Every floor housed offices where fortunes were being made--and lost--at any rate, changing hands. There was an element of buoyancy in the air, an atmosphere of success. People moved more quickly, talked more briskly, from the moment they entered the Admolian Building. As always, it raised the spirits of Susannah Ayer. The set look vanished from her eyes; some of their normal brilliancy flowed back into them. Her mouth relaxed-- When the elevator came to a padded halt at the eighteenth floor, she had become almost herself again.

She stopped before the first in a series of offices. Black-printed letters on the ground gla.s.s of the door read:

46 Carbonado Mining Company Private. Enter No. 47

An accommodating hand pointed in the direction of No. 47. Susannah unlocked the door and with a little sigh, as of relief, stepped in.

Other offices stretched along the line of the corridor, bearing the inscriptions, respectively, "No. 48, H. Withington Warner, President and General Manager; No. 49, Joseph Byan, Vice-President; No. 50, Michael O'Hearn, Secretary and Treasurer." Ultimately, Susannah's own door would flaunt the proud motto, "No. 51, Susannah Ayer, Manager Women's Department."

Susannah threaded the inner corridor to her own office. She hung up her hat and jacket; opened her mail; ran through it. Then she lifted the cover from her typewriter and began mechanically to brush and oil it.

Her mind was not on her work; it had not been on the letters. It kept speeding back to last night. She did not want to think of last night again--at least not until she must. She pulled her thoughts into her control; made them flow back over the past months. And as they sped in those pleasant channels, involuntarily her mood went with them. Had any girl ever been so fortunate, she wondered. She put it to herself in simple declaratives--

Here she was, all alone in New York and in New York for the first time, settled--interestingly and pleasantly settled. Eight months before, she had stepped out of business college without a hundred dollars in the world; her course in stenography, typewriting, and secretarial work had taken the last of her inherited funds. Without kith or kin, she was a working-woman, now, on her own responsibility. Two months of apprenticeship, one stenographer among fifty, in the great offices of the Maxwell Mills, and Barty Joyce, almost the sole remaining friend who remembered the past glories of her family, had advised her to try New York.

"Susannah," he said, "now is the time to strike--now while the men are away and while the girls are still on war jobs. Get yourself entrenched before they come back. You've the makings of a wonderful office helper."

Susannah, with a glorious sense of adventure once she was started, took his advice and moved to New York. For a week, she answered advertis.e.m.e.nts, visited offices; and she found that Barty was right. She had the refusal of half a dozen jobs. From them she selected the offer of the Carbonado Mining Company--partly because she liked Mr. Warner, and partly because it seemed to offer the best future. Mr. Warner said to her in their first interview:

"We are looking for a clever woman whom we can specially train in the methods of our somewhat peculiar business. If you qualify, we shall advance you to a superior position."

That "superior position" had fallen into her hand like a ripe peach.

Within a week, Mr. Warner had called her into the private office for a long business talk.

"Miss Ayer," he said, "you seem to be making good. I am going to tell you frankly that if you continue to meet our requirements, we shall continue to advance you and pay you accordingly. You see, our business--" Mr. Warner's voice always swelled a little when he said "our business"--"our business involves a great deal of letter-writing to women investors and some personal interviews. Now we believe--both Mr.

Byan and I--that women investing money like to deal with one of their own s.e.x. We have been looking for just the right woman. A candidate for the position must have tact, understanding, and clearness of written expression. We have been trying to find such a woman; and frankly, the search has been difficult. You know how war work--quite rightly, of course--has monopolized the able women of the country. We have tried out half a dozen girls; but the less said about them the better. For two weeks we will let you try your hand at correspondence with women investors. If your work is satisfactory, it means a permanent job at twice your present salary."

