CHAPTER TWO

Every day young people came to Harry Strauss's office, armed with letters, fortified with introductions, to ask for work. Grace saw them all without appearing to see; nor had it escaped her that there seemed to be more of them, that they entered more expectantly and departed more hopefully. One would have thought that she had nothing to fear. She had got her raise, she had hinted for another. But she was well aware of and knew that Harry Strauss and Al were aware of a relaxation of the tight net of effort that she had at first spread over her job. She argued with herself that this was but natural; not even race horses were expected to keep up the pace with which they started. In any case she could not help herself. All she seemed to want now was to sweep away her work somehow so as to be free to meet Blake in the afternoons.

Something was in the air, something which had spread abroad and attracted these increasing numbers of job hunters, like the mysterious word that goes forth to crows or jackals that there is a carcass for the picking. One morning Grace saw Miss MacAlister with this obscure word in her eyes, watching her. Al was very quiet this morning. He sat at their table in the outer office and mulled over photographs, destined for the women's pages, of an opera singer who had been using some reduction method. This was strange. The opera singer belonged to Grace.

As she too bent over the table, Al said to her very low, "Did you have any words with Harry?"

"No. Why?"

Al murmured, "When I call you from Harry's office, come in and _don't_ shut the door. Look out, she tells him everything."

They made perfunctory motions of work. Finally Al bustled into Mr. Strauss's empty office, and as he had planned, when he called her, Grace followed as casually as possible. They stood by the window, pretending to look out of it, while Al kept an eye on Miss MacAlister and on the door.

"You know I'm your friend here," began Al with emphasis. Grace said nothing. He hurried on. "Harry was asking for you yesterday afternoon. Where were you?"

"I can't do my work and be here every minute," said Grace sharply.

"I know that. I told him so. But Harry's a funny guy. He got mad and he said, 'That girl never shows up in the afternoon, she's never around when I want her.' I guess he was playing bridge the night before and lost a couple of dollars, so--Then he started talking about how he'd let you handle Madame Tallifer all by yourself to show what you could do--and you hadn't done so well with her, she's putting up a holler."

It was true. Grace hadn't done so well with the opera singer, Madame Tallifer. There were a thousand good reasons. There was little interest and no novelty to Madame Tallifer. She would complain in any event. But then, neither Grace nor anyone else was expected to heed reason in this business, this "racket," as Al called it. She was silent.

"So then he asked me what I thought," went on Al, "and I told him, I said, 'You know how it is, Harry. Grace hasn't got the experience you and me have. She's still learning. You got to go a little easy with her.'"

"You told him that!" exclaimed Grace. "You know very well and _he_ knows too that I've done a lot better for the money he pays me----"

"I know all that, I know all that," said Al. "Sh! Listen, I had to tell him that, give him his way, you know, smooth things over. I'm your friend, see?"

Grace gave him an acute look and turned slightly away.

"Listen, think I want you to go? Wha'd'y'think I got to gain by it? It's no fun for me to break in a new girl," cried Al. "Listen, if you think I ever did or said anything against you, just ask Harry, that's all I want. Just ask him."

"Oh, let's drop it. Is that all you have to tell me?"

"Well, I was just going to finish. Just give me a chance. So a while after that Harry calls me in again and he's got a girl there. I didn't even catch her name, never heard of her, don't know her," he declared hastily, seeing Grace's eyes. "And he said to her, 'Would you work for thirty-five dollars a week?' And she said, 'Yes!' So then he said, 'Al, Miss--Whatshername--'ll be working with you next week.'"

Grace stared out of the window. After glancing at her once or twice Al began to fumble with papers on Mr. Strauss's desk. "Why don't you speak to Harry?" he suggested nervously. "Maybe you can fix things up."

But Grace shook her head and said, "No. I have to see Tallifer this morning." She picked up her coat, in passing, and went out.

Instinctively, she would not take impetuous steps across a bridge until she came to it. And she had to get out to think. This time she did not look at streets or shop windows or at the bright sky where even the clouds were a glittering, not a fluffy, white. The situation arranged itself like a chess game in her mind. Al wished to get rid of her. This girl was a friend perhaps. Or Al was afraid that she, Grace, might rise to some importance in the office. Well, she had never trusted Al. Just the same, he was sorry for her, too, sorry that it had seemed necessary for her throat to be cut. He had for her the futile, patronizing pity of sentimental people. She need not make an enemy of him. And Mr. Strauss--he would save fifteen dollars a week. It had been a mistake to suggest another raise--no chance there at all. But, if she knew Harry Strauss, he would not fire her (unless she begged for it) till Saturday, so that he might get the last ounce of blissfully ignorant effort out of her. Nice of Al to tell her--a small sop to his conscience perhaps--though perhaps he had planned that she would be disgusted enough and proud enough to leave pronto, of her own will, and save them the annoyance of a dismissal.

