A Business Career

VI

35 "She's a peach" said Johnnie with decision. "Wish she'd stay,"said the clerk. "Can if she wants to,"said Johnnie. "He likes her." "How do you know?" "I knows him. No cussin,' no tearin' up, no writin' over!" "Thought he wouldn't have a woman around the office?" "Never seemed to know she was in the office. Wouldn't need to know whether she was a woman or a man, if he didn't look. He talks and shewrites and that's the end of it. Betcher a box er coffin-nails he'll ask her to stay." "Done, Johnnie. If I win, I'm a box in. If I lose, Fll only hasten your death,—you're too clever to live long, anyway, Johnnie.You'll die young." "Might gimme one now, on account," said Johnnie, "for I'm sure to win." The clerk tossed him a cigarette, which Johnnie lit and puffed with the zest and satisfaction of a connoisseur. VI. When Stella and Mrs. Paxton dismounted from the street-car in front of the brilliantly lighted entrance to the theater, a fashionably attired throng were pouring into the lobby and carriages were depositing their freight of ladies and gentlemen in evening dress upon the curbstone, whencetheypassed beneath a canopy to the entrance. A policeman wason duty to protect them from too close contact with the vulgar. Bernhardt's appearance for three nights, on her second American tour,was 36 a great event, and society turned out in full force to look at her,—so far as the play was concerned, it might as well have been in pantomime, for anythingthat allbut a fewof the audience understood of what was said. As Stella and her friend moved with the crowd along the lobby, Mrs. Paxton pointed out severalwell-knownpeople of local prominence. "That's Mr. Jewitt, the multi-millionaire. If he should look this way he'd speak to me. I worked in his office when I first began to earn my own living, and I am sure he hasn't forgotten me." Just then the great man turned his head in their direction and smiled and nodded blandly, Stella could not tell, of course, whether to them or to someone else in the lobby. Mrs. Paxton gave an answeringsmile and moved asifto come nearer to him. But he looked the other way and before she could reach him, waslost in the crowd. "He's an awfully nice man," she said, "and as charitable as he is rich. He has founded a hospital and endowed a dozen colleges. He has giventhe city a park. He spends millions for charity, and employs a man on a salary to investigate cases that arebrought to his attention. "That's Professor Bowles,"—indicating a tall man with long white hair and beard—" 'the distinguished lecturer on comparative religions, theosophy and kindred topics.' That's from his letterhead—we do his correspondence in the office. He is a very learned man and knows all about the secret history and occult meaning of the Sphinx and the pyramids. That man has forgotten more than most people everknew." 37 "Oh, yes," said Stella, "I have heard him lecture in our town." She did not add, as she might have done, that, from what shehad heard of the professor,he had probablyforgotten all that was worth knowing, and had retained only the odds and ends of vanished faiths and discredited speculations. Mrs. Paxton pointed out the mayor,who looked for all the world like a successful brewer; the lady minister of a Universalist church, at whom Stella, in spite of her own enlightened views, looked with something of repulsion. The reverend lady, no longer young,wore a close-fitting dress of some dark stuff, with a vest-front and a standing collar in what Stella thought a rather ludicrous imitation of the clerical garb. A woman preacher of religion in attendance upon a play written by Sardou and interpreted by Bernhardt, wasa combination that Stella's degree of intellectual advancement had not yet prepared her to contemplate without some mental confusion. They presented their tickets at the door, and soon found themselves in very comfortable seats in the front row of the balcony. The house was filled to overflowing.The display of costumes, of shoulders and of jewelswas far beyond anything Stella had everseen before. For although she had been brought...