Una had waited till Mr. Sidney had disposed of his soup and filet mignon. She spoke deliberately, almost sternly. She reached for her new silver link bag, drew out immaculate typewritten schedules, and while he gaped she read to him precisely the faults of each of the hotels, her suggested remedies, and her general ideas of hotels, with less cuspidors, more originality, and a room where traveling-men could be at home on a rainy Sunday.
"Now you know, and I know," she wound up, "that the proprietor's ideal of a hotel is one to which traveling-men will travel sixty miles on Saturday evening, in order to spend Sunday there. You take my recommendations and you'll have that kind of hotels. At the same time women will be tempted there and the local trade will go there when wife or the cook is away, or they want to give a big dinner."
"It does sound like it had some possibilities," said Mr. Sidney, as she stopped for breath, after quite the most impassioned invocation of her life.
She plunged in again:
"Now the point of all this is that I want to be the general manager of certain departments of the Line-catering, service, decoration, and so on. I'll keep out of the financial end and we'll work out the buying together. You know it's women who make the homes for people at home, and why not the homes for people traveling?... I'm woman sales-manager for Truax &Fein-sell direct, and six women under me. I'll show you my record of sales. I've been secretary to an architect, and studied architecture a little. And plenty other jobs. Now you take these suggestions of mine to your office and study 'em over with your partner and we'll talk about the job for me by and by."
She left him as quickly as she could, got back to her office, and in a shaking spasm of weeping relapsed into the old, timorous Una.
§ 5
Tedious were the negotiations between Una and Mr. Sidney and his partner. They wanted her to make their hotels-and yet they had never heard of anything so nihilistic as actually having hotel "offices" without "desks." They wanted her, and yet they "didn't quite know about adding any more overhead at this stage of the game."
Meantime Una sold lots and studied the economical buying of hotel supplies. She was always willing to go with Mr. Sidney and his partner to lunch-but they were brief lunches. She was busy, she said, and she had no time to "drop in at their office." When Mr. Sidney once tried to hold her hand (not seriously, but with his methodical system of never failing to look into any possibilities), she said, sharply, "Don't try that-let's save a lot of time by understanding that I'm what you would call 'straight.'" He apologized and assured her that he had known she was a "high-class genuwine lady all the time."
The very roughness which, in Mr. Schwirtz, had abraised her, interested her in Mr. Sidney. She knew better now how to control human beings. She was fascinated by a comparison of her four average citizens-four men not vastly varied as seen in a street-car, yet utterly different to one working with them: Schwirtz, the lumbering; Troy Wilkins, the roaring; Truax, the politely whining; and Bob Sidney, the hesitating.
The negotiations seemed to arrive nowhere.
Then, unexpectedly, Bob Sidney telephoned to her at her flat one evening: "Partner and I have just decided to take you on, if you'll come at thirty-eight hundred a year."
Una hadn't even thought of the salary. She would gladly have gone to her new creative position at the three thousand two hundred she was then receiving. But she showed her new training and demanded:
"Four thousand two hundred."
"Well, split the difference and call it four thousand for the first year."
"All right."
Una stood in the center of the room. She had "succeeded on her job." Then she knew that she wanted some one with whom to share the good news.
She sat down and thought of her almost-forgotten plan to adopt a child.
§ 6
Mr. Sidney had, during his telephone proclamation, suggested: "Come down to the office to-morrow and get acquainted. Haven't got a very big force, you know, but there's a couple of stenographers, good girls, crazy to meet the new boss, and a bright, new Western fellow we thought we might try out as your assistant and publicity man, and there's an office-boy that's a sketch. So come down and meet your subjects, as the fellow says."
Una found the office, on Duane Street, to consist of two real rooms and a bare anteroom decorated with photographs of the several White Line Hotels-set on maple-lined streets, with the local managers, in white waistcoats, standing proudly in front. She herself was to have a big flat-topped desk in the same room with Mr. Sidney. The surroundings were crude compared with the Truax &Fein office, but she was excited. Here she would be a pioneer.
"Now come in the other room," said Mr. Sidney, "and meet the stenographers and the publicity man I was telling you about on the 'phone."
He opened a door and said, "Mrs. Schwirtz, wantcha shake hands with the fellow that's going to help you to put the Line on the map-Mr. Babson."
It was Walter Babson who had risen from a desk and was gaping at her.
CHAPTER XXIII
"But I did write to you, Goldie-once more, anyway-letter was returned to me after being forwarded all over New York," said Walter, striding about her flat.
"And then you forgot me completely."
"No, I didn't-but what if I had? You simply aren't the same girl I liked-you're a woman that can do things; and, honestly, you're an inspiration to me." Walter rubbed his jaw in the nervous way she remembered.
"Well, I hope I shall inspire you to stick to the White Line and make good."
"Nope, I'm going to make one more change. Gee! I can't go on working for you. The problem of any man working for a woman boss is hard enough. He's always wanting to give her advice and be superior, and yet he has to take her orders. And it's twice as hard when it's me working for you that I remember as a kid-even though you have climbed past me."
"Well?"
"Well, I'm going to work for you till I have a job where I can make good, and when I do-or if I do-I'm going to ask you to marry me."
"But, my dear boy, I'm a business woman. I'm making good right now. In three months I've boosted White Line receipts seventeen per cent., and I'm not going back to minding the cat and the gas-stove and waiting-"
"You don't need to. We can both work, keep our jobs, and have a real housekeeper-a crackajack maid at forty a month-to mind the cat."
"But you seem to forget that I'm more or less married already."
"So do you!... If I make good-Listen: I guess it's time now to tell you my secret. I'm breaking into your old game, real estate. You know I've been turning out pretty good publicity for the White Line, besides all the traveling and inspecting, and we have managed to have a few good times, haven't we? But, also, on the side, I've been doing a whale of a lot of advertising, and so on, for the Nassau County Investment Company, and they've offered me a steady job at forty-five a week. And now that I've got you to work for, my Wanderjahre are over. So, if I do make good, will you divorce that incubus of an Eddie Schwirtz and marry me? Will you?"
He perched on the arm of her chair, and again demanded: "Will you? You've got plenty legal grounds for divorcing him-and you haven't any ethical grounds for not doing it."
She said nothing. Her head drooped. She, who had blandly been his manager all day, felt managed when his "Will you?" pierced her, made her a woman.
He put his forefinger under her chin and lifted it. She was conscious of his restless, demanding eyes.
"Oh, I must think it over," she begged.
"Then you will!" he triumphed. "Oh, my soul, we've bucked the world-you've won, and I will win. Mr. and Mrs. Babson will be won'erfully happy. They'll be a terribly modern couple, both on the job, with a bungalow and a Ford and two Persian cats and a library of Wells, and Compton Mackenzie, and Anatole France. And everybody will think they're exceptional, and not know they're really two lonely kids that curl up close to each other for comfort.... And now I'm going home and do a couple miles publicity for the Nassau Company.... Oh, my dear, my dear-"