CHAPTER XII

AN ASSIGNMENT

The next afternoon the city editor again said "Damn" and blushed.

"You needn't blush," I said to him wearily.

He glanced around in surprise.

"No?"

"No! I quite agree with you!"

It was late in the afternoon, but I made no apology for my tardiness, as I hung my hat on its nail and started toward my desk.

"Oh, you feel like saying it yourself, eh?" he questioned.

"I do."

He turned then and looked at me squarely. It was very seldom that he did such a thing, and as some time had elapsed since his last look he was likely able to detect a subtle change in my face.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked gruffly. "If you had _my_ job, now, there'd be something to worry over! What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

He turned away, precipitately.

"Gee! Let me get out of here! That's what women always say when they're getting ready to cry."

"But I'm not going to cry!" I assured him, as he dashed through the doorway and I turned with some relief to my desk, for talking was somewhat of an effort.

I raised the top, whistling softly--one can nearly _always_ manage a little sizzling whistle--then shrank back in terror from what I saw there.--Such chaos as must have been scattered about before sunrise on the morning of the First Day! Was it possible that I had been excited yesterday to the point of leaving the mucilage bottle unstopped?

I set to work, however, with a little sickening sense of shame, to making right the ravages that had taken place.

"A woman may fashion her balloon of anticipation out of silver tissue--but her parachute is _always_ made of sack-cloth!" I groaned.

My desk was really in the wildest disorder. The tin top of the mucilage bottle had disappeared, the bottle had been overturned, its contents had been lavished upon the devoted head of a militant suffragette, and she was pinioned tightly to my blotting-pad.

"The elevator to Success is not running--take the stairs," grinned a framed motto above the desk.

"You take a--back seat!" I said, jumping up and turning the thing to the wall. "What do I care about success, if it's the sort of thing connected with typewriters, offices, copy paper and a pot of paste? I'm--I'm _des-qua-mat-ing_!"

Never before in my experience had the life of journalistic devotion looked quite so black as the ink that accompanies it.

"Mottoes about success ought to belong to men, anyhow!" I said again, looking up furiously at the drab back of the frame. "I'm not a man, nor cut out for man's work. I'm just a woman, and my head aches!"

I looked again at the militant suffragette, for it was a tragedy to me. I had spent a week of time and five honest dollars in the effort to get that photograph from a New York studio. She wasn't any common suffragette, but a strict head-liner.

"I'm not even a woman--I'm a child to let a little thing like this upset me," I was deciding a while later, when the door of the room opened again and some one entered.

"You're a big baby!" the city editor pronounced disgustedly, coming up to my desk and lowering his voice. "I knew you were going to cry."

"I--I think I may be coming down with typhoid," I said coldly, to keep from encouraging him in conversation. "And I've got a terrible lot of work to do before it gets quite dark. Really, an awful lot."

He dropped back a few paces, then circled nearer once more.

"Got anything--special?" he asked aimlessly.

His manner was so entirely inconsequential that I knew he had the most important thing for a month up his sleeve.

"Do you call this--mess anything special?" I asked. "I've got to do a general house-cleaning, and I wish I had a vacuum machine that would suck the whole business up into its mouth, swallow it and digest it--so I'd never see a scrap of it again."

Have I said before that he was a middle-aged man, named Hudson, and had scant red hair? It doesn't make any special difference about his looks, since I hadn't taken any rash vow to marry the first unfortunate man who crossed my path, but he looked so ludicrously insignificant and unlike an instrument of fate as he stood there, trying to break the news to me by degrees.

"Hate your ordinary work this afternoon?" he asked.

"I hate everything."

"Then, how would you like to change off a little?"

"I'd like to change off from breathing--if that would accommodate you any," I replied.

He made a "tut-tut" admonition with the tip of his tongue.

"You might not find blowing red-hot coals any pleasanter," he warned, "and angry little girls like you can't hope to go to heaven when they die!"

I rose, with a great effort after professional dignity.

"Mr. Hudson, evidently you have an assignment for me," I said. "Will you be so good as to let me know what it is?"

But even then he looked for a full thirty seconds into the luscious doors of a fruit stand across the street.

"I want _you_ to get--that Consolidated Traction Company story for me," he then declared.

I jumped back as I had never jumped but once in my life before--the time when Aunt Patricia announced that she was going to leave James Christie's love-letters to me.

"You were at that dance last night!" I cried out accusingly, then realizing the absurdity of this I began stammering. "I mean, that I'm a special feature writer!" I kept on before he had had time to send me more than a demon's grin of comprehension.

