It was some three months after the publishing house had been established in its new offices, that Jeannette had the card of Martin Devlin brought to her. It was embossed and heavily engraved, with a small outline of the earth’s two hemispheres in one corner and bisecting these, in tiny capitals, the words: THE GIBBS ENGRAVING COMPANY. Mr. Corey was out; Jeannette told the boy to inform the caller. In a minute or two the messenger returned to say that the gentleman would like to speak to Mr. Corey’s secretary, but Jeannette had no time to waste on solicitors of engraving work, and sent word that she was occupied. The boy reappeared presently with another of Mr. Devlin’s cards, on the back of which was pencilled:
“Dear Miss Sturgis,—I’d be grateful for two minutes’ interview. Have a message from an old friend of yours.
M. DEVLIN.”
Jeannette frowned in distaste, and looked up at the boy, annoyed. She was extremely busy, typing a speech for Mr. Corey which he was to read that night at a Publishers’ Banquet at the Waldorf. It was twenty minutes past four; she expected him to return at any minute.
“Tell the gentleman to come again, will you, Jimmy? I’m really too busy to see him to-day.”
The boy went out and she returned to her work, her fingers flying.
“The responsibility of molding public opinion,” went her notes, “rests perhaps with our press, but to whom do the discriminating readers of the nation in confidence turn for the formation of their taste in literature, their acquaintance with the Arts, the dissemination of those inspiring idealistic thoughts and precepts of the fathers of our great——”
She estimated there were another three pages of it.
The door of her office opened and a young man of square build, with broad shoulders, and a grin on his face, filled the aperture.
“Beg pardon, Miss Sturgis,” he began. “I hope you won’t think I’m butting-in.”
He had a strong handsome face, big flashing teeth, black hair and black eyebrows.
Jeannette looked at him, bewildered. She had never seen this man before; she did not know what he was doing in her office, nor what he wanted.
“I’m Martin Devlin,” he announced, advancing into the room.
At once she froze; her breast rose on a quick angry intake, and her eyes assumed a cold level stare.
“I hope you’re not going to be sore at me.” He smiled down at her in easy good humor.
“Mr. Corey’s not in,” said the girl. She was staggered by this individual’s effrontery.
“Well, that’s too bad, but I really called to have a few minutes’ chat with you,” he returned nonchalantly. “We have a friend of yours down at our office: Miss Alexander, Beatrice Alexander. ’Member her? She says a lot of nice things about you.”
“Oh!” Jeannette elevated her eyebrows and surveyed the speaker’s head and feet.
“I’m afraid you’re sore at me,” he said. He laughed straight into her cold eyes, showing his big teeth.
Jeannette straightened herself and frowned. She felt her anger rising.
“Er—you—a——” she began, deliberately clearing her throat with a little annoyed cough. “I think you’ve made a mistake. Mr. Corey is not in. As you see, I am busy. Good-day.”
She looked down at her notes and swung her chair around to her machine.
“Whew!” whistled Mr. Devlin. He took a step nearer, put his hand on her desk, bent down to catch a glimpse of her face, and said with a pleading note in his voice and with that same flashing smile:
“Aw—please don’t be sore at me, Miss Sturgis!”
The man’s sudden nearness brought Jeannette up rigidly in her seat. Her eyes blazed a moment, but there was something in this person’s manner and in the ingratiating quality of his smile that made her hesitate. Her first thought had been to call the porter or one of the men outside, and have him summarily put out. Instead she said in her most frigid tone:
“Really, Mr. Devlin, you presume too far. You see that I am busy and I’ve told you that Mr. Corey is not in.”
“Well that’s all right, but what do you want me to tell Miss Alexander? She’ll be wanting to know if I delivered her message.”
“Miss Alexander, as I remember her, is a very lovely girl. You can tell her that I’ve not forgotten her, and that I am sorry that ... that in her office there are not more mannerly gentlemen.”
Devlin threw back his head and roared. His laugh was extraordinary.
“Say, Miss Sturgis,” he began, “please don’t be sore at me. I didn’t know I’d find a girl like you in here. Miss Alexander said you were awfully nice and I thought maybe you’d be doing me a favor one of these days. I took a chance on getting in to see you the way I did. Don’t blame the kid.”
“What kid?”
