. She went to bed happy that night, home among her own
people, among the women who, noisy or reticent, slack or aspiring, were
joined to make possible a life of work in a world still heavy-scented
with the ideals of the harem.

CHAPTER XII

That same oasis of a week gave to Una her first taste of business
responsibility, of being in charge and generally comporting herself as
do males. But in order to rouse her thus, Chance broke the inoffensive
limb of unfortunate Mr. Troy Wilkins as he was stepping from his small
bronchial motor-car to an icy cement block, on seven o'clock of Friday
evening.

When Una arrived at the office on Saturday morning she received a
telephone message from Mr. Wilkins, directing her to take charge of the
office, of Bessie Kraker, and the office-boy, and the negotiations with
the Comfy Coast Building and Development Company regarding the planning
of three rows of semi-detached villas.

For three weeks the office was as different from the treadmill that it
familiarly had been, as the Home Club and Lawrence's controversial room
were different from the Grays' flat. She was glad to work late, to
arrive not at eight-thirty, but at a quarter to eight, to gallop down to
a cafeteria for coffee and a sandwich at noon, to be patient with
callers, and to try to develop some knowledge of spelling in that child
of nature, Bessie Kraker. She walked about the office quickly, glancing
proudly at its neatness. Daily, with an operator's headgear, borrowed
from the telephone company, over her head, she spent half an hour
talking with Mr. Wilkins, taking his dictation, receiving his cautions
and suggestions, reassuring him that in his absence the Subway ran and
Tammany still ruled. After an agitated conference with the
vice-president of the Comfy Coast Company, during which she was eloquent
as an automobile advertisement regarding Mr. Wilkins's former
masterpieces with their "every modern improvement, parquet floors, beam
ceilings, plate-rack, hardwood trim throughout, natty and novel
decorations," Una reached the zenith of salesman's virtues--she "closed
the deal."

Mr. Wilkins came back and hemmed and hawed a good deal; he praised the
work she hadn't considered well done, and pointed out faults in what she
considered particularly clever achievements, and was laudatory but
dissatisfying in general. In a few days he, in turn, reached the zenith
of virtue on the part of boss--he raised her salary. To fi