"I can assure you I'm absolutely—all right," pleaded Mary. "I'm really a good stenographer—an expert. I'm honest, and——"

She paused in the humiliation of having to say things that ought to be obvious to anybody.

But the woman simply shook her head.

"You must listen; oh, surely you will. I suppose I should have explained in the beginning, but it didn't seem necessary. I didn't understand. This is the first time I was ever in—in—an intelligence office."

The recording angel stiffened in her uncompromising[Pg 5] desk-chair, and Mary instantly knew she had given unpardonable offense.

[Pg 5]

"This is not an intelligence office, Miss Wayne. An intelligence office is a place for cooks, chambermaids, waitresses, laundresses, chauffeurs, gardeners, and stable-hands. This is an exchange which deals in brains only, plus experience and good character. It is not even an employment agency. Good day, Miss Wayne."

Mary recoiled from the desk, numbed. She had sealed her own fate in two blundering words. She had not meant to say "intelligence office"; it slipped out in an evil moment of inadvertence. It was a forgotten phrase of childhood, come down from the days when her mother employed "help," and now flowing from the tip of her tongue in order to accomplish complete and unmerited disaster.

Dismay and irresolution held her motionless for a moment, outside the inexorable railing that divided the room. It had not yet occurred to her to walk out of the office of the Brain Workers' Exchange; she was thralled in the inertia of an overwhelming despair.

"Good morning, Miss Norcross. Thank you for being prompt."

A woman who sat at another desk was speaking, in crisp, satisfying tones. Mary turned mechanically to observe the person to whom the words were addressed. She saw a girl apparently of her own age crossing the floor with an eager, nervous step; a girl dressed with a certain plain severity that unmistakably helped to give her an air of confidence. Mary was easily as well dressed herself; perhaps more expensively. Yet she[Pg 6] felt herself suddenly lacking in every essential quality embodied in the person who had been addressed as "Miss Norcross."

[Pg 6]

"We have an excellent opportunity for you," 

 Prev. P 6/230 next