Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/262



sat in his office, fifteen floors above the sidewalk and street thermometer that registered ninety-five. He sat in the gentle breeze of two silently revolving electric fans, in front of his desk, in a big chair with his elbows on its arm, and his hands folded. He was dictating, gazing out of the high window toward the northeast with a look in his eyes as if he saw a hundred miles away.

To-day, as Stephen sat and gazed, searched, and selected, he was aware of the heat, aware of the rumble of the city outside, aware of the loud insistent pound—pound—pound of a riveter at work near by, aware of his own fatigue, too. He sighed deeply now and then. When Stephen was tired, and gazed out of the high windows in the direction of the green lawns and white beaches of Long Island, there was a Helen between every careful phrase that he spoke.

At a quarter of one that day, or thereabouts, Stephen raised his wrist and glanced at it.

"Time for one more, I think, Miss Mills. Pretty hot, isn't it? Can you stand it? All right. Ready."

He was attacking a difficult second paragraph—twice already had murmured, "No, start again"—when there was a repressed burr at his side. He frowned, turned away from his engrossed contemplation of the illimitable space outside his window,