She felt, then, that he was no longer angry, and turning against the cobwebbed boards, she covered her face with her arms and cried. She hated herself for doing it; but she could not help it. Every instant she tried to stop, and very soon she was able to do so. When she lifted her head Mr. Roberts was gone.
She waited a while among the uncaring battery jars, steadying herself, and wiping her face with her handkerchief. When she forced herself to climb up into the daylight again there was no one in the office but McCormick, who sat at the San Francisco wire, gazing into space, whistling “Life’s a funny proposition after all,” while the disregarded sounder clattered fretfully, calling him.
Of course she would leave the office. She put on her hat and did so at once, but when she was out in the sunlight, with the eyes of passersby upon her, she could do nothing but writhe among her thoughts like a flayed thing among nettles. The side streets were better than the others, for there fewer people could see her. If it were only night, so she could crawl unobserved into some corner and die.
It was a long time before she realized that her body was aching and that she was limping on painful feet. She had reached a street in some residence subdivision, where cement sidewalks ran through tangles of last year’s weeds, and little cottages stood forlornly at long intervals. She stumbled over an expanse of dry stubble and green grass and sat down. She could not suffer any more. It was good to sit in the warm sunshine, to be alone. Life was vile. She shrank from it with sick loathing. She had been so hurt that she no longer felt pain, but her soul was nauseated.
There was no refuge into which she could crawl. There was no time to heal her bruises, no one to help her bear them. The afternoon was almost gone. At the house there was Mrs. Campbell, at the office—she could get more money from her mother and go home to stay. She owed her mother a hundred dollars—months of privation and heartbreaking work. She could not shudder away from the hideousness of life at such a cost to others. Somehow she must find strength in herself to stand up, to go on, to do something.
Mr. Roberts’ recommendation was necessary before she could get another telegraph job. She did not know how to do anything else. She owed him ten dollars, which must be paid. Paul—shamed blood rose in her cheeks when her thoughts touched him. She must face this thing alone.
In the depths of her mind she felt a hardness growing. All her finer sensibilities, hurt beyond bearing, were concealing themselves beneath a coarser hardihood. Her chin went up, her lips set, her eyes narrowed unconsciously.
After a long time she rose, brushing dead grass-stalks from her skirt, and started back to town. A streetcar carried her there quickly. On the way she remembered that she should eat, and thought of Mrs. Brown. The half-punched meal-ticket was still in her purse. She had shivered at the thought of ever seeing Mrs. Brown again, and many times she had intended to throw away the bit of pasteboard, but she had not been able to do so because it represented food.
She got off the car at the corner nearest the little restaurant, and forced herself to its doors. It was closed and empty, and a “For Rent” sign was glued to the dirty window. Under her quick relief there was a sense of triumph. She had made herself go there, at least.
In a dairy-lunch she drank a cup of coffee and swallowed a sandwich. Then she went back to the telegraph-office.
She held her head high and walked steadily, as she might have gone to her own execution. She felt that something within her was being crushed to death, something clean and fine and sensitive, which must die before she could make herself face Mr. Roberts again. She opened the office door and went in.
Mr. Roberts was at one of the wires. McCormick, frowning, was booking messages at her high desk. She hung her hat in the cabinet and took the pen from his hand.
“Well, Little Bright-eyes, welcome to our city!” he exclaimed in his usual manner, but she saw that he was nervous, disturbed by the sense of tension in the air.
“After this you’re going to call me Miss Davies,” she said, folding a message into an envelope. She struck the bell for the next messenger-boy. Well, she had been able to do that.
It was harder to approach Mr. Roberts. She did not know whether she most shrank from him, despised him, or feared him, but her heart fluttered and she felt ill when he came through the railing into the office and sat down at his desk. She went over the day’s bookings, and checked up the messenger books without seeing them, until her hatred of her cowardice grew into a kind of courage. Then she went over to his desk.
“Mr. Roberts,” she said clearly. “I’m not any of the things you called me.” Her cheeks, her forehead, even her neck, were burning painfully. “I’m a perfectly decent girl.”
“Well, there’s no use making such a fuss about it,” he mumbled, searching among his papers for one which apparently was not there.
“I wouldn’t stay, only I owe you ten dollars and I’ve got to have a job. You know that. It was all the truth I told
