CHAPTER VI
UNSUSTAINED APPLICATION
"Mr. Kendrick, do you understand typewriting?"
Judge Gray's assistant looked up, a slight surprise on his face. "No,sir, I do not," he said.
"I am sorry. These sheets I am sending to the Capitol to be looked overand criticised ought to be typewritten. I could send them downtown, butI want the typist here at my elbow."
He sat frowning a little with perplexity, and presently he reached forthe telephone. Then he put it down, his brow clearing. "This isSaturday," he murmured. "If Roberta is at home--"
He left the room. In five minutes he was back, his niece beside him.Richard Kendrick had not set eyes upon her for a fortnight; he rose ather appearance and stood waiting her recognition. She gave it, stoppingto offer him her hand as she passed him, smiling. But, this littleceremony over, she became on the instant the business woman. Richard sawit all, though he did his best to settle down to his work again andpursue it with an air of absorption.
Roberta went to a cupboard which opened from under bookshelves, and drewtherefrom a small portable typewriter. This she set upon a table besidea window at right angles from Richard and all of twenty feet away fromhim; she could hardly have put a greater distance between them. TheJudge drew up a chair for her; she removed the cover from the compactlittle machine, and nodded at him. He placed his own chair beside hertable and sat down, copy in hand.
"This is going to be a rather difficult business," said he. "There aremany points where I wish to indicate slight changes as we go along. Ican't attempt to read the copy to you, but should like to have you giveme the opening words of each paragraph as you come to it. I think I canrecall those which contain the points for revision."
The work began. That is to say, work at the typewriter side of the roombegan, and in earnest. From the first stroke of the keys it was evidentthat the Judge had called to his aid a skilled worker. The steady,smooth clicking of the machine was interrupted only at the ends ofparagraphs, when the Judge listened to the key words of the succeedinglines. Roberta sat before that "typer" as if she were accustomed to donothing else for her living, her eyes upon the keys, her profilesilhouetted against the window beside her.
As far as the mechanical part of the labour was concerned, Richard hadnever seen a task get under way more promptly nor proceed with greateror smoother dispatch. As he sat beside his own window he nearly facedthe pair at the other window. Try as he would he could not keep his mindupon his work. It was a situation unique in his experience. That he,Richard Kendrick, should be employed in serious work in the same roomwith the niece of a prosperous and distinguished gentleman, a girl whohad not hesitated to learn a trade in which she had become proficient,and that the three of them should spend the morning in this roomtogether, taking no notice of each other beyond that made necessary bythe task in hand--it was enough to make him burst out laughing. At thesame time he felt a genuine satisfaction in the situation. If he couldbut work in the same room with her every day, though she shouldvouchsafe him no word, how far from drudgery would the labour be thenremoved!
He managed to keep up at least the appearance of being closely engaged,turning the leaves of books, making notes, arising to consult otherbooks upon the shelves. But he could not resist frequent furtive glancesat the profile outlined against the window. It was a distractingoutline, it must be freely admitted. Even upon the hill, seen againstthe blue-and-purple haze, it had hardly been more so. What indeed coulda young man do but steal a look at it as often as he might? There was noknowing when he should have such another chance.
Things proceeded in this course without interruption until eleveno'clock. The Judge, finding it possible to get ahead so satisfactorilyby this new method, decided to send on considerably more material to bepassed upon by his critical coadjutor at the Capitol than he hadoriginally intended to do at this time. But as the clock struck the houra caller's card was sent in to him, and with a word to Roberta he leftthe room to see his visitor elsewhere.
Roberta finished her paragraph, then sat studying the next one. She didnot look up, nor did Richard. The moments passed and the Judge did notreturn. Roberta rose and threw open the window beside her, letting in agreat sweep of December air.
Richard seized his opportunity. "Good for you!" he applauded. "Shall Iopen mine?"
"Please. It will warm up again very quickly. It began to seem stifling."
"Not much like the place where you want to build a cabin and stay alonein a storm. Or--not alone. You are willing to have a dog with you. Whatsort of a dog?"
"A Great Dane, I think. I have a friend who owns one. They areinseparable."
By the worst of luck the Judge chose this moment to return, and thewindows went down with a rush.