"You are and this story is devilish special," he returned. "I want you to get it."

His tone, which all of a sudden was the boiled-down essence of business, sent me in a tremor over toward the nail where my hat hung. It was getting dark and I remembered then that I had heard fragments of telephonic conversation earlier in the evening anent "catching him there about seven."

"Well?"

He looked at me--with almost a human expression.

"I wasn't at the ball last night--but grapevines have been rustling, I admit," he said. "I hate like the very devil to ask you to do it, if you want to know the truth, but there's no other way out. I hope you believe me."

"A city editor doesn't have to be believed, but has to be obeyed," I responded, rising again from my chair where I had dropped to lock my desk. "Now, what is it I must do?"

"Well, I have a hunch that you will succeed where Clemons and Bolton and Reade have failed," he said. "And the foolish way the fellow acts makes it necessary for us to use all haste and strategy!"

"The fellow?"

"Maitland Tait. A day or two ago it was understood that he might remain in this town for several days longer--then to-day comes the news that he's straining every nerve to get away to-morrow!"

"Oh, to-morrow!"

"It appears that all the smoke in Pittsburgh is curling up into question marks to find out when he's coming back--"

"He's so important?"

"Exactly! But to-night he's going to hold a final conference at Loomis, and you can catch him before time for this if you'll go right on now."

"Very well," I answered, feeling myself in profound hypnosis.

"And, say! You'll have to hurry," he said, pressing the advantage my quiet demeanor offered. "Here! Take this hunk o' copy paper and hike!"

I accepted the proffered paper, still hypnotized, then when I had reached the door I stopped.

"Understand, Mr. Hudson, I'm doing this because you have assigned it to me!" I said with a cutting severity. "Please let that be perfectly plain! I shouldn't go a step toward Loomis--not even if it were a matter of life and death--if it were _not_ a matter of urgent business!"

He looked at me blankly for a moment, then grinned. Afterward I realized that he knew this declaration was being made to my own inner consciousness, and not to him.

"Don't ask him for a photograph--for God's sake!" he called after me, from the head of the steps. "Remember--you're going out there on the _Herald's_ account and the _Herald_ doesn't need his picture, because it happens that we've already got a dandy one of him!"

I turned back fiercely.

"I hadn't _dreamed_ of asking him for his photograph!" I fired. "I hope I have some vestige of reasoning power left!"

At the corner a car to Loomis was passing, and once inside I inspected every passenger in the deadly fear of seeing some one whom I knew. There was no one there, however, who could later be placed on the witness-stand against me, so I sat down and watched the town outside speeding by--first the busy up-town portion, then the heavy wholesale district, with its barrels tumbling out of wagon ends and its mingled odor of fruit, vinegar and molasses, combined with soap and tanned hides. After this the river was crossed, we sped through a suburban settlement, out into the open country, then nearer and nearer and nearer.

All the time I sat like one paralyzed. I hated intensely the thought of going out there, but the very speed of the car seemed to furnish excuse enough for me not to get off! I didn't have will power enough to push the bell, so when the greasy terminal of the line was reached I rose quietly and left the car along with a number of men in overalls and a bevy of tired dejected-looking women.

"They ought to call it 'Gloom-is,'" I muttered, as I alighted at the little wooden station, where one small, yellow incandescent light showed you just how dark and desolate the place was. "And these people live here!--I'll never say a word against West Clydemont Place again as long as I live!"

Without seeming to notice the gloom, the people who had come out on the car with me dispersed in different directions, two or three of the men making first for the shadow of a big brick building which stood towering blackly a little distance up from the car tracks. I followed after them, then stopped before a lighted door at this building while they disappeared into a giant round-house farther back. The whir of machinery was steady and monotonous, and it served to drown out the noise my heart was making, for I was legitimately frightened, even in my reportorial capacity, as well as being embarrassed and ashamed, independent of the _Herald_. It was a most unpleasant moment.

"This must be the office!"

The big door was slightly ajar, so I entered, rapping with unsteady knuckles a moment later against the forbidding panels of another door marked "Private."

"Well?"

"Well" is only a tolerant word at best--never encouraging--and now it sounded very much like "Go to the devil!"

"I don't give a rap if he _is_ the Vice-President and General Manager of the Consolidated Traction Company," I muttered, the capital letters of his position and big corporation, however, pelting like giant hailstones against my courage. "I'm Special Feature Writer for _The Oldburgh Herald_!"