Anyhow, she had three days till Saturday. Of these she would make doubly sure by keeping out of Mr. Strauss's way. She had also an idea that she could manage to get a week's extra salary out of him by appealing to his particular vanity, which she had noted: his wistful desire of the born liar to be considered fair, square, to be believed. So she had nine working days of grace. She might not even have to tell Ma, if she began to angle at once.

She considered her problem skillfully, conscientiously, from every side, as a scientist might probe a new disease. She planned her procedure in her mind with swift instinct, a bold, logical poise, as a great general might plan a campaign. All other thoughts were excluded; ironic comparisons, the weakening, defeating insinuations of humor could not find a loophole. This was her trouble, her problem. For the time it encompassed her like the entire universe; for the time it was alone, itself, her universe; but it was a universe from which she did not shut everyone else out. No--it was rather a universe which it did not occur to her everyone else would not be pleased to share.

She had no intention of seeing Madame Tallifer. She went into a telephone booth.

Like any good general, Grace had never lost sight of her reserves. No matter how such she might be of the present, this did not prevent her from keeping herself alert for new opportunities, for ascertaining where, in an emergency, these might be more plentiful, for acquainting herself as much as possible with the people who had them to bestow. There were certain persons, too, as she realized--not perhaps entirely consciously--who, though not important themselves, might be used as keys to unlock the sources of opportunities beyond them. Mr. Milford was such a person. He could do nothing for her himself but he knew many people whose attention he could focus by means of a letter or a request. Grace was too shrewd to apply to Mr. Milford again; there were others, however, whom she had marked. Some might clamber up the rocky, direct road to strange offices and appear, scared and out of breath, to ask for work. Grace preferred the less simple, the roundabout, the easier way. She wanted a path prepared ahead of her, an entrance staged; a few laudatory wreaths strewn before, provided one's person seemed to become them, as hers did, always helped.

There was Tommy Manship, the assistant dramatic editor, who admired her, who had a job that forced press agents to pay court to him, and who could give her letters and suggestions. She arranged to see him first. Then there was her old boss, McTavish, at the Brooklyn _Press_. These were people with whom she could be frank. There were some women, too, women with money, women with valuable "contacts," of whom she had made friends from time to time. She had not been pleasant to them definitely because of their uses. At this time she was in general pleasant and, when necessary, obliging, partly because she liked to be so. She had never needed to shrink from people. From childhood she had been accustomed to the power of soothing and softening which her looks alone had, her great eyes, the glowing clarity of her skin. She enjoyed seeing the initial receptive expression on the faces of strangers; she preferred them to retain their admiration if possible. Besides, she understood without ever being told, without ever even thinking about it, how much of comfort and success, so desired by her, rested in the hands of other people.

When she left the telephone booth her routine for that day lay clearly ahead of her.

The next morning Grace came to the office early so as to avoid both Al and Mr. Strauss. She sorted a folder of Madame Tallifer's pictures in front of the stenographer and departed with it, remarking cheerfully that she had "planted" some woman's page features. Thus she hoped to record with Miss MacAlister her happy ignorance and her absorption in Mr. Strauss's affairs. She then walked over to the studio of a writing friend of hers, made herself at home, and carefully examined her toilette. She had an appointment with a Mr. Williams at the M.A.N. Film Company.

"Drop in to tea this afternoon," said her writing friend, Diana Porter Reece. "The man who runs the Enterprise Feature Syndicate is coming. He might help you."

Diana Reece was supported chiefly by a husband but did not let this interfere with her career. She did not care whether the men in her train were useful or futile, but inevitably, among the dregs, some would emerge who were worth knowing. Grace promised to come, though she had to see Blake at tea time too. She meant to overlook neither.

The way to Mr. Williams brought memories of her first day of job hunting--how she had worried over the sealskin coat, worn too early in the season, how her mind had been in conflict between Blake and work. This last year, in which she had fought no longer, in which she had succumbed to his invasion of her mind, seemed to have had an exactly opposite effect from what she might have supposed. Her mind was like a surrendered city which the conquerors believe they have at the moment of its defeat, only, upon settlement, to find themselves absorbed by an alien, negative host. The single thought of Blake was no longer in her mind, intruding on it, harassing her to eject it. It had become part of every thought there, and so it was no longer bitterly, distinctly there, apparent at all. She could not be distracted by the idea of Blake any more than she could be distracted by the idea of herself.

She looked very well; she owned a fall coat now. She was all in brown, a clear, pale brown of hat, dress, and chiffon stockings, a velvety brown of coat and shoes. And so with the feeling of light, easy, bounding power that seems to bring success in its wake, as its due, she went in to see Mr. Williams.

