Chapter IX

McDowell's defection, from the Underground was presently followed by an addition to its working force. One morning, a month or so later, Ogden, in an interval of leisure, glanced across to the window before which Burton Brainard had railed in his desk, and saw a young woman within the enclosure. She sat there alone, before a desk of the peculiar kind that has been contrived for the typewriter, and her effect at the moment was that of leisure finally and elegantly achieved.

He was at once struck by her peculiar facial expression; she had one eye open and the other shut. All at once she effected an instantaneous change which closed the open eye and opened the closed one. Then she opened both and gave out a smile of recognition, surprise, and pleasure, which he now perceived to be the work of the features of Cornelia McNabb.

"Here we are!" she seemed to say.

She had followed Burt's elevation to the vice-presidency, along with the new desk and the handsome rail-work enclosing it. Burt's concerns, despite his rise in rank, were now, as heretofore, largely outside the hank proper; he did something in stocks now and then, and he kept the run of things on the Board of Trade. But he was like his father in looking upon the bank as a personal and family matter--a point of view which the action of the body of stockholders somewhat justified: as a general thing they made up a chorus that huddled in the wings--several of them declining to come "on" even for the election that advanced Brainard, Jr., to the second place. So he saw no very good reason why the bank generally should not foot the bill for his own clerk-hire.

"Why can't you use the man we've got here already?" his father had asked him, however. "Ain't one enough?"

"No. Somebody else has always got him. If I could have one for myself just for an hour or so, it would be a great help."

"Why don't you get one of those girls that circulate around upstairs? I hear there's one or two of 'em."

"I believe I will." And thus Cornelia McNabb came in for a brief daily attachment to the Underground.

She sat in her place quite unoccupied for an hour or so, looking about inquiringly, fidgeting a little, and watching the clock. Ogden glanced over in her direction once or twice. He saw that she had contrived to express her rise by several subtile alterations in her dress, and that she had succeeded in enveloping herself in a promising atmosphere of gentility. She, in her turn, kept an eye on him and contrived to time her own luncheon along with his. She thrust her hat-pin into place just as he buttoned on his cuffs, and she drew a black-dotted veil across the tip of her nose just as he was reaching up for his hat.

They sauntered out separately, but came together in the hallway.

"Do I look nice, or don't I?" she asked him, as she passed one of her gloves over the smooth surface of the massive marble balustrade. "You needn't think the Pewaukee girls are jays; they're too near Lakeside and Waukesha for that."

"You do, indeed. But where are the chains and rings?"

"Fiddle! I hope I know better than that, now."

The elevators were sliding up and down behind their gilded _grilles_ with great rapidity, and hundreds of hungry helpers were stepping out of them in search of brief refreshment. Some of these stopped in the basement vestibule, and our young people, looking over the balustrade, saw them buying packages of cigarettes or the noon papers. There came to them, too, the voice of the man who stood at the foot of the elevator shafts and who regulated the movements of the various cabs by calling out their numbers with a laconic yawp. He wore a blue uniform with gilt buttons and he had a gold band on his cap. He was as important as Ingles himself--perhaps more so.

"I believe I'll go up to the restaurant to-day," said Cornelia, with a precious little intonation. Her mincing tone intimated a variety of things--altered conditions among them.

"I go up there occasionally myself," said Ogden. "You have entertained me several times downstairs, and you ought to give me my chance now, don't you think?"

"Quite happy, I'm sure," she murmured demurely.

"Up!" called Ogden, and up they went.

"Well," said Cornelia, a few minutes later, taking off her gloves with a self-conscious grace, and pushing aside her tumbler so as to find a place to lay them, "I can't say I've been overworked _this_ morning. I haven't seen my new man at all."

"He's out a good deal."

"But the old one was on deck."

"In what way?"

"Oh, he put me through a regular drill. Had quite a number of remarks. I shouldn't care to take _him_ down. May have to, though, if he gets too bossy. Eh?--oh, well, I don't know that I care for so very much, thank you. What are _you_ going to have? Chicken-soup?--all right. Yes, chicken-soup, John."

She leaned hack in her chair with a genteel grace, and looked out of the window down on the snow-piled roofs below.

"Do you know, I used to think I was a pretty smart girl, but I begin to believe I'm a good deal of a dummy, after all. That man has been in the building all this time, and I have just found it out."

Ogden's eye involuntarily followed the waiter.

"Not that black man--nix. But how could I be expected to spot his name among all the 'steen hundred on that bulletin by the door? I did see it there this morning, though--just by accident."

"Whose?"

"Oh, Ingles's. Arthur J. Ingles. Think of his being in this very building all this time!" She put the rim of her tumbler up under the edge of her veil.

