appreciably less than a year had passed since she went down those office stairs, thrust out by the implacable jealousy of miss grig, and yet in that short time the stairs had shrunk and become most painfully dingy. the sight of them saddened her; she wondered how it was that their squalor had not affected her before. she felt acutely sorry for the girl named lilian share who in the previous autumn used easily to run up them from bottom to top, urged by the consciousness of being late. now she had to take the second flight very slowly. the door opened as she reached it, and gertie jackson emerged to usher her in. a dozen pairs of ears had been listening for her arrival. the doors of both the large and the small rooms were ajar, and she had glimpses of watching faces as she went with gertrude into the principal's room. she was intensely nervous and self-conscious. gertrude explained that miss grig had installed her in the principal's room months ago, and lilian said that that was quite right, and gertrude said that she had hoped lilian would approve.
tea was laid on one of the desks, a dainty tea, such a tea as lilian had never seen in the office, with more pastry than even two girls could eat who had had no lunch and expected no dinner; an extravagant display. then a flapper entered with the tea-pot and the hot-water jug, and lilian smiled at her, and the flapper blushed and smiled and tossed her winged pigtail. the flapper had a shabby air. lilian could swallow only one cake because gertrude was sitting where felix had sat when he first told her what she might do and ought to do with herself.
"i am so glad you've come!" said gertrude, in a sort of rapture.
"yes," lilian agreed with dignity. "i was bound to come, of course."
she felt wise and mature and tremendously aware of her responsibilities; and she intended to remain so. nobody should be able to say of her that she had lost her head or that she was silly or weak or in any way unequal to her situation. above all, miss grig should be forced to continue to respect her.
"i suppose i'd better just go and see them all now," she suggested, after more tea.
"they'd be delighted if you would," said gertrude, as if the thing had not already been arranged.
naturally lilian honoured the small room first. the three inhabitants of the small room--two of them were unknown to her--sprang up, flattered, ruffled, flustered, excited, at her entrance. there she stood, the marvellous, the semi-legendary lilian, who had captured the aristocratic master, run off with him to the continent, married him, buried him, inherited all his possessions, and was soon going to have a baby. her famous beauty was under eclipse, her famous figure had grown monstrous beyond any possible concealment; but she was still marvellous. she was the most romantic figure that those girls had ever seen; she was all picture-paper serials and cinema films rolled together and come to life and reality. her prestige was terrific. she felt it and knew it and acted on it. how pathetically common the girls were, how slave-like! how cheap their frocks! how very small the room (but evidently it had been tidied for her visit)! she recognized one of the old underwoods by a dent in its frame, and remembered the stain on one of the green lampshades, and the peculiarities of the woodwork of the absurdly small mirror. she was touched; she might have wept a little, but her great pride--in her achievement, in her position, in her condition, even in her tragic sorrow--upheld her safely. tenderly invited to sit down, she sat down, and she put expert questions, to the wonderment of practising typists, thus proving that she was not proud. and then with gracious adieux she proceeded to the large room where, though her stay was (properly) more brief, she created still more sensation. in the large room she surprised one or two surreptitious exchanges of glance betraying a too critical awareness on the part of some that she had sinned against the code and perhaps only saved herself by the skin of her teeth. these unkind exhibitions did not trouble her in the least. the demeanour of the more serious and best-paid girls showed absolutely no arrière pensée, and better than anybody else they knew what was what in the real world. gertrude jackson, the honest soul of purity, already adored her employer.
as these two were returning to the principal's room the entrance-door opened and millicent merrislate burst breathlessly in.
"how splendid!" exclaimed gertrude.
she had sent a special message to milly, and milly for a sight of her new mistress had got up and come to the office two hours earlier than her official time. lilian was amazed and very pleased. she remembered that she had once spent at any rate one night of toil in perfect friendliness with the queer, flat, cattish millicent; and now she insisted on milly helping them to eat cakes in the sacred room. the scene was idyllic. a little later lilian, having arranged the details of gertrude's temporary removal to montpelier square, announced that she must go, on account of some important shopping. gertrude, sternly watchful against undue fatigue for lilian, raised her eyebrows at the mention of shopping, but lilian reassured her. a taxi was fetched by the flapper-of-all-work, and, noticing then for the first time that the road repairs in the neighbourhood were all finished, and every trace of them vanished, lilian gave the driver an address in piccadilly. several girls were watching her departure from the windows; her upward glance caught them in the act, and the heads disappeared sharply within.
"they are all working for me!" she thought with complacency, and could scarcely believe the wonderful thing.
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