“The office boy. I slipped him a quarter and told him to tell you I was an old friend of yours and wanted to give you a surprise.”
“Upon my word!”
“Well, you see,—we’ve all got to make our living; you, me and the office boy.”
“There are ways of doing it,” said Jeannette acidly.
“I think they’re all legitimate.”
“What,—bribing office boys?”
“Well, I didn’t bribe him exactly. I deceived him.” He laughed again. He was Irish, the girl noted, and presumably considered he had a great deal of Irish charm.
“At any rate, I got in to see you.”
“Much good it’s done you.”
“I have hopes for the future.”
“I wouldn’t cherish them.”
“Ah, well now, Miss Sturgis, don’t be cruel!”
“I’m not in the least interested.”
“Won’t you tell me who’s doing Corey’s engraving?”
“I will not.”
“I can find out easily enough, and I think I can interest him.”
“I think you can’t.”
“Won’t you make an appointment for me to see him?”
“Certainly not!”
“There’s other ways I can meet him.”
“You’re at liberty to find them.”
“Aw ... you’re awfully mean. Why don’t you give a fellow a chance for his living?”
“You don’t deserve it.”
“Because I gave the boy a quarter to show me which was your office?”
“Yes, and because you’re so ... so....”
“Fresh,—go on; you were going to say it!”
“Evidently you are aware of it.”
“A fellow hasn’t a chance to think anything else.”
“Well,—you’ll have to excuse me. I’m really very busy.”
“Can I come again when you’ve a little more time to spare?”
“I am always busy.”
“Can I ’phone?”
“I can’t bother with ’phone messages.”
Mr. Devlin for a moment was routed.
“Oh, gosh!” he said in disgust.
Jeannette was not to be won. She nodded to him, and began to type briskly, the keys of her machine humming. The man stood uncertainly a moment more, shifting from one foot to the other; then he swung himself disconsolately toward the door, and closed it slowly after him. Almost immediately he opened it again and thrust in his head.
“I’m coming back again,—just the same!” he bawled. Jeannette did not look around, and the door clicked shut.
The next time he called she was taking dictation from Mr. Corey and was unaware he had come. When she finished with her employer, and picked up the sheaf of letters he had given her, she passed through the connecting door between the two offices, and found Devlin waiting in her room.
“Really!” She stopped short and frowned in quick annoyance.
“Well, here I am again!” he said blandly.
“And here’s where you go out!” She walked towards the door that led to the outer office and flung it open.
Devlin’s face altered, and a slow color began to mount his dark cheeks.
“Aw—say——” he said in hurt tones. The smile was gone; for the moment his face was as serious as her own.
Jeannette did not move. Devlin picked up his hat and gloves.
“My God!” he exclaimed fervently, “you’re hard as nails!”
As he went out she suddenly felt sorry for him.
But that was not the last of him. His card appeared the next afternoon. Mr. Corey was again away from the office.
“I’m not in to this person,” she said to Jimmy, “and if he bribes you to show him in here, I’ll go straight to Mr. Kipps and have you fired.”
The next day he telephoned. She hung up the receiver, and told the girl at the switch-board to find out who wanted her before she put through any more calls. The day following brought a letter from him, but as soon as she discovered his signature, she tore it up and threw it in the waste-paper basket. Two minutes later, she carefully recovered its ragged squares and pieced them together.
“My dear Miss Sturgis,” it read, “you must overlook my boorish methods. I’ll not bother you again, but I beg you will not hold it against me, if I try to make your acquaintance in some more acceptable manner. Yours with good wishes, Martin Devlin.”
He wrote a vigorous hand,—strong, distinct, individual.
Jeannette considered the letter a moment, then uttered a contemptuous “Puh!” scooped the fragments into her palm, and returned them to the receptacle for trash.
Toward the end of the week, she had a telephone call from Beatrice Alexander. She had not seen the girl for nearly four years but remembered how exceptionally kind she had been to her that first day she went to work, and thought it would be pleasant to meet her again, and talk over old times. They arranged to have luncheon together.
They met at the Hotel St. Denis. Jeannette always went there whenever there was sufficient excuse; she loved the atmosphere of the old place. Her luncheon was invariably the same: hot chocolate with whipped cream, and a club sandwich. It cost just fifty cents.
