Poor, Dear Margaret KirbyNorris, Kathleen Thompson
General
Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby
Norris, Kathleen Thompson
American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories
DEAREST GIRL: Can't wait any longer. Mrs. T. must see her dentist
(Archibald). I'm taking her up. Thayers and we lunch at the Palace at
one-thirty. Wait for me in my office. J. F.
"Oh, what is the matter with everything to-day!" Susanna burst out in
exasperation. "He's wild, of course. When does he ever sign himself 'J.
F.' to me! When did they go?" she asked Miss Perry, briefly, with an
unreasonable wish that she might somehow hold that irreproachable young
woman responsible.
"Just about three minutes ago," said Miss Perry. "He said that if you
had missed your train, you wouldn't be here for more than an hour, and
it was no use waiting."
"You see, it was a changed time-table, and he forgot it just as I did,"
explained Susanna, pleased to find him fallible, even to that extent.
"But HE was on time," fenced Miss Perry, innocently.
"They don't change the business trains," Susanna said coldly. And she
decided that she disliked this girl. She opened a magazine and sat down
by the open window.
The minutes ticked slowly by. The telephone rang, doors opened and
shut, and men came and went through the office. Susanna, opposed in
every fibre of her being to passive waiting, suddenly rose.
"Dr. Archibald is in the First National Bank Building, isn't he?" she
inquired. "I think I'll join Mrs. Thayer up there. There's no use in my
waiting here."
Miss Perry silently verified Dr. Archibald's address in the telephone
book, and to the First National Bank Building Susanna immediately made
her way. It was growing warmer now and the streets seemed noisy and
crowded, but no matter--"If I can only get to them and SEE Jim!"
thought Susanna.
In the pleasant shadiness of Dr. Archibald's office, rising from a
delightful mahogany arm-chair, Susanna presently asked if Mrs. Thayer
could be told that Mrs. Fairfax was there.
"I think Mrs. Thayer is gone," said the attendant pleasantly. "I'm not
sure, but I'll see."
In a few minutes she returned to inform Mrs. Fairfax that Mrs. Thayer
had just come in to have a bridge replaced, and was gone.
"You don't know where?" Susanna's voice was a trifle husky with
repressed emotion. She realized that she was getting a headache.
No, the attendant didn't know where.
So there was nothing for it but to go back to Jim's office, and back
Susanna accordingly went. She walked as fast as she could, conscious of
every separate hot step, and was nervous and headachy when she entered
Miss Perry's presence again.
Mr. Fairfax and Mrs. Thayer had not come in; no, but Miss Perry
reported that Mr. Fairfax had telephoned not ten minutes ago, and
seemed very anxious to get hold of his wife.
"Oh, dear, dear!" lamented Susanna. "And where is he now?"
Miss Perry couldn't say. "I wrote his message down," she said, with
sympathetic amusement at Susanna's crushed dismay. And, referring to
her notes, she repeated it:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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