But in none of these affairs of her young heart had there been anything like this. She began by being somewhat flattered by Beardsley’s attention, and was guilty of provoking him a little at first with a smile and glance. Like all girls of her age, she had been willing, even anxious, to whip his interest into flame. But she soon grew frightened. There was now something in the air, something in herself she could not quite control; she could not still the sudden throbbing of her heart, the swimming of her senses. The moment came when she actually dreaded meeting him in the mornings, when the minutes she was obliged to sit beside his desk and listen to the peculiar little twang in his voice were an ordeal. She dared not lift her eyes to meet his, but she could see his long white fingers moving about on the desk, playing with pencil and pen, and she could feel him looking at her when his voice fell silent. These were the moments that disturbed her most, when she could not--not for the life of her--control the mounting color that began somewhere deep down within her, and swept up into her cheeks, over her temples, to the roots of her hair. She had to rest her hand against her note-book, to keep it from trembling. During these silences when she felt him studying her she sometimes thought she must scream or do something mad, unless he turned his eyes elsewhere. She seriously considered resigning and seeking another position.
Jeannette drank deeply of satisfaction in being a wage-earner. She walked the streets of the city with a buoyant tread; she gazed with pride and affection into the eyes of other working girls she passed; she was self-supporting like them; she had something in common with each and every one of them; there was a great bond that drew them all together.
But while she felt thus affectionately sympathetic to these girls in the mass, no one of them drew the line of social distinction more rigidly, even more cruelly than did she, herself. She felt she was the superior of the vast majority of them, and the equal of the best. She might not be earning the salary perhaps some of them did who were private secretaries, but she was confident that she would. Her experience with stenography confirmed this self-confidence. With three weeks of actual practice the trick, the knack, the knowledge,--whatever it was,--had come to her of a sudden. Now she could sweep her pencil across the page of her note-book, leaving in its wake an easy string of curves, dots and dashes, setting them down automatically, keeping pace with even the swiftest of young Beardsley’s sentences. Nothing could stop her progress in the business world; she loved being of it, revelled in its atmosphere, realizing that she was cleverer than most men, shrewder, quicker, with the additional advantage of unerring intuition.