He advised her to choose plain square brass brackets which he thought much prettier than the ornate scrolled gilt ones which she seemed to prefer. She hesitated and then looked up at him.
“Well, if you think these are prettier, I’ll take them. Please have them sent around to the house this afternoon, for the plumbers are coming tomorrow.”
Jim, put at his ease by her deference to his taste, promised, and carried over the fixtures himself about three o’clock. Mrs. Johnson met him at the door. Jim, remembering the very stylish street costume she had worn that morning, was somewhat taken back by the sight of her none too clean wrapper, run over slippers, and hair loose down her back.
“Come in,” she invited, smiling and showing extremely pretty teeth. “If I’d known it was you who were coming I’d have fixed myself up. Take a seat,” she continued volubly, laughing as she removed some sewing from a chair. “I’m all alone.”
Jim deposited his hat and bundle on a table in the center of the room and seated himself. She drew another chair for herself very close to his.
“I expect I look the limit!” she exclaimed, leaning her head back and shaking her hair out in a rippling cascade over her shoulders. “I’ve been washing my hair.”
Jim glanced timidly at her wide opened pale blue eyes, smooth fair skin, pink cheeks, and the rounded arm which was displayed to advantage as she modestly held her wrapper together over a salient bosom. The sunlight fell on her blond hair which was really exquisite.
“I think you look beautiful,” said Jim impulsively, turning very red at his own temerity.
“I could almost kiss you for that,” she answered with another laugh. “Wait till I get you some beer to pay you for your compliment,” and she rose and went toward the kitchen, humming a tune as she disappeared.
Jim’s gaze followed her. Delia Johnson made a pleasant picture and Jim had missed the shallowness, indolence, and sensuality in her face and the incipient heaviness in her figure. As her yellow hair was lost to view through the doorway he gave a sigh.
She returned in a few minutes with a bottle of beer and two glasses.
“Good luck,” she chattered, laughing once more as she poured a glass for him and another for herself.
They clinked glasses and drank, Jim, who did not like the taste of beer, being careful not to make a wry face.
“Don’t you smoke, Mr. Sprague?” she asked when they had finished the beer.
Jim did not smoke, but in view of Delia’s eyes and the “Mr.” he answered, “Yes,” adding, “but I haven’t any cigars with me.”
“I’ll get you some cigarettes,” she offered, opening a drawer in the table. “I’ll have one too,” she went on with her inevitable laugh, as she removed a cigarette from the package before handing it to him.
They smoked a moment in silence, Delia inhaling her cigarette with evident pleasure.
“Are you a partner in your father’s business?” she inquired, at length, knocking the ash from her cigarette.
“No,” returned Jim hastily, “I’m only clerking for him. I’ve just finished high school.”
“How much does he pay you?” she pursued.
She was smiling at him bewitchingly and Jim put aside the crudeness of her questions.
“He don’t pay me anything,” he admitted honestly.
“That’s better,” she declared. “It shows that he intends to give you a share in the concern.”
Jim shook his head dubiously.
“I don’t know about that.”
“You’re his only child, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Of course he will,” she affirmed with emphasis, “and in time you’ll have it all. He’s rich, isn’t he?”
“Why, no,” began Jim.
“Pretty well fixed, anyway,” she put in laughing. “Well, there’s many that would like to be in your shoes, Mr. Sprague.”
Jim placed his half finished cigarette on the ash tray.
“Have some more beer?” she queried.
“No, thank you.”
“What’s your given name?” she demanded suddenly.
“James.” He was smiling now.
“Do they call you Jimmie?”
“No, Jim,” he replied, glancing at her hair.
“Then I’m going to call you Jim too.”
“All right, Mrs. Johnson, I’m—”
“You mean thing!” she interrupted. “I don’t believe you like me a bit!”
Jim looked surprised.
“Do you?” she insisted.
“Why, yes.” He studied her a moment, then, with increasing emphasis, “Of course I do. I like you fine.”
She reached over and touched his cheek lightly.
“Then you must call me Delia,” she stipulated, and added, “I like you, too, Jim, awfully well.”
He blushed and trembled a little at the caress.
“I—I must go,” he stammered, rising.
“Don’t be in such a hurry,” she pleaded. “Let’s talk a minute.”
Jim hesitated and then reseated himself. Delia moved her chair a little farther from him.
“Wasn’t that awful in the morning’s paper about their killing the strikers in Chicago?” She spoke in a more impersonal tone.
Jim drew a long breath.
“I think it’s terrible!” he exclaimed. “Those men have no other way of protesting against injustice than by striking.”
“The paper says they’re trying to wreck business.”
“They’re not any such thing!” he insisted. “They’re most of them fathers of families and dependent on their wages. It’s nonsense to suggest such things. What they want is enough to live on.”
“You aren’t an anarchist, are you?”
“No,” he disclaimed, “but I hate lies and hypocrisy, and that sheet” (pointing to the paper lying on the floor where Delia had dropped it) “is in the pay of the capitalists, and people read it and swallow any dope they hand out. This country will never progress till labor is represented in the capital at Washington and—and until things are reorganized on a basis of justice and equality,” he concluded rather lamely.
He was flushed and seemed somewhat startled by his own