When she walked out she had her job. So simply! She almost wished to snap her fingers and walked along aimlessly, smiling, letting the light blue air of Indian summer, hazy as spring but without the springlike quiver, with a faint death-weariness in it, caress her face. Mr. Williams was not like Harry Strauss. He was a tall young man with a browned face and eyes as soft as Grace's own. He was susceptible and did not attempt to hide it. "Must have been a newspaperman," thought Grace. And so easy! He had merely told her what she would do and what he could pay, and that was sixty-five dollars a week. If Harry Strauss only knew! Really she had to gloat and declare holiday.

As she had expected, at the moment of handing her her check Saturday Mr. Strauss said: "Sit down a moment, Grace. I have sad news for you." That was one point in Harry Strauss's favor, Grace thought. Whatever he might do underneath, on the surface he wasted no oily sentiment, no hypocritical blather.

He now continued: "I suppose you see things are dull now. We've got to cut down. I asked Al about you and he said the work you were doing could be done just as well by an inexperienced girl----"

"Did Al say that?" cried Grace in spite of herself. "It's very unfair of him!"

Mr. Strauss sent her a keen, comprehending look.

"Well, I asked him and that's what he said. I can't keep track of you, you know."

"It was very unfair of him," repeated Grace, flushing. "In spite of the way you divided the papers, we've worked together on everything, as Al seemed to prefer. He can't claim any more credit for what we've done than I can."

Mr. Strauss nodded a number of times. "I know, I know all that. But that's what Al told me. If you don't agree, don't go out till Al comes and we'll have it out. Al is inclined to misrepresent things." He waited.

But a sudden idea shot through Grace's mind. Could they be working in unison? Was it a plan to get her to cut her own salary perhaps? Would people plot and counterplot with such narrow, shrewd subtlety for a few dollars? She felt highly superior to Harry Strauss and to Al. She brushed the matter aside with a curl of her lip.

"N-no," she said remotely. "I never could argue. If Al thinks that and you believe him----"

"I didn't say that, my dear," put in Harry Strauss. "I know nothing about your work. I have to ask Al and that is what he told me."

"Well, if Al feels that way about me----" She turned her eyes to the window.

"Well, what do you want to do?" said Mr. Strauss after a silence. "Do you want to leave?"

Grace lowered her eyes and took a deep breath. "Is that--the sad news you have for me?" she said in a very small voice.

"From what Al told me, I thought that would be best."

"If you're firing me," began Grace, "I have to go, of course." She spoke with dignity, but low, bowing to the greater force. She raised her eyes frankly to Mr. Strauss's face. "I can't afford to leave," she said. "As you know, it's not so easy--to get a job. And--I have my mother to support. It's very hard on me--without any notice." Her eyes, without a hint of a tear in them, took on the deeper pathos of tears just behind.

Mr. Strauss fussed with his papers. "Well, I'll tell you," he said at length. "I want to be fair to you. I'll give you a week to look around--and keep on with your work here. At the end of the week you come in and collect your pay as usual, but that doesn't mean you're to neglect your work here, you understand. Is that fair?"

So she had won. She had what amounted to a week's much-needed vacation with pay. It would be all right with Mr. Williams since she had thoughtfully arranged with him for this interval. It was hard to hide her elation. She got up and paused by the desk.

"I hope we--part good friends," she murmured with that curious advance of her eyes and retreat of the rest of her face. "I've liked--working here, and I'm sorry that you haven't found my work--entirely--satisfactory."

"That's all right, my dear," said Mr. Strauss. "You may have been lying down on the job here of late--I only know what Al tells me--but all the same I think you're a bright girl. After you're through here, drop in now and then. I might hear of something."

She thanked him. In the corridor, she met Al on his way back to the office.

"Well?" he inquired.

"Well?" she said haughtily.

"What happened? How'd you get along with Harry?"

Grace looked him over from top to toe before she replied. "He gave me a week in which to look around."

"I'm glad he did that anyhow," cried Al. "I'll see you around here then, but I want to wish you good luck right now, Grace." He put out his hand. "If I hear of anything--you know, I'm your friend."

Grace had a sudden moment of unguarded rage. She could and would permit herself to ignore the hand. She sneered. "Yes. I know what a friend you are to me."

"Jesus Christ! What's the big idea?" cried Al. Grace went on. "Women--! Women--!" called Al to Heaven, clutching his head and shaking it from side to side. He retreated into the office.

Still, some days later, Grace heard that Al was speaking of her as a "sweet girl," and when they next met they greeted each other as if nothing had happened. Neither cared or dared to make an open enemy of the other. Each had learned the Christian lesson of forgiving and forgetting, though not from motives of high magnanimity. To fight those who harm one and cherish those who aid one, to be proud, to be dangerous, and to be loyal is too primitive and difficult a process for this civilized world. It taxes the mind and emotions far less and is altogether better business to forgive and forget.