London (England) -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
So Mr. Grig knew that she had a dance that night! There was something
piquant and discomposing in that. Gertie Jackson must have chattered to
Miss Grig--they were as thick as thieves, those two, or, at any rate,
the good-natured Gertie flattered herself that they were--and Miss Grig
must have told Felix. (Very discreetly the girls would refer among
themselves to Mr. Grig as "Felix.") Brother and sister must have been
talking about her and her miserable little dance. Still, a dance was a
dance, and the mere word had a glorious sound. Nobody except herself
knew that her dance was in a basement.... So he had not come to the
office to relieve and reassure her in her unforeseen night-watch, but
merely to placate his sister! And how casually, lightly, almost
quizzically, he had spoken! She was naught to him--a girl typist, one
among a floating population of girl typists.
Miss Grig had no distinction--her ankles proved that--but Felix was
distinguished, in manner, in voice, in everything he did. Felix was a
swell, like the easy _flâneurs_ in Bond Street that she saw when she
happened to go out of the office during work-hours. It was said that he
had been married and that his wife had divorced him. Lilian surmised
that if the truth were known the wife more than Felix had been to blame.
All these thoughts were mere foam on the great, darkly heaving thought
that Felix had horribly misjudged her. Not his fault, of course; but he
had misjudged her. Crying for a lost dance, indeed! She terribly wanted
him to be made aware that she was only crying because she had
experienced an ordeal to which she ought not to have been exposed and to
which no girl ought to have been exposed. Miss Grig again! It was Miss
Grig, not Felix, who had sneered at hold-ups. There had been no
hold-up, but there might have been a hold-up, and, in any case, she had
passed through the worst sensations of a hold-up. Scandalous!
Anxious to be effective, she took up the typing of a novel which had
been sent in by one of their principal customers, a literary agency, and
tried to tap as prosaically as if the hour were 11.30 A.M. instead of
11.30 P.M. Bravado! She knew that she would have to do the faulty
sheet again; but she must impress Felix. Then she heard Felix calling
from the principals’ room:
"Miss Share. Miss _Share_!" A little impatient as usual.
"Yes, Mr. Grig." She rushed to the mirror and patted herself with the
tiny sponge that under Miss Grig’s orders was supposed to be employed
for wetting postage stamps--but never was so employed save in Miss
Grig’s presence.
"I shall tell him why I was crying," she said to herself as she crossed
the ante-room. "And I shall tell him straight."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account