I'm frightened--not of Auchinloss--or life--but
of--Oh, I don't know--frightened of silliness, I guess."
"I'm not."
"But you're trembling."
"Of hope."
At eleven Lilly went down to her office. Leon Greenberg already had her
desk. It was largely a matter now of sliding in the new prop before
sliding out the old.
There were several farewell offerings from various of the older girls.
The immemorial trifles that women exchange. A bottle of eau de cologne.
The inevitable six handkerchiefs. A silver bodkin for running ribbon
through lingerie. And from the booking department, a silk umbrella
suitably engraved. She cried a little.
By noon the top of her desk was bare and the drawers empty.
She sat looking out over the waves of roofs of a city that had beaten
her back at every turn, lashed her, and yet with the mysterious
counterflow of oceans had carried her out a foot for every ten it
flung her back.
She felt full of sobs, but quiet. Strangely quiet, as if the champing
machinery of her life had stopped suddenly, leaving an hiatus that made
her heart ache of passivity.
At two o'clock, by appointment, came Zoe .
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