Beatrice Alexander had changed but little during the years Jeannette had not seen her, except that now she wore glasses. A little gold chain dangled from the tip of one lens, and hooked itself by means of a gold loop, over an ear. It made her look schoolmarmy, but she had the same sweet face, the same soft dovelike eyes, and the whispering voice.
“And you never married Mr. Beardsley,” she commented. “I heard you were engaged and he certainly was awfully in love with you.”
Jeannette explained about her sister, and how happy the two were in their little Bronx flat. Her companion exclaimed about the baby.
She had had two or three places since the old publishing house suspended its selling campaign of the History. She had been in the business office of the Fifth Avenue Hotel Company until it closed its doors. Now The Gibbs Engraving Company employed her; she’d been there about a year, and liked it all right, but the constant smell of the strong acids made her a little sick sometimes. She and Jeannette fell presently to discussing Martin Devlin.
“Oh, he’s all right,” Beatrice Alexander said. “He came there about the same time I did. He’s an awful flirt, I guess, and he gets round a good deal. I don’t know much about him, except that he’s always pleasant and agreeable, never, anything but terribly nice to me. Everybody likes him. He’s one of our best solicitors. I heard from one of the men in your composing room, who’s a kind of cousin of mine, that you were with the Corey Company and were Mr. Corey’s private secretary, and one day I happened to hear Mr. Devlin talking to Mr. Gibbs,—Mr. Gibbs and his brother own The Gibbs Engraving Company,—and he said something about how he wished he could land your account but he didn’t know a soul he could approach. And then I mentioned I knew you. That was all there was to it, only he said you treated him something awful.”
Jeannette rehearsed the interview.
“He struck me as a very fresh young man,” she concluded.
“Oh, Mr. Devlin’s all right,” Beatrice Alexander said again. “He doesn’t mean any harm. He’s Irish, you know,—he was born here and all that,—and he just wants to be friendly with everyone. I suppose he was kind of hurt because you were so short with him.”
“I most certainly was,” Jeannette said, grimly.
“Well, he’s been begging and begging me to call you up. He wanted to take us both out to lunch, but I wouldn’t agree to that. I told him I’d see you about it first.”
“I wouldn’t consider it,” Jeannette said, indignantly. “The idea! What’s the matter with him?”
“I imagine,” Beatrice Alexander said shyly, “he likes your style.”
“Well, I don’t like his! ... The impertinence!”
They finished their lunch and wandered into Broadway. It was Easter week, and the chimes of Grace Church were ringing out a hymn.
“Let’s not lose touch with each other again,” said Beatrice Alexander at parting. “I’ll ’phone you soon, and next time you’ll have to have luncheon with me. I always go to Wanamaker’s; they have such lovely music up there, and the food’s splendid.”
Jeannette had forgotten Mr. Devlin’s existence until one day as she was typing busily at her desk she suddenly recognized his loud, infectious and unmistakable laugh in the adjoining office. Mr. Corey had come in from lunch some ten minutes before, and had brought a man with him. She had heard their feet, their voices, and the clap of the closing door as they entered. Now the laugh startled her. She paused, her fingers suspended above the keys of her typewriter, and listened. It was Mr. Devlin; there was no mistaking him. She twisted her lips in a wry smile. He and Mr. Corey were evidently getting on.
She knew she would be called. When the buzzer summoned her, she picked up her note-book and pencils, straightened her shoulders in characteristic fashion, and went in.
Devlin rose to his feet as she entered, but she did not glance at him. Her attention was Mr. Corey’s.
“How do you do? How’s Miss Sturgis?” Devlin was all good-natured friendliness, showing his big teeth as he grinned at her.
She turned her eyes toward him gravely, gazed at him with calm deliberation, and briefly inclined her head.
“Oh, you two know each other? Friends, hey?” asked Mr. Corey, looking up.
“Well, we’re trying to be,” laughed Devlin.
Jeannette made no comment. She gazed expectantly at her chief.
“The Gibbs Engraving Company,” said Mr. Corey in his brusque businesslike voice, “wants to do our engraving. I’m going to give them a three months’ trial. I’d like to have you take a memorandum of what they’ve quoted us. Mr. Gibbs is to confirm this by letter. Now you said five cents per square inch on line cuts with a minimum of fifty cents....”
Jeannette scribbled down the figures.
“Three-color work a dollar a square inch,” supplied Devlin.
