the piano, she must get a good piece of money every time she opens her mouth.’ ...Mercy, look at the orchids!  Well, you must have had a swell time.  I’ll bet you wouldn’t like to tell who sent them....  There wasn’t any card?  That’s not saying you don’t know, Miss Claire....  I hope you won’t think I’m a meddler, but I’m an older woman and....  Well, just you keep a sharp eye on the feller that sends you orchids, Miss Claire.”

She went down-stairs without further ado.  Claire put the orchids in water and set them on a sill near an open window.  She did not feel in the least resentful of Mrs. Finnegan’s warnings.  She was too confident to be anything but faintly amused at her neighbor’s middle-class anxiety.  But Finnegan’s skepticism concerning Mrs. Condor annoyed her and she remembered the disagreeable words of her aunt: 

“Hired you?  How extraordinary!”

* * * * *

“Two o’clock sharp!” The memory of Stillman’s air of delicate banter as he emphasized the hour for beginning his business venture struck Claire ironically the more she pondered his words.  She had a feeling that there was something farcical in the prospect, and yet there seemed nothing to do but to go through with the preliminaries.  She presented herself, therefore, at the appointed time at the Stanford Court apartments.

She found Stillman quite alone, his hands blue-black with the smudge from a refractory typewriter ribbon which he was vainly endeavoring to adjust.  It took some time for him to get his hands clean again, and Claire sharpened her pencils while she waited.  But there really proved to be nothing to do.

“I’m all up in the air over this bean business,” Stillman confessed, nonchalantly.  “The government, you know ... they’re taking over all that sort of thing ... regulating food and prices.  Of course, in that case....”

Claire felt an enormous and illogical relief.  “Then you really won’t need me,” she ventured.

“Oh, quite the contrary....  I have a certain amount of business, of a sort.  And I’m tired of dropping checks along the trail of public stenographers....  Suppose we talk terms.  We haven’t fixed on any salary, yet.”

Claire felt a rising impatience.  His subterfuge seemed too childish and obvious.  “That will depend on how much of my time you expect, Mr. Stillman.”

“Well, three times a week, anyway ... to start with.  Say Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from two to five....  I was thinking that something in the neighborhood of fifteen dollars a week would be fair.”

He turned a very frank gaze in her direction and she quizzically returned his glance.

“That’s rather ridiculous, don’t you think?” she said, trying to disguise her furtive annoyance.  “You can hire a substitute through any typewriting agency on the basis of three dollars a day.”

“Yes, and I can buy two cigars for a nickel, but I shouldn’t want to smoke them.”