At the corner before the Shoreham she got out of the car. The lobby was warm. Welldressed people stood around talking in welldressed voices. It smelt of hothouse flowers. At the desk they told her to go right up to apartment number eight on the first floor. A man with a wrinkled white face under a flat head of sleek black hair opened the door. He wore a sleek black suit and had a discreet skating walk. She said she was the stenographer for Mr. Barrow and he beckoned her into the next room. She stood at the door waiting for someone to notice her. At the end of the room there was a big fireplace where two logs blazed. In front of it was a broad table piled with magazines, newspapers, and typewritten manuscripts. On one end stood a silver teaservice, on the other a tray with decanters, a cocktail shaker and glasses. Everything had a well-polished silvery gleam, chairs, tables, teaset, and the watchchain and the teeth and sleek prematurely gray hair of the man who stood with his back to the fire.
Immediately she saw him Janey thought he must be a fine man. Mr. Barrow and a little baldheaded man sat in deep chairs on either side of the fireplace listening to what he said with great attention.
“It’s a very important thing for the future of this country,” he was saying in a low earnest voice. “I can assure you that the great executives and the powerful interests in manufacturing and financial circles are watching these developments with the deepest interest. Don’t quote me in this; I can assure you confidentially that the President himself…” His eye caught Janey’s. “I guess this is the stenographer. Come right in, Miss…” “Williams is the name,” said Janey.
His eyes were the blue of alcoholflame, with a boyish flicker in them; this must be J. Ward Moorehouse whose name she ought to know.
“Have you a pencil and paper? That’s fine; sit right down at the table. Morton, you’d better carry away those teathings.” Morton made the teathings disappear noiselessly. Janey sat down at the end of the table and brought out her pad and pencil. “Hadn’t you better take off your hat and coat, or you won’t feel them when you go out?” There was something homey in his voice, different when he talked to her than when he talked to the men. She wished she could work for him. Anyway she was glad she had come.
“Now, Mr. Barrow, what we want is a statement that will allay unrest. We must make both sides in this controversy understand the value of coöperation. That’s a great word, coöperation… First we’ll get it down in rough… You’ll please make suggestions from the angle of organized labor, and you, Mr. Jonas, from the juridical angle. Ready, Miss Williams… Released by J. Ward Moorehouse, Public Relations Counsel, Hotel Shoreham, Washington, D.C., Jan. 15, 1916…” Then Janey was too busy taking down the dictation to catch the sense of what was being said.
That evening when she got home she found Alice already in bed. Alice wanted to go to sleep, but Janey chattered like a magpie about Mr. Barrow and labor troubles and J. Ward Moorehouse and what a fine man he was, and so kind and friendly and had such interesting ideas for collaboration between capital and labor, and spoke so familiarly about what the President thought and what Andrew Carnegie thought and what the Rockefeller interests or Mr. Schick or Senator LaFollette intended, and had such handsome boyish blue eyes, and was so nice, and the silver teaservice, and how young he looked in spite of his prematurely gray hair, and the open fire and the silver cocktail shaker and the crystal glasses.
“Why, Janey,” broke in Alice, yawning, “I declare you must have a crush on him. I never heard you talk about a man that way in my life.” Janey blushed and felt very sore at Alice. “Oh, Alice, you’re so silly… It’s no use talking to you about anything.” She got undressed and turned out the light. It was only when she got to bed that she remembered that she hadn’t had any supper. She didn’t say anything about it because she was sure Alice would say something silly.
Next day she finished the job for Mr. Barrow. All morning she wanted to ask him about Mr. Moorehouse, where he lived, whether he was married or not, where he came from, but she reflected it wouldn’t be much use. That afternoon, after she had been paid, she found herself walking along H Street past the Shoreham. She pretended to herself that she wanted to look in the storewindows. She didn’t see him, but she saw a big shiny black limousine with a monogram that she couldn’t make out without stooping and it would look funny if she stooped; she decided that was his car.
She walked down the street to the corner opposite the big gap in the houses where they were tearing down the Arlington. It was a clear sunny afternoon. She walked round Lafayette Square looking at the statue of Andrew Jackson on a rearing horse among the bare trees.
There were children and nursemaids grouped on the benches. A man with a grizzled vandyke with a black portfolio under his arm sat down on one of the benches and immediately got up again and strode off; foreign diplomat, thought Janey, and how fine it was to live in the Capital City where there were foreign diplomats and men like J. Ward Moorehouse. She walked once more round the statue of Andrew Jackson rearing green and noble on a greennoble horse in the russet winter afternoon sunlight and then back towards the Shoreham, walking fast as if she were late to an appointment. She asked a bellboy where the public stenographer was. He sent her up to a room on the second floor where she asked an acideyed woman with a long jaw, who was typing away with her eyes on the little sector of greencarpeted hall she could see through the halfopen door, whether she knew of anyone who wanted a stenographer. The acideyed woman stared at her. “Well, this isn’t an agency, you know.” “I know; I just thought on the chance…” said Janey, feeling everything go suddenly out of her. “Do you mind if I sit down a moment?” The acideyed woman continued staring at her.
“Now, where have I seen you before…? No, don’t remind me… You… you were working at Mrs. Robinson’s the day I came in to take out her extra work. There, you see, I remember you perfectly.” The woman smiled a yellow smile. “I’d have remembered you,” said Janey, “only I’m so tired of going round looking for a job.”
“Don’t I know?” sighed the woman.
“Don’t you know anything I could get?”
“I’ll tell you what you do… They were phoning for a girl to take dictation in number eight. They’re using ’em up like… like sixty in there, incorporating some concern or something. Now, my dear, you listen to me, you go in there and take off your hat like you’d come from somewhere and start taking dictation and they won’t throw you out, my dear, even if the other girl just came, they use ’em up too fast.”
Before Janey knew what she was doing she’d kissed the acideyed woman on the edge of the jaw and had walked fast along the corridor to number eight and was being let in by the sleekhaired man who recognized her and asked, “Stenographer?”