“Oh, I thought you said you’d give us a flat rate on our color work.”
“On the magazine covers, yes, but I can’t do that on general color work.”
“Well, that’s all right.” The discussion continued. Presently the girl had all the details.
“Give me a memorandum of that,” Corey said, “and send a carbon to Mr. Kipps.” He turned to the young man. “We’ll talk it over, and let you know just as soon as we hear from you.” Devlin rose. The men shook hands as Jeannette passed into her own room. She heard them saying good-bye. Their voices continued murmuring, but she did not listen. Suddenly Mr. Corey opened her door.
“Mr. Devlin wants to speak to you a minute, Miss Sturgis.” He nodded to his companion, said “Well, good-bye; hope we can get together on this,” and shook hands once more, and left Devlin confronting her.
“Please let me say just one word,” he said quickly. “I met Mr. Corey at the Quoin Club the other day and made a date for lunch. I’m after his business all right, and think I’ve got it cinched. I don’t want you to continue to be sore at me, if my outfit and yours are going to do business together. I’m sorry if I got off on the wrong foot. Please accept my apology and let’s be friends.”
“I don’t think there is any occasion——” began Jeannette icily.
“Aw shucks!” he said interrupting her, “I’m doing the best I can to square myself. I didn’t mean to annoy you. I didn’t care at first what you thought of me as long as I got in to see Mr. Corey. I confess I thought maybe I could jolly you into arranging a date for me to see him. No,—wait a minute,” he urged as the girl frowned, “hear me out. You see I’m being honest about it. I’m telling you frankly what I thought at first, but that was before I even saw you. I had no idea you were the kind of girl you are. It isn’t usual to find a person like you in an office. Oh, you think I’m jollying you! I swear I’m not. I just want to ask you to forgive me if I offended you, and be friends.”
There was something unusually ingratiating about this man. Jeannette hesitated, and Devlin continued. He pleaded very earnestly; it was impossible not to believe his sincerity.
Jeannette shrugged her shoulders when he paused for a moment. Her hands were automatically arranging the articles on her desk.
“Well,” she conceded slowly, “what do you want?”
“For you to say you’ll forgive a blundering Irish boobie, and shake hands with him.”
He wrung a dry smile from her at that. She held out her hand.
“Oh, very well. It’s easier to be friends with you than have you here interfering with my getting at my work.”
“That’s fine, now.” He held her fingers a moment, his whole face beaming. “You’ve a kind heart, Miss Sturgis, and I sha’n’t forget it.”
He took himself away with a radiant smile upon his face.
It was evident Martin Devlin proposed to be a factor in her life. When he came to the office to see Mr. Kipps or Miss Holland about the engraving,—and the work brought him, or he pretended it brought him, two or three times a week—he never failed to step to Jeannette’s door, open it, and give her the benefit of his flashing teeth and handsome eyes as he wished her good-day or asked her how she was. He did not intrude further. His visits were only for a minute or two. Only once when she was looking for a letter in the filing cabinet, he came in and lingered for a chat. He saw she was not typing, therefore ready to talk to him since he was not interrupting her. When she went to lunch with Beatrice Alexander a week or two later at Wanamaker’s he joined the two girls by the elevators as they were leaving the lunch-room, pretending, Jeannette noticed, with a great air of surprise, that the meeting was merely a fortuitous circumstance. The subway had a few days before begun to operate. Jeannette had never ridden upon it, so Martin piloted her down the stone steps, boarded the train, and rode with her until they reached Thirty-fourth Street. Beatrice Alexander had said good-bye as they left Wanamaker’s.
Devlin had a confident, self-assured way with him. It could not be said he swaggered, but the word suggested him. He was easy, good-natured, laughing, cajoling, irresistibly merry. His good humor was contagious. Men smiled back at him; women looked at him twice. To the subway guard, to the sour-faced little Jew at the newsstand, to the burly cop with whom they collided as they climbed the stairs to the street, he was familiar, patronizing, jocular. He called the Italian subway guard “Garibaldi,” the Jewish newsdealer “Isaac,” the burly policeman “Sergeant.” One glance at him and each was won; it was impossible to resent his familiarity. Everybody liked him; he could say the most outrageous things and give no offense. It was that Irish charm of his, Jeannette decided, back once more at her desk and clicking away at her machine, that made people so lenient with him.