Her work had pleased them! It had pleased them instantly. But oh, how she had worked to please them and to continue to please! Every letter she sent out--and after explaining the Carbonado Company and its attractions, Mr. Warner let her compose all the letters to women--was a study in condensed and graceful expression. At the end of the fortnight Mr. Warner engaged her permanently. He went even further. He said:

"Miss Ayer, we're going to make you manager of our women's department; and we're going to put your name with ours on the letterhead of the new office stationery." When the day came that she first signed herself "Susannah Ayer, Manager Women's Department," she felt as though all the fairy tales she ever read had come true.

Susannah, as she was a.s.sured again and again, continued to give satisfaction. No wonder; for she liked her job. The work interested her so much that she always longed to get to the office in the morning, almost hated to leave it at night. It was a pleasant office, bright and s.p.a.cious. Everything was new, even to the capacious waste basket. Her big, shiny mahogany desk stood close to the window. And from that window she surveyed the colorful, brick-and-stone West Side of Manhattan, the Hudson, and the city-spotted, town-dotted stretches beyond. The clouds hung close; sometimes their white and silver argosies seemed to besiege her. Once, she almost thought the new moon would bounce through her window. Snow noiselessly, winds tumultuously, a.s.sailed her; but she sat as impervious as though in an enchanted tower. Gray days made only a suaver magic, thunderstorms a madder enchantment, about her eyrie.

The human surroundings were just as pleasant. Though the Carbonado Company worked only with selected clients, though they transacted most of their business by mail, there were many visitors--some customers; others, apparently, merely friends of Mr. Warner, Mr. Byan, and Mr.

O'Hearn--who dropped in of afternoons to chat a while. Pleasant, jolly men most of these. s.n.a.t.c.hes of their talk, usually enigmatic, floated to her across the tops of the part.i.tions; it gave the office an exciting atmosphere of something doing. And then--it happened that Susannah's way of life had brought her into contact with but few men--everything was so _manny_.

She stood a little in awe of H. Withington Warner, president and general manager. Mr. Warner was middle-aged and iron-gray. That last adjective perfectly described him--iron-gray. Everything about him was gray; his straight, thick hair; his clear, incisive eyes; even his colorless skin.

And his personality had a quality of iron. There was about him a fascinating element of duality. Sometimes he seemed to Susannah a little like a clergyman. And sometimes he made her think of an actor. This histrionic aspect, she decided, was due to his hair, a bit long; to his features, floridly cla.s.sic; to his manner, frequently courtly; to his voice, occasionally oratorical. This, however, showed only in his lighter moments. Much of the time, of course, he was merely brisk and businesslike. Whatever his tone, it carried you along. To Susannah, he was always charming.

If she stood a little in awe of H. Withington Warner, she made up by feeling on terms of the utmost equality with Michael O'Hearn, secretary and treasurer of the Carbonado Mining Company. Mr. O'Hearn--the others called him "Mike"--was a little Irishman. He had a short stumpy figure and a short stumpy face. Moreover, he looked as though someone had delivered him a denting blow in the middle of his profile. From this indentation jutted in one direction his long, protuberant, rounded forehead; peaked in another his upturned nose. The rest of him was sandy hair and sandy complexion, and an agreeable pair of long-lashed Irish eyes. He was the wit of the office, keeping everyone in constant good temper. Susannah felt very friendly toward Mr. O'Hearn. This was strange, because he rarely spoke to her. But somehow, for all that, he had the gift of seeming friendly. Susannah trusted him as she trusted Mr. Warner, though in a different way.

In regard to Joseph Byan, the third member of the combination, Susannah had her unformulated reservations. Perhaps it was because Byan really interested her more than the other two. Byan was little and slender; perfectly formed and rather fine-featured; swift as a cat in his darting movements. In his blue eyes shone a look of vague pathos and on his lips floated--Susannah decided that this was the only way to express it--a vague, a rather sweet smile. Susannah's job had not at first brought her as much into contact with Mr. Byan as with Mr. Warner. His work, she learned, lay mostly outside of the office. But once, during her third week, he had come into her office and dictated a letter; had lingered, when he had finished with the business in hand, for a little talk. The conversation, in some curious turn, veered to the subject of firearms.

