The Priceless Pearl

								

very existence of the firm was threatened. An old friend of the two
families stepped in and effected a reconciliation, but his decision
was that the girl must go. It did not look well for two boys of their
age--just beginning in business--to have as handsome a woman as that in
the office. People might talk.
It was after this--some time after--that Pearl took the place with the
Encyclopedia company. Her record began to tell against her. Everyone
wanted to know why she changed jobs so often. She thought she had
learned her lesson--not to beam, not to be friendly, not to do anyone
favors. She had made up her mind to stay with the Encyclopedia forever.
She had had no hint of danger. She hardly knew the third vice president
by sight--someone in the office had told her a silly story about his
crying one day, but she hadn't even believed it. And now she had lost
another job--and in July, too, when jobs are hard to find.
Heretofore she had always gone docilely. But now she felt she could
bear it no longer--she must tell someone what she thought.
It was four o'clock on a hot summer afternoon, and round the board-room
table the members were saying "aye" and "no" and "I so move," while
their minds were occupied with the questions that do occupy the mind
at such times--golf and suburban trains, and whether huckleberry pie
in hot weather hadn't been a mistake--when the glass door opened and
a beautiful girl came in like a hurricane. She had evidently been
talking for some seconds when she entered. She was saying, "----are
just terrible. I want to tell you gentlemen, now that I have you
together, that I think men are just terrible." She had a curious voice,
deep and a little rough, more like a boy's than a woman's, yet a voice
which when you once knew Pearl you remembered with affection. "This
is the fourth job I've lost because men have no self-control. I do my
work. I don't even speak to any of you--I'd like to--I'm human, but
I don't dare any more. I attend to business, there's no fault found
with my work--but I've got to go because some man or other can't work
in the office with me. Why not? Because he has no self-control--and
not ashamed of it--not ashamed, that's what shocks me. Why, if a girl
found she couldn't do her work because there was a good-looking man
in the office, she'd die rather than admit she was so silly. But what
does a man do? He goes whining to the president to get the poor girl
dismissed. There it is! I have to go!"
And so on, and so on. The board was so astonished at her entrance, at
the untrammeled way in which she was striding up and down, digging her
heels into the rug and flinging her arms about as she talked, that they
were like people stunned. They turned their eyes with relief to Mr.
Bunner, who came hurrying in behind her.
"Miss Leavitt has been dropped," he began, but she cut him short.
"I've been dropped," she said, "because----"