The Imaginary Marriage | Page 6

that of a young goddess, and a goddess she looked as

she swept disdainfully into Mr. Philip Slotman's office, shorthand
notebook in her hand.
"I want you to take a letter to Jarvis and Purcell, Miss Meredyth," he
said. "Please sit down. Er--hum--'Dear Sirs, With regard to your last
communication received on the fourteenth instant, I beg--'"
Mr. Slotman moved, apparently negligently, from his leather-covered
armchair. He rose, he sauntered around the desk, then suddenly he
flung off all pretence at lethargy, and with a quick step put himself
between the girl and the door.
"Now, my dear," he said, "you've got to listen to me!"
"I am listening to you." She turned contemptuous grey eyes on him.
"Hang the letter! I don't mean that. You've got to listen about other
things!"
He stretched out his hand to touch her, and she drew back. She rose,
and her eyes flashed.
"If you touch me, Mr. Slotman, I shall--" She paused; she looked about
her; she picked up a heavy ebony ruler from his desk. "I shall defend
myself!"
"Don't be a fool," he said, yet took a step backwards, for there was
danger in her eyes.
"Look here, you won't get another job in a hurry, and you know it.
Shorthand typists are not wanted these days, the schools are turning out
thousands of 'em, all more or less bad; but I--I ain't talking about that,
dear--" He took a step towards her, and then recoiled, seeing her
knuckles shine whitely as she gripped the ruler. "Come, be sensible!"
"Are you going to persist in this annoyance of me?" she demanded.
"Can't I make you understand that I am here to do my work and for no
other purpose?"

"Supposing," he said, "supposing--I--I asked you to marry me?"
He had never meant to say this, yet he had said it, for the fascination of
her was on him.
"Supposing you did? Do you think I would consent to marry such a
man as you?" She held her head very proudly.
"Do you mean that you would refuse?"
"Of course!"
He seemed staggered; he looked about him as one amazed. He had kept
this back as the last, the supreme temptation, the very last card in his
hand; and he had played it, and behold, it proved to be no trump.
"I would neither marry you nor go out with you, nor do I wish to have
anything to say to you, except so far as business is concerned. As that
seems impossible, it will be better for me to give you a week's notice,
Mr. Slotman."
"You'll be sorry for it," he said--"infernally sorry for it. It ain't pleasant
to starve, my girl!"
"I had to do it, I had to, or I could not have respected myself any
longer," the girl thought, as she made her way home that evening to the
boarding-house, where for two pounds a week she was fed and lodged.
But to be workless! It had been the nightmare of her dreams, the
haunting fear of her waking hours.
In her room at the back of the house, to which the jingle of the
boarding-house piano could yet penetrate, she sat for a time in deep
thought. The past had held a few friends, folk who had been kind to her.
Pride had held her back; she had never asked help of any of them. She
thought of the Australian uncle who had invited her to come out to him
when she should leave school, and then had for some reason changed
his mind and sent her a banknote for a hundred pounds instead. She had
felt glad and relieved at the time, but now she regretted his decision.

Yet there had been a few friends; she wrote down the names as they
occurred to her.
There was old General Bartholomew, who had known her father. There
was Mrs. Ransome. No, she believed now that she had heard that Mrs.
Ransome was dead; perhaps the General too, yet she would risk it.
There was Lady Linden, Marjorie Linden's aunt. She knew but little of
her, but remembered her as at heart a kindly, though an autocratic dame.
She remembered, too, that one of Lady Linden's hobbies had been to
establish Working Guilds and Rural Industries, Village Crafts, and
suchlike in her village. In connection with some of these there might be
work for her.
She wrote to all that she could think of, a letter of which she made six
facsimile copies. It was not a begging appeal, but a dignified little
reminder of her existence.
"If you could assist me to obtain any work by which I might live, you
would be putting me under a deep debt of gratitude," she wrote.
Before she slept that night