She began to speculate about him a good deal. It was clear he was in hot pursuit of her, and that he intended to give her no peace. He commenced to bring little boxes of candy which he slid on to her desk with a long arm when he opened her office door to say “Hello!” Then flowers put in their appearance: sweet bunches of violets, swathed in oiled paper, their stems wrapped in purple tinfoil, the fragrant ball glistening with brilliant drops of water; there were bunches of baby roses, too, and lilies-of-the-valley, and daffodils. One day she happened to mention she had never read “The Taming of the Shrew,” and the following morning there was delivered at her home a complete set of the Temple edition of Shakespeare’s plays. She protested, she threatened to throw the flowers out of the window, she begged him with her most earnest smile not to send her anything more. She was talking into deaf ears. The very next day she found on her desk two seats for a Saturday matinée with a note scribbled on the envelope: “For you and your mother next Saturday. Have a good time and think of Martin.”
In deep distress she told her mother about him, but Mrs. Sturgis shared none of her concern.
“Well, perhaps the young man is trying to be friends with you in the only way he knows how. I wouldn’t be too hasty with him, dearie. You say he’s with an engraving company? Is that a good line of work? Does he seem well-off,—plenty of money and all that?”
“Oh, Mama!” cried Jeannette, in mild annoyance.
“There’s no harm, my dear, in a nice rich young fellow admiring a pretty girl like my daughter. If the young man’s well brought up and means what’s perfectly right and proper, I don’t see what you can object to. You’ve got to marry one of these days, lovie; you must remember that. There isn’t any sense in tying yourself down to a desk for the rest of your life! You’ve got to think about a husband!”
“Well, I don’t want him!”
“Perhaps not. I’m not saying anything about him. But there’s plenty of nice young men in the world, and you mustn’t shut your eyes to them. A girl should marry and have a home of her own; that’s what God intended. Doctor Fitzgibbons was saying exactly that same thing to me only yesterday. Now this Mr. Devlin,—it’s an Irish name, isn’t it?——”
“Oh, hush,—for goodness’ sakes, Mama! Don’t let’s talk any more about him.... What did Alice have to say to-day?”
“She’s really gaining very rapidly now,” Mrs. Sturgis said instantly diverted. “She says she’s going to let that woman go. She comes every day and does all the dishes and cleans up and it only costs Alice three dollars a week.”
“Why, she’s crazy,” cried Jeannette. “She isn’t half strong enough to do her own work, yet. You tell her I’ll pay the three dollars till she’s all right again. I can’t imagine what Roy Beardsley’s thinking about!”
Martin Devlin begged her to allow him to take her mother and herself to dinner, and “perhaps we’ll have time to drop in at a show afterwards,” he added. Jeannette declined. She had no wish to become on more intimate terms with him, but he would not take “No” for an answer. He persisted; she grew angry; he persisted just the same. She considered going to Mr. Corey and informing him that this representative of The Gibbs Engraving Company was annoying her, and yet it hardly seemed the thing to do. She spoke of it again to her mother, and Mrs. Sturgis at once was in a flutter of excitement at the prospect of a dinner downtown.
“But why not, dearie?” she argued. “I could wear my lavender velvet, and you’ve got your new taffeta.... I’d like to meet the young man.”
After all there were thousands of girls, reflected Jeannette, who were accepting anything and everything from men, wheedling gifts out of them, sometimes even taking their money. Her mother would get much pleasure out of the event.
When Devlin urged his invitation again, she drew a long breath, and consented. There seemed no reason why she should not accept; there was nothing wrong with him; she liked him; he was agreeable and devoted; her mother would be delighted.
He called for them on the night of the party in a taxi. It was an unexpected luxury. He won Mrs. Sturgis at once. Why, he was perfectly charming, a delightful young man! What in the world was Jeannette thinking about? She laughed violently at everything he said, rocking back and forth on the hard leather seat in the stuffy interior of the cab, convulsed with mirth, her round little cheeks shaking. He was the most comical young man she’d ever known!
