I'm good pay. Are you? Now? To-night?"
"My hundred and fifty--"
"Two hundred!"
"Yes--I'm good pay--now--to-night!"
CHAPTER III
With a flaying intensity that kept her teeth unconsciously ground
together so that when she relaxed their pressure the gums fairly sang,
Lilly took up her work in the office of the newly incorporated Universal
Amusement Enterprises.
The clerical department occupied a large unfinished room, obviously
makeshift, that had previously been used for the storage of stage
properties. There were two flat-topped desks, placed so that their
swivel chairs faced across a considerable expanse of surface, two
bookkeepers' perches also rigged up to meet the exigencies of run-away
affairs, and her own little table with its brand-new typewriting
machine.
Yet Lilly never entered the rather cold breath of this atmosphere
without a sense of haven. It was as if she had turned the key on those
areas that lay outside of the immediate present. She could take the
dictation of a letter to the printers, or a manufacturer of slot
machines for opera glasses, or to a ventriloquist guilty of disorderly
conduct behind the scenes, with the whole of her concentration brought
to bear upon her pencil point until very often it snapped under the
nervousness of her pressure.
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