The first few days of business employment proved a novel and trying experience.  To a young girl accustomed to the quiet and exclusiveness of private life, the noise and promiscuousness of a public hotel corridor were singularly distasteful.  The men ogled her; the women guests tried her patience.  A pretty girl, it was only natural that she should attract attention from the men, but the persistent manner in which they stared, and tried to make acquaintance, annoyed her beyond measure.  When they spoke to her in the ordinary course of business they were courteous enough, but their eyes were bold, and sometimes they said things in an undertone which made her face flush scarlet.  She complained to her associates, but she got no sympathy.  The other girls—­sorry they were not attractive themselves—­only laughed at her for being so particular.  They said that the men meant no harm, and that she should consider it a compliment to her good looks if they took the trouble to address her at all.

Otherwise the work was congenial enough and the hours were not long.  She still lived with her sister in the same house where their mother died.  The millinery business had grown sufficiently large to take all Fanny’s time, and it brought in enough to keep the little household going.  When her sister married Jimmie, she would, of course, be compelled to give the shop up, but meantime it helped defray expenses and gave Fanny an occupation.

After that first morning of dictation in Robert Stafford’s rooms, Virginia saw a good deal of the handsome railroad man.  The first business interview had been followed by others, and when there was no regular correspondence to be answered he would stop at the desk downstairs on all sorts of pretexts.  Usually it was to telephone; sometimes to write a note, and for some reason or other both of these operations took up considerably more time than was absolutely necessary.  On one occasion he was sitting near her desk nearly all afternoon.  He had asked her to get Chicago on the long distance.  There was trouble on the wires, as had happened once before with Washington, and it was two hours before he got his number.  Strangely enough, the delay did not seem to annoy him.  He sat leisurely near her desk and chatted with her about theatres, music, books and art, finding her well read and conversant with every topic, especially with art, which was his hobby.  He seemed sorry when at last he had no longer an excuse to stay.  All that time he had watched her, quietly noting and admiring the calm, skilful way she went about her work.

The girl interested him.  Not so much because she was good looking as that she was quite different from other women.  Her cold, distant air, her spirit of self-reliance and independence pleased him.  Most women he had known had offered themselves shamelessly; this girl had kept him at a distance.  This in itself would be enough to attract most men.  The very novelty of it appealed to him.  She was exceedingly