The taxi took them to a brilliant restaurant, gay with lights, music and hilarity. Jeannette’s blue, high-necked taffeta and her mother’s lavender velvet were sober costumes amidst the vivid apparel and low-cut toilettes of the women. But the girl was aware that no matter what her dress might be, she, herself, was beautiful. She saw the turning heads, and the eyes that trailed her as the little group followed the head-waiter to their table. The table had been reserved, the dinner ordered. Cocktails appeared, and she sipped the first she had ever tasted. Her mother was in gay spirits, and preened herself in these surroundings like a bird. Devlin seemed to know how to do everything. He was startlingly handsome in his evening clothes; the white expanse of shirt was immaculate; there were two tiny gold studs in front, and a black bow tie tied very snugly at the opening of his collar. It was no more than conventional semi-formal evening dress, and yet somehow it impressed Jeannette as magnificent. She had never noticed how becoming the costume was to a man before. She realized, as she glanced at him, he was the first young man she had ever known, who had taken her out in the evening and worn evening dress. Roy had been too poor; the tuxedo he had had at college was shabby; she had never seen him wear it. She studied Devlin now critically. His hair was coal black, coarse, a trifle wavy; he wet it, when he combed it, and it caught a high light now and then. His eyebrows were heavy and bushy like his hair, the eyes, themselves, deep-set but alive with twinkles and laughter. They were expressive eyes, she thought, capable of subtlest meanings. His nose was straight, his mouth large and red, and his big even teeth glistened between the vivid lips with the glitter of fine wet porcelain. He had an oval-shaped face and a vigorous pointed chin. His skin was unblemished, but the jaw, chin, and cheeks were dark blue from his close-shaven beard. It was his expression, she decided, more than the regularity of his features, that made him so handsome. In his evening dress he was extraordinarily good-looking. She judged him to be twenty-six or seven.
The dinner progressed smoothly. Devlin had evidently taken pains in ordering it, and he gave a pleased smile when Mrs. Sturgis waxed enthusiastic over some particular feature, and Jeannette echoed her praise. There was, as a matter of fact, nothing spectacular about it: oysters, chicken sauté sec,—a specialty of the restaurant,—a vegetable or two, salad with a red sauce—Mrs. Sturgis thought it most curious and pronounced it delicious—an ice. To his guests, it seemed the most wonderful dinner they had ever eaten. The girl was impressed; her mother flatteringly excited.
“It’s all so good!” Mrs. Sturgis kept repeating as if she had made a surprising discovery.
Devlin called for the check, glanced at it, dropped a large bill on the silver tray, and when the change was brought, amounting to two dollars and some cents,—as both Jeannette and her mother noted,—waved it away to the waiter with a negligent gesture. It was lordly; it was magnificent!
Jeannette loved such ways of doing things, she loved the lights and music, the excellent food, the deferential service, the gorgeous restaurant, the beautifully gowned women. She would like to own one rich and sumptuous evening dress like theirs, and to be able to wear it to such a magnificent place as this, and queen it over them all. She knew she could do it; she could dazzle the entire room.
Devlin guided his guests through the revolving glass doors to the street, the taxi-cab starter blew his whistle shrilly, a car rolled up, the door was held open for them to enter, and banged shut. The starter in his gold-braided uniform and shining brass buttons, touched his cap respectfully, and the taxi rolled out into the traffic. Jeannette thrilled to the luxuriousness and extravagance of it all.
It was the same at the theatre. They had aisle seats in the sixth row; the musical comedy was delightful, spectacular, magnificent, in tune with everything else that evening. After the theatre, their escort insisted upon their going to a brilliant café where the music was glorious, and where Jeannette and her mother sipped ginger-ale and Devlin drank beer. Mrs. Sturgis commented half-a-dozen times upon the peel of a lemon, deftly cut into cork-screw shape, and twisted into her glass, which gave the ginger-ale quite a delightful flavor. It was Devlin’s idea; she had heard him suggest it to the waiter. He was a very remarkable young man, —very!
They were swept home in another taxi-cab, and he refused to let them thank him for the glorious evening. He hinted he would like to call, and perhaps be asked to dinner. But of course, that was not to be thought of! A grand person like him coming to one of their simple little meals, with Mrs. Sturgis or Jeannette jumping up to wait on the table? That would be perfectly ridiculous! But he might call some time, or perhaps go with them to a Sunday concert. He would be delighted, of course. He held his hat high above his head as he said good-night, and stood at the foot of the steps until they were safely inside.
It had been a memorable evening; they really had had a most wonderful time; Mr. Devlin certainly knew how to