"If you've got any business with me open that door and come in!" was the further invitation I received. "If you haven't, go on off!"

The invitation wasn't exactly pressing in its tone, but I managed to nerve myself up to accepting it.

"But I have got some--business with you!" I gasped, as I opened the door.

Mr. Tait turned around from his desk--a worse-looking desk by far than the one I had left at the _Herald_ office.

"Good lord--that is, I mean to say, _dear_ me!" he muttered, as he wheeled and saw me. "Miss Christie!"

"Are you so surprised--then?"

"Surprised? Of course, a little, but--no-o, not so much either, when you come to think of it!"

The room was bare and barn-like, with a couple of shining desks, and half a dozen chairs. A calendar, showing a red-gowned lady, who in turn was showing her knees, hung against the opposite wall. Mr. Tait drew up one of the chairs.

"Thank you--though I haven't a minute to stay!"

I stammered a little, then sat down and scrambled about in my bag for a small fan I always carried.

"A minute?"

"Not long, really--for it's getting late, you see!"

My fingers were twitching nervously with the fan, trying to stuff it back into the bag and hide that miserable copy paper which had sprung out of its lair like a "jack-in-the-box" at the opening of the clasp.

He smiled--so silently and persistently that I was constrained to look up and catch it. He had seemed not to observe the copy paper.

"If you're in such a hurry your '_business_' must be urgent," he said, and his tone was full of satire.

"It is, but--"

I looked at him again, then hesitated, my voice breaking suddenly. Somehow, I felt that I was a thousand miles away from that magic spot on the Nile where the evening before had placed me. He looked so different!

"You needn't rub it in on me!" I flashed back at him.

His chair was tilted slightly against the desk, and he sat there observing me impersonally as if I were a wasp pinned on a cardboard. He was looking aloof and keenly aristocratic--as he was at the entrance of the conservatory the evening before.

"Rub it in on you?"

"I mean that I didn't want to come out here to-night!"

My face was growing hot, and try as I would to keep my eyes dry and professional-looking something sprang up and glittered so bewilderingly that as I turned away toward the lady on the calendar, she looked like a dozen ladies--all of them doing the hesitation waltz.

He straightened up in his chair, relieving that impertinent tilt.

"Oh,--you didn't want to come?"

"Of course not!"

I blinked decisively--and the red-gowned one faded back to her normal number, but my eyelids were heavy and wet still.

"But--but--"

"Please don't think that I came out here to-night because I wanted to see you, Mr. Tait!" I was starting to explain, when he interrupted me, the satire quite gone.

"But, after all, what else was there to do?" he asked, with surprising gentleness.

"What else?"

"Yes. Certainly it was _your_ next move,--Grace!"

My heart out-did the machinery in the round-house in the way of making a hubbub at that instant, but he seemed not to hear.

"I mean to say--I--I expected to hear from you in some manner to-day. That is, I _hoped_ to hear."

I gave a hysterical laugh.

"But you didn't expect me to board a trolley-car and run you down after night in your own den--surely?" I demanded.

He half rose from his chair, hushing my mocking word with a gesture. His manner was chivalrously protecting.

"You shan't talk that way about yourself!" he said insistently. "Whatever you have chosen to do is--is--all right!"

I felt bewildered.

"I just wanted to let you know--" I began, when he stopped me again, this time with an air of finality.

"Please don't waste this _dear_ little hour in explaining!" he begged. "I want you to know--to feel absolutely that nothing you might ever do could be misunderstood by me! I feel now that I _know_ you--your impulsive, headstrong ways--"

"'Heart-strong,' Aunt Patricia used to say," I modified softly.

He nodded.

"Of course--'heart-strong!' I understand you! I understand why you refrained from telling me of your engagement, even."

My eyes dropped.

"I didn't--know then."

"You didn't know how I felt--what an unhappy complication you were stirring up."

There was a tense little silence, then he spoke again.

"If you are not in love with your fiancé--never have been in love with him--why do you maintain the relationship?" he asked, in as careful and businesslike a manner as if he were inquiring the price of pig-iron.

"Because--because that's the way we do things down here in this state," I answered. "What we _never_ have done before, we have a hard time starting--and mother idolizes him!"

He smiled--his own particular brand of smile--for the first time.

"Little--goose!" he said.

"Then--last night, when you pretended that you were going straight away--"

"I _am_ going away," he broke in with considerable dignity. "That is, I have my plans laid that way now."

"Plans?"

"Yes. It's true that my resolution to get away from this town was born rather precipitately last night; however, I have been able to make my plans coincide."