"In it?" repeated Ogden. "He owns it."

"He does? Great Scott!" she choked and spluttered, setting her glass down suddenly. "Well, I'll be switched!"

She gave another gulp. "I suppose his father willed it to him."

"No; he put it up for himself; I heard him say so."

"And you know him?" A new light shone in her brimming eyes.

"Yes."

"Well," she declared with emphasis, "now I see my way. He's got to have me do shorthand for him, and then I shall see--her."

"Ah!"

"Yes. Can't you tell Mr. High-and-mighty that you know a respectable girl who is trying to make her own living?" She ran her fingers over the edge of one of her cuffs, which was slightly frayed. "You see how poor I am."

George laughed. "The laundries _are_ pretty rough, for a fact."

"How mean of you!" she exclaimed, and laughed too.

She thrust back her soup.

"I don't want it. I don't want anything. I can't eat a mouthful. Then I was wrong about his being a society dude?"

"Completely."

"And how is she? S'posing I've made a mistake about her, too?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. I've never seen her."

"You're telling me a fib."

"Ho, truly, I never have. I don't believe there's any such person. I think she's somebody that the papers have just made up. How many people have you found to work for?"

"Oh, three or four. But time for more. Rhyme, ain't it? I'm trying for the Massachusetts Brass, but I'd rather get Ingles. She gave a dance at Kinsley's night before last."

"How many words can you do?"

"About ninety--enough for business; of course I couldn't manage courts or banquets or sermons. I expect she comes down to his office for a check every now and then. Why don't she ever have her picture in the Sunday papers?"

"O Lord! I hope they're above _that_!"

"What's the objection? I'd have mine there quicker 'n scat if I could. I will some time--bet you. And not in any office togs either."

"But don't dream of rivalry. She isn't real; she's only a beautiful myth. What will you take next--roast beef?"

"I don't mind; yes. When I'm alone I usually skip right from soup to pie--or pudding. But I guess I will take something a little solider this time; nothing makes me tireder than sitting still and fidgeting." She tapped her toes on the mosaic pavement, and gave a hitch and a pat to the dimity curtain alongside her. "I squirmed around for an hour, with a whole bookful of other people's notes that I might have been writing out. What sort of a young fellow is he?"

"He has his own way."

"Only child, I suppose?"

"N--no."

"Only son?"

"No--yes--I don't know. How do you like your work?"

"Middling. I'm terrible enterprising, but I guess I was never meant for a drudge. Say, what does a patroness really do?"

"Oh, nothing much; she just has her name on the list. Sometimes they don't even go."

"I notice that your Mrs. Floyd is beginning to be one; I've seen her in the papers two or three times."

"She doesn't like it, though; sometimes names get put on just to fill up. 'My dear Mrs. Floyd, we thought you wouldn't mind; you don't, do you?' they say. 'But my name in the papers,' she objects. 'You are too sensitive,' they reply. 'You've had your name in the papers at home,' her husband reminds her. 'Yes,' she answers, 'but--here!' She hates the town."

"Well, if I was a patroness I guess I'd have some say--no figure-head for me. I wouldn't be put on, either; I'd put the others on."

"I see you were cut out for a 'society' career."

"I guess you've about struck it. I went to a dance a week ago to-night--Periclean Pleasure Party."

"Like it?"

'Twa'n't much. And I was invited to a firemen's ball--such impudence!"

"Right--don't cheapen yourself."

"I guess I understand that."

Meanwhile a nooning of a different character was going on in the directors' room of the Underground. This is not to be taken as indicating that the green-baize plane of the long centre-table was littered with reports and memoranda, and that the high-backed, leather-seated chairs were filled with the solid figures of a dozen solid men. No; the aspect of the room was that of Sunday-like disoccupation, and the only people in it were an appealing young woman and a stubborn old man.

"Let her come in, father; please do."

"Take care, Abbie. You know what I think of you, but you make a mistake when you try this."

Abbie Brainard passed her handkerchief across her tearful face. Her father stood before her with his legs spread wide and his feet firmly planted; he had his hands thrust deeply into his trousers pockets. His jaw was set, and his shaggy brows were drawn down over eyes that glared fiercely at nothing.

"Then meet her out in the hall somewhere, just for a minute." She laid her hand tremblingly upon the old man's arm. He moved, as if to shake it off.

"Then just walk by outside; she can see you from the cab."

He turned his eyes upon her, half in expostulation and half in threat. "Abbie!"

"Then, father, just step here to the window; she'll see you and know it's all right. Come." She caught hold of a fold of his sleeve. "You won't keep her waiting out there such a cold day as this?"

Brainard moved his feet, but he turned his back on the window and fixed his eye on the fireplace. His daughter's light touch was quite powerless on his huge bulk.

