y working
furiously at 4.30; her habit of awing the good-hearted Bessie Kraker by
posing as a nun who had never been kissed nor ever wanted to be; her
graft of sending the office-boy out for ten-cent boxes of cocoanut
candy; and a certain resentful touchiness and ladylikeness which made it
hard to give her necessary orders. Mr. Wilkins has never given
testimony, but he is not the villain of the tale, and some authorities
have a suspicion that he did not find Una altogether perfect.

Sec. 3

It must not be supposed that Una or her million sisters in business were
constantly and actively bored by office routine.

Save once or twice a week, when he roared, and once or twice a month,
when she felt that thirteen dollars a week was too little, she rather
liked Mr. Wilkins--his honesty, his desire to make comfortable homes for
people, his cheerful "Good-morning!" his way of interrupting dictation
to tell her antiquated but jolly stories, his stolid, dependable-looking
face.

She had real satisfaction in the game of work--in winning points and
tricks in doing her work briskly and well, in helping Mr. Wilkins to
capture clients. She was eager when she popped in to announce to him
that a wary, long-pursued "prospect" had actually called. She was rather
more interested in her day's work than are the average of meaningless
humanity who sell gingham and teach algebra and cure boils and repair
lawn-mowers, because she was daily more able to approximate perfection,
to look forward to something better--to some splendid position at twenty
or even twenty-five dollars a week. She was certainly in no worse plight
than perhaps ninety-five million of her free and notoriously red-blooded
fellow-citizens.

But she was in no better plight. There was no drama, no glory in
affection, nor, so long as she should be tied to Troy Wilkins's
dwindling business, no immediate increase in power. And the sameness,
the unceasing discussions with Bessie regarding Mr. Wilkins--Mr.
Wilkins's hat, Mr. Wilkins's latest command, Mr. Wilkins's lost
fountain-pen, Mr. Wilkins's rudeness to the salesman for the Sky-line
Roofing Company, Mr. Wilkins's idiotic friendship for Muldoon, the
contractor, Mr. Wilkins's pronounced unfairness to the office-boy in
regard to a certain lateness in arrival--

At best, Una got through day after day; at worst, she was as profoundly
bored as an explorer in the arctic night.

Sec. 4

Una, the initiate New-Yorker, contin