Athalie

A few days later, for the first time in her experience there, Mr. Wahlbaum was not at the office.

Mr. Grossman came in, leered at her, said that Mr. Wahlbaum would be down next day, lingered furtively as long as he quite dared, then took himself off, still leering.

In the afternoon Athalie was notified that her salary had been raised. She went home, elated and deeply touched by the generosity of Mr. Wahlbaum, scarcely able to wait for the morrow to express her gratitude to this good, kind man.

But on the morrow Mr. Wahlbaum was not there; nor did he come the day after, nor the day after that.

The following Tuesday she was seated in the office and generally occupied with business provided for her by the thrifty Mr. Grossman, when that same gentleman came into the office on tiptoe.

"Mr. Wahlbaum has just died," he said.

In the sudden shock and consternation she had risen from her chair, and stood there, one hand resting on her desk top for support.

"Pneumonia," nodded Mr. Grossman. "Sam he smoked too much all the time. That is what done it, Miss Greensleeve."

Her hands crept to her eyes, covered them convulsively. "Oh!" she breathed – "Oh!"

And, for a moment was not aware of the arm of Mr. Grossman around her waist, – until it tightened unctuously.

"Dearie," he murmured, "don't you take on so hard. You ain't goin' to lose your job, because I'm a-goin' to be your best friend same like he was – "

With a shudder she stepped clear of him; he caught her by the waist again and kissed her; and she wrenched herself free and turned fiercely on him as he advanced again, smirking, watery of eye, arms outstretched.

Then in the overwhelming revulsion and horror of the act and of the moment chosen for it when death's shadow already lay dark upon this vast and busy monument to her dead friend, she turned on him her dark blue eyes ablaze; and to her twisted, outraged lips flew, unbidden, the furious anathema of her ragged childhood:

"Damn you!" she stammered, – "damn you!" And struck him across the face.

Which impulsive and unconsidered proceeding left two at home out of work, herself and Doris. Also there was very little more for Catharine to do, the dull season at Winton's having arrived.

"Any honest job," repeated Doris when she and Athalie and Catharine met at evening after an all-day's profitless search for that sort of work; but honest jobs did not seem to be very plentiful in June, although any number of the other sort were to be had almost without the asking.

Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical offices, dawdling all day from one to the next, sitting for hours in company with other aspirants to histrionic honours and wages, gossiping, listening to stage talk, professional patter, and theatrical scandal until her pretty ears were buzzing with everything that ought not to concern her and her moral fastidiousness gradually became less delicate. Repetition is the great leveller, the great persuader. The greatest power on earth, for good or evil, is incessant reiteration.

Catharine lost her position, worked at a cheap milliner's for a week, addressed envelopes for another week, and was again left unemployed.

Athalie accepted several offers; at one place they didn't pay her for two weeks and then suggested she take half the salary agreed upon; at another her employer became offensively familiar; at another the manager made her position unendurable.

By July the financial outlook in the Greensleeve family was becoming rather serious: Doris threatened gloomily to go into burlesque; Catharine at first tearful and discouraged, finally grew careless and made few real efforts to find employment. Also she began to go out almost every evening, admitting very frankly that the home larder had become too lean and unattractive to suit her.

Doris always went out more or less; and what troubled Athalie was not that the girl had opportunities for the decent nourishment she needed, but that her reticence concerning the people she dined with was steadily increasing.

"Oh, shut up! I can look out for myself," she always repeated sullenly. "Anyway, Athalie, you are not the one to bully me. Nobody ever presented me with a cosy flat and – "

"Doris!"

"Didn't your young man give you this flat?"

"Don't speak of him or of me in that manner," said Athalie, flushing scarlet.

"Why are you so particular? It's the truth. He's given you about everything a man can offer a girl, hasn't he? – jewellery, furniture, clothing – cats – "

"Will you please not say anything more!"

But Doris was still smarting under recent admonition, and she meant to make an end of Athalie's daily interference: "I will say what I like when it's the truth," she retorted. "You are very free with your unsolicited advice. And I'll say this, and it's true, that not one girl in a thousand who accepts what you have accepted from Clive Bailey, is straight!"

Athalie's tightening lips quivered: "Do you intimate that I am not straight?"

"I didn't say that."

"You implied it."

There was a silence; Catharine lounged on the sofa, watching and listening with interest. After a moment Doris shrugged her young shoulders.

"Does it matter so much, anyway?" she said with a short, unpleasant laugh.

"Does what matter – you little ninny!"

"Whether a girl is straight."

"Is that the philosophy you learn in your theatrical agencies?" demanded Athalie fiercely. "What nauseating rot you do talk, Doris!"

"Very well. It may be nauseating. But what is a girl to do in a world run entirely by men?"

"You know well enough what a girl is not to do, don't you? All right then, – leave that undone and do what's left."

"What is left?" demanded Doris with a mirthless laugh. "There's scarcely a job that a girl can hold unless she squares some man to keep it – and keep – her!"

"Shame on you! I held mine for over five years," said Athalie with hot contempt.

"Yes, and then along came the junior partner. You wouldn't square him: you lost your job! There's always a junior partner in every business – when there isn't a senior. There's nothing to it if you stand in with the firm. If you don't – good night!"

"You managed to remain at the Egyptian Garden during the entire season."

"But the fights I had, my dear, and the tricks I employed and the lies I told and the promises I made! Oh, it's sickening – sickening! But – " she shrugged – "what are you to do? Thousands of girls go queer because they're forced to by starvation – "

"Nonsense!" cried Athalie hotly, "that is all stage twaddle and exaggerated sentimentalism! I don't believe that one girl in a thousand is forced into a dishonourable life!"

"Then why do girls go queer?"

"Because they want to; that's why! When they don't want to they don't!"

Catharine, very wide-eyed, said solemnly: "But think of all the white slaves – "

"They'd be that if they had been born to millions!" retorted Athalie. "Ignorance and aptitude, that is white slavery. It's absolutely nothing else. And in cases where the ignorance is absent, the aptitude is there. If a girl has an aptitude for becoming some man's mistress she'll probably do it whether she's ignorant or educated."

Doris, who had taken to chewing-gum furtively and in private, discreetly rolled a morsel under her tongue.

"All I know is that your salary is advanced and you're given a part at the Egyptian Garden if you stand in with Lewenbein or go to supper with Shemsky. Of course," she added, "there are theatres where you don't have to be horrid in order to succeed."