"Oh, I don't think I'd like a room-mate."

"My dear young lady, this place is simply full of young persons who would like and they wouldn't like--and forsooth we must change every plan to suit their high and mighty convenience! I'm not at all sure that we shall have a single room vacant for at least six months, and of course--"

"Well, could I talk to Mrs.--Lawrence, was it?"

"Most a.s.suredly. I _expect_ you to talk to her! Come with me."

Una followed abjectly, and the matron seemed well pleased with her reformation of this wayward young woman. Her voice was curiously anemic, however, as she rapped on a bedroom door and called, "Oh, Mrs.

Lawrence!"

A husky, capable voice within, "Yeah, what is 't?"

"It's Mrs. Fike, deary. I think I have a room-mate for you."

"Well, you wait 'll I get something on, will you!"

Mrs. Fike waited. She waited two minutes. She looked at a wrist-watch in a leather band while she tapped her sensibly clad foot. She tried again: "We're _waiting_, deary!"

There was no answer from within, and it was two minutes more before the door was opened.

Una was conscious of a room pleasant with white-enameled woodwork; a denim-covered couch and a narrow, prim bra.s.s bed, a litter of lingerie and sheets of newspaper; and, as the dominating center of it all, a woman of thirty, tall, high-breasted, full-faced, with a nose that was large but pleasant, black eyes that were cool and direct and domineering--Mrs. Esther Lawrence.

"You kept us waiting so long," complained Mrs. Fike.

Mrs. Lawrence stared at her as though she were an impudent servant. She revolved on Una, and with a self-confident kindliness in her voice, inquired, "What's your name, child?"

"Una Golden."

"We'll talk this over.... Thank you, Mrs. Fike."

"Well, now," Mrs. Fike endeavored, "be sure you both are satisfied--"

"Don't you worry! We will, all right!"

Mrs. Fike glared at her and retired.

Mrs. Lawrence grinned, stretched herself on the couch, mysteriously produced a cigarette, and asked, "Smoke?"

"No, thanks."

"Sit down, child, and be comfy. Oh, would you mind opening that window?

Not supposed to smoke.... Poor Ma Fike--I just can't help deviling her.

Please don't think I'm usually as nasty as I am with her. She has to be kept in her place or she'll worry you to death.... Thanks.... Do sit down--woggle up the pillow on the bed and be comfy.... You look like a nice kid--me, I'm a lazy, slatternly, good-natured old hex, with all the bad habits there are and a profound belief that the world is a h.e.l.l of a place, but I'm fine to get along with, and so let's take a shot at rooming together. If we sc.r.a.p, we can quit instanter, and no bad feelings.... I'd really like to have you come in, because you look as though you were on, even if you are rather meek and kitteny; and I'm scared to death they'll wish some tough little Mick on to me, or some pious sister who hasn't been married and believes in p.u.s.s.y-footing around and taking it all to G.o.d in prayer every time I tell her the truth.... What do you think, kiddy?"

Una was by this c.o.c.k-sure disillusioned, large person more delighted than by all the wisdom of Mr. Wilkins or the soothing of Mrs. Sessions.

She felt that, except for Walter, it was the first time since she had come to New York that she had found an entertaining person.

"Yes," she said, "do let's try it."

"Good! Now let me warn you first off, that I may be diverting at times, but I'm no good. To-morrow I'll pretend to be a misused and unfortunate victim, but your young and almost trusting eyes make me feel candid for about fifteen minutes. I certainly got a raw deal from my beloved husband--that's all you'll hear from me about him. By the way, I'm typical of about ten thousand married women in business about whose n.o.ble spouses nothing is ever said. But I suppose I ought to have bucked up and made good in business (I'm a b.u.m stenog. for Pitcairn, McClure & Stockley, the bond house). But I can't. I'm too lazy, and it doesn't seem worth while.... And, oh, we are exploited, women who are on jobs.

The bosses give us a lot of taffy and raise their hats--but they don't raise our wages, and they think that if they keep us till two G.M.

taking dictation they make it all right by apologizing. Women are a lot more conscientious on jobs than men are--but that's because we're fools; you don't catch the men staying till six-thirty because the boss has shystered all afternoon and wants to catch up on his correspondence. But we--of course we don't dare to make dates for dinner, lest we have to stay late. We don't _dare_!"

"I bet _you_ do!"

