New York (State) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
“Anita Adair?” said the maid. “You was Anita Adair, yes? Wait once. It
is a letter for you by downstairs.”
She closed the door in Kedzie's face. Some time later she came back and
gave Anita the letter from Charity. It was several days old. She read it
with amazement. The impulse to tear it up as she had torn up Charity's
card in Newport did not last long. She went at once to a drugstore and
looked up the telephone number and the address of the Hyperfilm Company.
She repaid the druggist with a smile and a word of thanks; then she took
a street-car to the office.
Miss Havender, who was also a scenario-writer and editor, was very busy.
She had an executive manner that strangely contradicted her abilities
to suffer under the pangs of love and unrequited idolatry. But then,
business men are no more immune to the foolish venom on Cupid's arrows
than poets--perhaps less, since they have no outlet of rhapsody. That
was one of the troubles with Kedzie's poet. By the time Gilfoyle had
finished a poem of love he was so exhausted that any other emotion was
welcome, best of all a good quarrel and the healthful exercise of his
poetic gifts for hate. He could hate at the drop of a hat.
When the office-boy brought Charity's letter of introduction to Miss
Havender with the verbal message that Miss Adair was waiting outside
Miss Havender nodded. She decided to procure this Miss Adair a good job
in order to curry favor with Mrs. Cheever. She would advise Mr. Ferriday
to pay her marked attention, too.
But when she caught sight of Kedzie running the gantlet of the battery
of authors and typists, and noted how pretty she was, Miss Havender
decided that it would not be good for Mr. Ferriday to pay marked
attention to this minx. He had a habit of falling in love with women
more ardently than with scenarios. He was a despot with a scenario, and
he could quickly make a famous novel unrecognizable by its own father
or mother. But a pretty woman could rule him ludicrously while her charm
lasted.
Miss Havender would gladly have turned Kedzie from the door, but she did
not dare. She had promised Mrs. Cheever to give the girl a job. But she
had not promised what kind of job it should be.
She received Kedzie with such brusqueness that the frightened girl
almost fell off the small rim of chair she dared to occupy. She offered
Kedzie a post as a typist, but Kedzie could not type; as a film-cutter's
assistant, but Kedzie had never seen a film; as a printing-machine
engineer or a bookkeeper's clerk, but Kedzie had no ability to do
things. She could merely look things.
Finally Miss Havender said: “I'm awfully sorry, Miss Adair, but the only
position open is a place as extra woman. There is a big ballroom scene
to be staged tomorrow, and a low dance-hall the next day, and on Monday
a crowd of starving Belgian peasants. We could use you in those, but of
course you wouldn't care to accept the pay.”
She said this hopefully. Kedzie answered, hopelessly:
“What's the pay?”
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.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account