The Judge shivered, smiling at the pair. "You young things, all warmthand vitality! You are never so happy as when the wind is lifting yourhair. Now I think I'm pretty vigorous for my years, but I wouldn't sitand talk in a room with two open windows, in December."
"Neither can we--hang it!" thought Richard. "Why couldn't that chap havestayed a few minutes longer--when we'd just got started?"
At luncheon-time Roberta's part in the work was not completed. Her uncleasked for two hours more of her time and she cheerfully promised it. Soat two o'clock the stage was again set as a business office, the actorsagain engaged in their parts. But at three the situation was abruptlychanged.
"I believe there are no more revisions to be made," declared Judge Graywith a sigh of weariness. "I have taxed you heavily, my dear, but if youare equal to finishing these eleven sheets for me by yourself I shall begrateful. My eyes have reached the limit of endurance, even with all thehelp you have given me. I must go to my room."
He paused by Richard's desk on his way out. "Have you finished theabstract of the chapter on Judge Cahill?" he asked. "No? I thought youwould perhaps have covered that this morning. But--I do not mean toexact too much. It will be quite satisfactory if you can complete itthis afternoon."
"I am sorry," said his assistant, flushing in a quite unaccustomedmanner. "I have been working more slowly than I realized. I will finishit as rapidly as I can, sir."
"Don't apologize, Mr. Kendrick. We all have our slow days. I undoubtedlyunderestimated the amount of time the chapter would require. Goodafternoon to you."
Richard sat down and plunged into the task he now saw he had merelyplayed with during the morning. By a tremendous effort he kept his eyesfrom lifting to the figure at the typewriter, whose steady clickingnever ceased but for a moment at a time, putting him to shame. Yet tryas he would he could not apply himself with any real concentration; andthe task called for concentration, all he could command.
"You are probably not used to working in the same room with atypewriter," said his companion, quite unexpectedly, after a full halfhour of silence. She had stopped work to oil a bearing in her machine.There was an odd note in her voice; it sounded to Richard as if shemeant: "You are not used to doing anything worth while."
"I don't mind it in the least," he protested.
"I'm sorry not to take my work to another room," Roberta went on,tipping up her machine and manipulating levers with skill as she appliedthe oil. "But I shall soon be through."
"Please don't hurry. I ought to be able to work under any conditions.And I certainly enjoy having you at work in the same room," he venturedto add. It was odd how he found himself merely venturing to say to thisgirl things which he would have said without hesitation--putting themmuch more strongly withal--to any other girl he knew.
"One needs to be able to forget there's anybody in the same room." Therewas a little curl of scorn about her lips.
"That might be easier to do under some conditions than others." He didnot mean to be trampled upon.
But Roberta finished her oiling in silence and again applied herself toher typing with redoubled energy.
He went at his abstract, suddenly furious with himself. He would showher that he could work as persistently as she
. He could not pretend tohimself that she was not absorbed. Only entire absorption could enableher to reel off those pages without more than an infrequent stop for thecorrection of an error.
Turning a page in the big volume of records of speeches in the StateLegislature, which he was consulting, Richard came upon a sheet of paperon which was written something in verse. His eye went to the bottom ofthe sheet to see there the source of the quotation--Browning--withreference to title and page. No harm to read a quoted poem, certainly;his eyes sought it eagerly as a relief from the sonorous phrasing of thespeech he was attempting to read. He had never seen the words before;the first line--and he must read to the end. What a thing to find in adusty volume of forgotten speeches of a date long past!
Such a starved bank of moss Till, that May-morn,Blue ran the flash across: Violets were born!
Sky--what a scowl of cloud Till, near and far,Ray on ray split the shroud: Splendid, a star!
World--how it walled about Life with disgraceTill God's own smile came out: That was thy face!
Speeches were forgotten; he devoured the words over and over again. Theyseemed to him to have been made expressly for him. A starved bank ofmoss--that was exactly what he had been, only he had not known it, buthad fancied himself a garden of rich resource. He knew better now,starved he was, and starved he would remain--unless he could make theviolets his own. No doubt but he had found them!
He followed an impulse. Rising, the sheet of yellowed paper in his hand,he walked over to the typewriter. Without apology he laid the sheet uponthe pile of typed ones at her side.
"See what I've found in an old volume of state speeches."
