for, but there’s no future. Mr. Ransom can’t see a woman as anything but a stenographer. I want to work up to office manager of some big concern or something. ”