He was speaking of the various patterns of revolvers. He stood before her, a slim, perfectly proportioned figure whose clothes, of an almost feminine nicety and cut, seemed to follow every line of the body beneath. Suddenly, one of his slight hands made a swift gesture. There appeared--from where, she could not guess--a little, ugly-looking black revolver. With it, he ill.u.s.trated his point. Since, he had never pa.s.sed through the office without Susannah's glance playing over him like a flame. Nowhere along the smooth lines of his figure could she catch the bulge of that little toy of death. Despite his suave gentleness, there was a believable quality about Byan; his personality carried conviction, just as did that of the others. Susannah trusted him, too; but again in a different way.

On the very day when Mr. Byan showed her the revolver, she was pa.s.sing the open door of Mr. Warner's office; and she heard the full, round voice of the Chief saying:

"Remember, Joe, rule number one: no clients or employ--" Byan hastily closed the door on the tail of that sentence. Sometimes she wondered how it ended.

A cog in the machine, Susannah had never fully understood the business.

That was not really necessary; Mr. Warner himself kept her informed on what she needed to know. He explained in the beginning the glorious opportunity for investors. From time to time, he added new details, as for example the glowing reports of their chief engineer or their special expert. Susannah knew that they were paying three per cent dividends a month--and in April there was a special dividend of two per cent.

Besides, they were about to break into a "mother lode"--the reports of their experts proved that--and when that happened, no one could tell just how high the dividends might be. True, these dividend payments were often made a little irregularly. One of the things which Susannah did not understand, did not try to understand, was why a certain list of preferred stockholders was now and then given an extra dividend; nor why at times Mr. Warner would transfer a name from one list to another.

"I'm thinking of saving my money and investing myself in Carbonado stock!" said Susannah to Mr. Warner one day.

"Don't," said Mr. Warner; and then with a touch of his clerical manner: "We prefer to keep our office force and our investors entirely separate factors for the present. We are trying to avoid the reproach of letting our people in on the ground floor. When our ship comes in--when we open the mother lode--you shall be taken care of!"

So, for six months, everything went perfectly. Susannah had absorbed herself completely in her job. This was an easy thing to do when the business was so fascinating. She had gone for five months at this pace when she realized that she had not taken the leisure to make friends.

Except the three partners--mere shadows to her--and the people at her boarding-house--also mere shadows to her--she knew only Eloise. Not that the friendship of Eloise was a thing to pa.s.s over lightly. Eloise was a host in herself.

They had met at the Dorothy Dorr, a semi-charitable home for young business women, at which Susannah stayed during her first week in New York. Eloise was an heiress, of that species known to the newspapers as a "society girl." Pretty, piquant, gay, extravagant, she dabbled in picturesque charities, and the Dorothy Dorr was her pet. Sometimes in the summer, when she ran up to town, she even lodged there. By natural affinity, she had picked Susannah out of the crowd. By the time Susannah was established in her new job and had moved to a boarding-house, they had become friends. But the friendship of Eloise could not be very satisfactory. She was too busy; and, indeed, too often out of town. From her social fastnesses, she made sudden, dashing forays on Susannah; took her to luncheon, dinner, or the theater; then she would retreat to upper Fifth Avenue, and Susannah would not see her for a fortnight or a month.

Then, that terrible, perplexing yesterday. If she could only expunge yesterday from her life--or at least from her memory!

Of course, there were events leading up to yesterday. Chief among them was the appearance in the office, some weeks before, of Mr. Ozias Cowler, from Iowa. Mr. Cowler, Susannah gathered from the manner of the office, was a customer of importance. He was middle-aged. No, why mince matters--he was an old man who looked middle-aged. He was old, because his hair had gone quite white, and his face had fallen into areas broken by wrinkles. But he appeared to the first glance middle-aged, because the skin of those areas was ruddy and warm; because his eyes were as clear and blue as in youth. He looked--well, Susannah decided that he looked _fatherly_. He was quiet in his step and quiet in his manner.