"Father, you know Burt says--"

"Abbie," he interrupted sharply, "don't you say a word to set me against Burt. I won't hear it. Don't drag him in, or you'll be sorry for it." "But, father, don't you understand? He _struck_ her; there's a mark on her face now."

Brainard's great frame shook, but he made no other sign. This quiet she took as a favorable symptom. She would have done better in perceiving that he was between two contending forces so nearly equal as to hold him almost in equilibrium. The wretch had struck his daughter--a brutal, hateful thing as regarded his daughter or any daughter or any other woman; but his daughter had defied him, overridden him, and the man whom she had chosen for a master was now the instrument of her punishment. The accounts appeared to balance. However, figures do lie, and his own agitation indicated that the _x_ of human emotion had not been completely eliminated from his problem.

He cleared his throat. "She has made her bed, Abbie," he said in a husky tone, "and now she must lie on it."

"No, father; you must hear what Burt says. He has had to go up there and--"

"Burt? Is that where he has been this morning? Has he turned against me too? Good God! what have I done to deserve such treatment as this? First it's Mark, with his drawing and his trying to play the fiddle; and then it's this pen-pusher that puts on those things Sundays and marches around singing songs; and now it's Burt, who's had every chance to make a good business-man of himself, and everything done for him. It's too bad; it's too almighty bad."

Abbie steadied herself against the corner of the table. Her breast heaved with fearfulness; she had never before openly protested to her father against himself.

"Why haven't you done anything for the others? Why didn't you give Mark an education?--the kind, I mean, that would have helped him, and the only kind. Why haven't you taken this Mr.--Mayme's hus--this man and made the best of it, and found something for him to do?--he can work in an office. Oh, father," she moaned, with a softening note of deprecation, "you have made it pretty hard for all of us."

"Abbie," he gasped, "are you turning against me too? Abbie, I've always thought so much of you, and I've done well by you. But I want you to go away--I won't see her. I won't. She must go away, and you too."

He caught her by the arm and tried to move her towards the door--gently, as if she might go of her own accord.

Ogden, on coming in from lunch, found himself intercepted by Freddy Pratt. This youth had a few moments' leisure, and he assailed Ogden between the wardrobe and the wash-stand.

"I went over to see the Viberts again; last night," he communicated. "Poor Mayme--I wasn't going back on her, if others did. She was sitting there all alone in the dark. I guess she had been crying. Anyway, when I lit the gas her eyes looked red. She wouldn't say much--"

"Good plan."

"And after he came in she wouldn't say hardly anything at all. Slow work talking to _him!_ He wasn't drunk exactly, but he had been drinking; didn't need a light to tell that. I wasn't doing anything at all, and all of a sudden he blurted out, 'I say, you young fellow you, what do you mean by coming here and destroying the peace of a man's family?' You can bet I was taken back. Then he got up and came towards me--he looked big, too! 'You get out of here'--that's what he said."

"And did you?"

"Oh, yes, I got out," responded Freddy Pratt, with a meek complacency.

"You surprise me. You showed sense."

Freddy looked at him doubtfully. "I heard this morning that he had just lost his place with those insurance people," he resumed cautiously. "That was what was the matter, I guess."

"Possibly," said George, who had heard from Brower that something of the kind was likely to occur. The fellow's work had been done indifferently of late, and he was far from being worth the increased salary he had asked for.

As Ogden passed up to the other end of the office Brainard appeared in the doorway of the directors' room and beckoned to him. His face was pale and disturbed; the veins in the end of his nose showed redly; his eyes burned with an appealing fierceness.

"Ogden," he said, in a loud, hoarse whisper, "where is that type-writer girl? Tell her to bring some water here as quick as she can."

"She isn't here, sir; she has gone back upstairs."

"Then you get some yourself. Here; take this tumbler. Be quick, and don't make any fuss."

Ogden hastened to the wash-stand near which Freddy Pratt had detained him. Returning again, he saw through the half-open door that Abbie Brainard was lying back in one of the big chairs with her face pallid and her eyes closed.

Her father dipped two of his great, clumsy fingers into the glass and made an awkward attempt to sprinkle her face. "My poor girl has fainted," he said.

The girl's eyes half opened; she seemed to see Ogden standing just outside.

She clutched both arms of the chair and raised herself half up. Her bosom heaved; her mouth was drawn tensely.

"Fainted?" she tried to say; "not at all!" She gasped once or twice and rose to her feet. "I never fainted in my life," she said grandly; "I never should think of doing such a thing!"

She reeled; her eyes closed. George rushed forward to catch her. Her hand dropped numb on his arm, and her head fell heavily on his shoulder.