Roberta's busy hand stopped. Her eyes scanned the yellow page upon whichthe stiff, fine handwriting, clearly that of a man, stood out legibly asprint. Business woman she might be, but she could not so far abstractherself as not to be touched by the hint of romance involved in findingsuch words in such a place.
"How strange!" she owned. "And they've been there a long time, by thelook of the paper and ink. I never saw the handwriting before. PerhapsUncle Calvin lent the book to somebody long ago and the 'somebody' leftthis in it."
"Shall I put it back, or show it to Judge Gray?"
He remained beside her though she had handed back the paper.
"Put it back, don't you think? If you wrote out such words and left themin a book, you would want them to stay there, not to be looked atcuriously by other eyes fifty years after."
"That's somebody's heart there on that sheet of old paper," said he.Apparently he was looking at the paper; in reality he was stealing aglance past it at her down-bent face.
"Not necessarily. Somebody may merely have been attracted by the musicof the lines. Put it back, Mr. Secretary, and concern yourself withJudge Cahill. It's to be hoped that you won't find any more distractingverse between his pages."
"Why not? Oughtn't one to get all the poetry one can out of life?"
"Not in business hours."
He laughed in spite of himself at the failure of his effort to make herself-conscious by any reading of such lines in his presence. Clearly shemeant to allow no personal relation to arise between them while theywere thrown together by Judge Gray's need of them. She fell to typingagain with even more energy than before, if that were possible, whilehe--it must be confessed that before he laid the verses away between thepages for another fifty years' sleep he had made note of their identity,that he might look them up again in a seldom opened copy of the Englishpoet on his shelves at home. They belonged to him now!
In half an hour more Roberta's machine stopped clicking. Swiftly shecovered it, set it away in the book-cupboard, and put her table inorder. She laid the typewritten sheets together upon Judge Gray's deskin a straight-edged pile, a paperweight on top. In her simple dress ofdark blue, trim as any office woman's attire, she might have been ahired stenographer--of a very high class--putting her affairs in orderfor the day.
Richard waited till she approached his desk, which she had to pass onher way out. Then he rose to his feet.
"Allow me to congratulate you," said he, "on having accomplished a longtask in the minimum length of time possible. I am lost in wonder that ahand which can play the 'cello with such art can play the typewriterwith such skill."
"Thank you." There was a flash of mirth in her eyes. "There's music inboth if you have ears to hear."
"I have recognized that to-day."
"You never heard it before? Music in the hammer on the anvil, in thethrob of the engine, in the hum of the dynamo."
"And in the scratch of the pen, the pounding of the boiler shop, andthe--the--slide and grind of the trolley-car, I suppose?"
"Indeed, yes--even in those. And there'll surely be melody in theclosing of the door which shuts you in to solitude after thisdistracting day. Listen to it! Good-bye."
He long remembered the peculiar parting look she gave him, satiric,mischievous, yet charmingly provocative. She was keen of mind, she wasbrilliant of wit, but she was all woman--no doubt of that. He wassuddenly sure that she had known well enough all day the effect that shehad had upon him, and that it had amused her. His cheek reddened at thethought. He wondered why on earth he should care to pursue an attempt atacquaintance with one whose manner with him was frequently so disturbingto his self-conceit. Well, at least he must forget her now, and redeemhimself with an hour's solid effort.
But, strange to say, although he had found it difficult to work in herpresence, in her absence he found it impossible to work at all. He stuckdoggedly to his desk for the appointed hour, then gave over the attemptand departed. The moral of all this, which he discovered he could notescape, was that though he had taken his university degree, and hadsupplemented the academic education with the broader one of travel andobservation, he had not at his command that first requisite forefficient labour: the power of sustained application. In a way he hadbeen dimly suspicious of this since the day he had begun this pretenceof work for his grandfather's old friend. To-day, at sight of a girl'ssteady concentration upon a wearisome task in spite of his ownsupposably diverting presence, it had been brought home to him withforce that he was unquestionably reaping that inevitable product ofprotracted idleness: the loss of the power to work.
As he drove away it suddenly occurred to him that on the morrow, insteadof coming to the house in his car, he would leave it in the garage andwalk. Between the discovery of his inefficiency and his resolution todispense with a hitherto accustomed luxury there may have been a subtlerconnection than appears to the eye.