Though he appeared to her in the light of a customer rather than that of an acquaintance, Susannah was inclined to like him, as she liked everyone and everything about the Carbonado offices.

Susannah gathered in time that Mr. Cowler had a great deal of money, and that he had come to New York to invest it. Of course the Carbonado Mining Company--and this included Susannah herself--saw the best of reasons why it should be invested with them. But evidently, he was a hard, cautious customer. He came again and again. He sat closeted for long intervals with Mr. Warner. Sometimes Mr. Byan came into these conferences. Mr. Cowler was always going to luncheon with the one and to dinner with the other. He even went to a baseball game with Mr. O'Hearn.

But, although he visited the office more and more frequently, she gathered that the investment was not forthcoming. Susannah knew how frequently he was coming because, in spite of the little, admonitory black hand on the ground-gla.s.s door, he always entered, not by the reception room, but by her office. Usually, he preceded his long talk with Mr. Warner by a little chat with her. Evidently, he had not yet caught the quick gait of New York business; for as he left--again through Susannah's office--he would stop for a longer talk. Once or twice, Susannah had to excuse herself in order to go on with her work.

She had been a little afraid that Mr. Warner would comment on these delays in office routine. But, although Mr. Warner once or twice glanced into her office during these intervals, he never interfered.

Then came--yesterday.

Early in the morning, Mr. Warner said:

"Miss Ayer, I wonder if you can do a favor for us?" He went on, without waiting for Susannah's answer: "Cowler--you know what a helpless person he is--wants to go to dinner and the theater tonight. It happens that none of us can accompany him. We've all made the kind of engagement which can't be broken--business. He feels a little self-conscious. You know, his money came to him late, and he has never been to a big city before. I suspect he is afraid to enter a fashionable restaurant alone.

He wants to go to Sherry's and to the theater afterward--" Mr. Warner paused to smile genially. "He's something of a hick, you know, and especially in regard to this Sherry and midnight cabaret stuff." Mr.

Warner rarely used slang; and when he did, his smile seemed to put it into quotation marks. "True to type, he has bought tickets in the front row. After the show, he wants to go to one of the midnight cabarets.

Would you be willing to steer him through all this? The show is _Let's Beat It_."

Susannah expressed herself as delighted; and indeed she was. To herself she admitted that Mr. Cowler was no more of a "hick" in regard to Broadway, Sherry's, and midnight cabarets than she herself. But about admitting this, she had all the self-consciousness of the newly arrived New Yorker.

"That is very good of you, Miss Ayer," said Mr. Warner, appearing much relieved. "You may go home this afternoon an hour earlier." Again Mr.

Warner pa.s.sed from his incisive, gray-hued sobriety to an expansive geniality. "I know that in these circ.u.mstances, ladies like to take time over their toilettes." He smiled at Susannah, a smile more expansive than any she had ever seen on his face; it showed to the back molars his handsome, white, regular teeth.

Mr. Cowler called for her in a taxicab at seven and--

She heard Mr. Warner's door open and shut. Footsteps sounded in the corridor--that was Mr. O'Hearn's voice. She glanced at her wrist-watch.

Half-past nine. The partners had arrived early this morning, of all mornings. They were night birds, all three, seldom appearing before half-past ten, and often working in the office late after she had gone.

Susannah stopped mid-sentence a letter which she was tapping out to a widow in Iowa, rose, moved toward the door. At the threshold, she stopped, a deep blush suffusing her face. So she paused for a moment, irresolute. When finally she started down the corridor, Mr. Warner emerged from the door of his own office, met her face to face. And as his eyes rested on hers, she was puzzled by the expression on his smooth countenance. Was it anxiety? His expression seemed to question her--then it flowed into his cordial smile.

Susannah was first to speak:

"Good-morning, Mr. Warner. May I see you alone for a moment?"

"Certainly!" With his best courtliness of manner, he bowed her into his private office. "Won't you have a seat?"

Susannah sat down.