"Oh!" I began with a foolish little quiver in my voice, then collected myself. "I'm glad that you could arrange your affairs so satisfactorily."

He looked across at me, his mouth grim.

"Why should I stay?" he demanded. "To-night will see the finishing up of the business which brought me to Oldburgh!"

Then, and not until then, I'm afraid, did I really recall the face of my city editor--and the fact that he had sent me out to obtain an interview, not a proposal.

"Your business with the Macdermott Realty Company?" I inquired.

Maitland Tait looked at me with an amused smile.

"What do you know about that?" he asked.

"Nothing except what all the world knows!"

I managed to inject some hurt feeling into my voice, as if I had a right to know more, which in truth I felt.

"And how much does the world know?"

"Merely that you've either planned to shut down this plant here and move the whole business to Birmingham, or you've bought up acres and acres more of Oldburgh's suburbs and will make this spot so important and permanent that the company's grandchildren will have to call it home."

"But you--_you_ don't know which I've done, eh?"

I shook my head.

"Then shall I tell you? Are you interested?"

"I'm certainly interested in knowing whether or not you'll--ever come back to Oldburgh--but I don't want you to tell _me_ anything you'd rather I shouldn't know."

"I believe I want to tell you," he replied, his face softening humorously. "We have bought acres and acres more of Oldburgh's suburbs, and we're going to have quite a little city out here!"

"There's room for improvement," I observed, looking out through the window into the greasy darkness.

"There is and I'm going to see to it that the improvement's made! There will be model cottages here in place of those miserable hovels that I'm glad you can't see from here to-night--and each cottage will have its garden spot--"

"That's good!" I approved. "I love gardens."

"Wait until you see some English ones I have seen," he said patriotically.

"I shall--then pattern my own by them! But--these Loomis plans?"

"Model cottages, with gardens--then a schoolhouse, with well-kept grounds--a club-room for men--"

"And a _sewing_ circle for their wives," I added contemptuously.

He looked taken aback.

"Don't you like that?" he asked anxiously. "Why shouldn't they sew?"

"But why should they--just because they're women?" I asked in answer, and after a moment he began to see light.

"Of course if you prefer having them write novels, model in clay and illumine parchments we'll add those departments," he declared, with a generous air. "We're determined to have everything that an altruistic age has thrust upon the manufacturer to reduce his net income."

"And--occasionally--_you'll_ be coming back to Oldburgh to see that the gardens grow silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row?" I suggested, but after a momentary smile his face sobered.

"I don't know! There are things--in England--that complicate any arrangements, I mean _business_ arrangements, I might wish to make just now."

"And Loomis will have to get along without you?"

I had put the question idly, with no ulterior motive in the world, but he leaned forward until the arm of his revolving chair scraped against my chair.

"Loomis _can_ get along without me," he said, in a low tone, "and therefore must--but if I should find that I am needed--_wanted_ here in Oldburgh--"

The shriek of the city-bound trolley-car broke in at that instant upon the quiet of the room, interrupting his slow tense words; and I sprang up and crossed to the window, for I felt suddenly a wild distaste to having Maitland Tait say important things to me then and there! Something in me demanded the most beautiful setting the world could afford for what he was going to say!

"I ought--I ought to catch that car!"

He followed me, his face gravely wondering.

"My motor is here. I'll take you back to town," he said, looking over my shoulder into the noisy, dimly-lit scene.

"But--weren't you going to be busy out here this evening?"

"Yes--later. I'll go with you, then return to a meeting I have here."

He rang the bell beside his desk and a moment later the face of Collins appeared in the doorway. Outside the limousine was breathing softly.

I don't remember what we talked about going in to town, or whether we talked at all or not; but when the machine slowed up at the _Herald_ building and Maitland Tait helped me out, there was the same light shining from his eyes that shone there the night before--the light that made the glint of the silver oars on Cleopatra's Nile barge turn pale--and the radiance half blinded me.

"Grace, you don't want me to say anything to-night--I can see that," he said. "And you are right--if you are still bound to that other man! I can say nothing until I know you are free--"

He whispered the words, our hands meeting warmly.

"But, if you are going away!--You'll come and say good-by?"

"If it's to say good-by there'll be no use coming," he answered. "You _know_ how I feel!"

"But we must say good-by!" I plead.

He leaned forward then, as he made a motion to step back into the car. His eyes were passionate.

"What matters where good-by is said--if we can do nothing but say it?" he demanded. "It's _your_ next move, Grace."