"Yes--well, I'm not so much of a fool as some of the rest--or else more of a one. There's Mamie Magen--she's living here; she's with Pitcairn, too. You'll meet her and be crazy about her. She's a lame Jewess, and awfully plain, except she's got lovely eyes, but she's got a mind like a tack. Well, she's the little angel-pie about staying late, and some day she'll probably make four thousand bucks a year. She'll be mayor of New York, or executive secretary of the Young Women's Atheist a.s.sociation or something. But still, she doesn't stay late and plug hard because she's scared, but because she's got ambition. But most of the women--Lord!

they're just cowed sheep."

"Yes," said Una.

A million discussions of Women in Business going on--a thousand of them at just that moment, perhaps--men employers declaring that they couldn't depend on women in their offices, women a.s.serting that women were the more conscientious. Una listened and was content; she had found some one with whom to play, with whom to talk and hate the powers.... She felt an impulse to tell Mrs. Lawrence all about Troy Wilkins and her mother and--and perhaps even about Walter Babson. But she merely treasured up the thought that she could do that some day, and politely asked:

"What about Mrs. Fike? Is she as bad as she seems?"

"Why, that's the best little skeleton of contention around here. There's three factions. Some girls say she's just plain devil--mean as a floor-walker. That's what I think--she's a rotter and a four-flusher.

You notice the way she crawls when I stand up to her. Why, they won't have Catholics here, and I'm one of those wicked people, and she knows it! When she asked my religion I told her I was a 'Romanist Episcopalian,' and she sniffed and put me down as an Episcopalian--I saw her!... Then some of the girls think she's really good-hearted--just gruff--bark worse than her bite. But you ought to see how she barks at some of the younger girls--scares 'em stiff--and keeps picking on them about regulations--makes their lives miserable. Then there's a third section that thinks she's merely inst.i.tutionalized--training makes her as hard as any other kind of a machine. You'll find lots like her in this town--in all the charities."

"But the girls--they do have a good time here?"

"Yes, they do. It's sort of fun to fight Ma Fike and all the fool rules.

I enjoy smoking here twice as much as I would anywhere else. And Fike isn't half as bad as the board of visitors--bunch of fat, rich, old Upper-West-Siders with pa.s.s.e.m.e.nteried bosoms, doing tea-table charity, and asking us impertinent questions, and telling a bunch of hard-worked slaves to be virtuous and wash behind their ears--the soft, ignorant, conceited, impractical parasites! But still, it's all sort of like a cranky boarding-school for girls--and you know what fun the girls have there, with midnight fudge parties and a teacher p.u.s.s.y-footing down the hall trying to catch them."

"I don't know. I've never been to one."

"Well--doesn't matter.... Another thing--some day, when you come to know more men-- Know many?"

"Very few."

"Well, you'll find this town is full of bright young men seeking an economical solution of the s.e.x problem--to speak politely--and you'll find it a relief not to have them on your door-step. 'S safe here....

Come in with me, kid. Give me an audience to talk to."

"Yes," said Una.

- 2

It was hard to leave the kindly Herbert Grays of the flat, but Una made the break and arranged all her silver toilet-articles--which consisted of a plated-silver hair-brush, a German-silver nail-file, and a good, plain, honest rubber comb--on the bureau in Mrs. Lawrence's room.

With the shyness of a girl on her first night in boarding-school, Una stuck to Mrs. Lawrence's side in the noisy flow of strange girls down to the dining-room. She was used to being self-absorbed in the noisiest restaurants, but she was trembly about the knees as she crossed the room among curious upward glances; she found it very hard to use a fork without clattering it on the plate when she sat with Mrs. Lawrence and four strangers, at a table for six.

They all were splendidly casual and wise and good-looking. With no men about to intimidate them--or to attract them--they made a solid phalanx of bland, satisfied femininity, and Una felt more barred out than in an office. She longed for a man who would be curious about her, or cross with her, or perform some other easy, customary, simple-hearted masculine trick.

But she was taken into the friendship of the table when Mrs. Lawrence had finished a harangue on the cardinal sin of serving bean soup four times in two weeks.

"Oh, shut up, Lawrence, and introduce the new kid!" said one girl.

"You wait till I get through with my introductory remarks, Ca.s.savant.

I'm inspired to-night. I'm going to take a plate of bean soup and fit it over Ma Fike's head--upside down."