Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/151

 All day long in the office Lanice had one recurrent thought. Pauline and her father were both away, and after four days of the most desperate self-control she could go home and be alone and cry. She could let the unreal, vacant grimace that had settled down over her since Anthony's departure slough off and show the real face set with the lines of human woe like a tragic mask. For four days in the office she had automatically attended to her work. Almost at regular intervals desolation would rise up through her body, running like little hounds upon her arms and legs, but when it came to her throat she could tie something in a strangling knot and refuse to let it pass. Tears would scald her eyes, and she who had cried copiously over the 'Wide, Wide World' and 'The Dying Dove' defied her nature and did not let them fall.

Then Mr. Trelawney would say, 'Miss Bardeen, here's a letter from the New York office suggesting some sort of prize contest. Why not start one? Best lamp-mat design, or way to prepare mutton, or poem on a deceased infant...'

'Thank you, Mr. Trelawney.'

Ten minutes later, and again the terrible upward pressure.

'Miss Bardeen, have you any more letters to be mailed?' And she would shake her head and smile sadly at the big little office boy.

That week she had slept in Pauline's dressing-room because her own bedroom was at last being repapered. Pauline was always chatting about slavery, male