Thus simply she found herself established in San Francisco. Her first venture into the St. Francis had been no more exciting. After a panic-stricken plunge into its magnificence she was accepted noncommittally by the day-operator, a pale girl with eyeglasses, who was already putting on her hat. She turned over a few unsent messages, gave Helen the cashbox and rate-book, and departed.
Thereafter Helen met her daily, punctually at five o’clock, and saw her leave. Helen rather looked forward to the moment. It was pleasant to say, “Good evening,” once a day to someone.
In the afternoon she walked about, looking at the city, and learned to know many of the streets by name. She discovered the public library and read a great deal. The library was also a pleasant place to spend Sundays, being less lonely than the crowded parks, and if the librarian were not too busy one might sometimes talk to her about a book.
The dragging of the days, as much as her need for more money, had driven her to asking for extra work at the main office. But here, too, she had been dropped into the machine and put down before her telegraph-key, with barely a hurried human touch. A beginner, rated at forty-five dollars, she replaced a seventy-five-dollar operator on a heavy wire, and the days became a nerve-straining tension of concentration on the clicking sounder at her ear, while the huge room with its hundreds of instruments and operators faded from her consciousness.
Released at four o’clock, she ate forlornly in a dairy lunchroom and hurried to the St. Francis. Here, at least, she could watch other people’s lives. Gazing out at the changing crowd in the hotel corridor she let her imagination picture the romances, the adventures, at her fingertips. A man spoke cheerfully to the cigar-boy while he lighted his cigarette at the swinging light over the newsstand counter. He was the center of a scandal that had filled the afternoon papers, and under her hand was the message he had sent to his wife, denying, appealing, swearing loyalty and love. A little, soft-eyed woman in clinging laces, stepping from the elevator to meet a plump man in evening dress, was there to put through a big mining deal with him. The ends of the intrigue stretched out into vagueness, but her telegrams revealed its magnitude.
Helen’s cramped muscles stirred restlessly. There was barely room to move in the tiny office, crowded with table and chair and wastebasket. Spaciousness was on the other side of the counter.
She snatched the pencil from the counter and began a letter to Paul. Her imagination, at least, was released when she wrote letters.
Dear Paul:
I wonder what you are doing now! It’s eight o’clock and of course you’ve had your supper. Your mother’s probably finishing up the kitchen work and putting the bread to rise, and you haven’t anything to do but sit on the porch and look at the stars and the lighted windows here and there in the darkness, and listen to the breeze in the trees. And here I am, sitting in a place that looks just like a hothouse with all the flowers come to life. There’s a ball upstairs, and a million girls have gone through the corridors, with flowers and feathers and jewels in their hair, and dresses and evening cloaks as beautiful as petals. How I wish you could see them all, and the men, too, in evening dress. They’re the funniest things when they’re fat, but some of the slim ones look like princes or counts or something.
What kind of new furniture was it your mother got? You’ve never told me a word about the place you’re living since you moved, and I’m awfully interested. Do please tell me what color the wallpaper is and the carpets, and the woodwork, and what the kitchen is like, and if there are rosebushes in the yard. Did your mother get new curtains, too? There is a lovely new material for curtains just out—sort of silky, and rough, in the loveliest colors. I see it in the store windows, and if your mother wants me to I’d love to price it, and get samples for her.
A little boy’s just come in with a toy balloon, and it got away from him and it’s bumping up around on the gilded ceiling, and I wish you could hear him howl. It must be fun for the balloon, though, after being dragged around for hours, tugging all the time to get away, to escape at last and go up and up and up—
I felt just like that this morning. Just think, Paul, I sent the last of the hundred dollars home, and another fifty besides! Isn’t that gorgeous? I’m making over ninety dollars a month now, with my extra work at S.F. office, and my salary here—
She paused, biting her pencil. That would give him a start, she thought. He had been so self-satisfied when he got his raise to being day-operator and station-agent. She had not quite got over the hurt of his taking it without letting her know that the night-operator’s place would be vacant. He had explained that a girl couldn’t handle the job, but she knew that he did not want her to be working with him.
In the spring, she thought, she would be able to get some beautiful new clothes and go home for a visit. Paul would come, too, when he knew she would be there. He would see then how well she could manage on a very little money. In a few months more she would be able to save enough for a trousseau, tablecloths, and embroidered towels—
“Blank, please!” A customer leaned on the counter. She gave him the pad and watched him while he wrote. His profile was handsome; a lock of fair hair beneath the pushed-back hat, a straight forehead, an aquiline nose, a thin, humorous mouth. He wrote
