Old James

Old James would sit at his desk in the twilight. He would wear his hat, but that was no sign he noticed the hour, that the sun had already gone down and there was only twilight, and far beneath him, on the Circle, the first lamps of the city he knew so well, twinkling like stars. He would be oblivious to the misty shaft of the Sailors and Soldiers Monument, too, and the stone pioneer woman blotted out, with the dogs and children crouching at her feet, and the shot gun she pointed toward some unseen enemy.

Miss Greenwood, tired but efficient, would sit at his ponderous elbow, waiting for the flow of his inspiration. Then she would take a circuitous dictation in the semi-darkness, and her mind half-inclined toward problems of her own, which Old James would never guess, as she had learned the art of self-effacement—she was, indeed, the perfect secretary. He could not have told any one the color of her eyes or her hair, young as she was and not unattractive, but she enjoyed his ignorance of her, she liked being anonymous, as in that fact lay her only freedom. Not only would he disregard her, but also the Greek faces she drew in her short-hand book among spidery writings, and the Christian hymns she would sing above the clacking of her typewriter keys, in which she detected a hidden music. The job was not unpleasant, really. But why would Old James always put off the important deeds, why would he always call her in at the last moment to tell her of the things he had forgotten, the roads he had intended to follow? All day he would sit at his desk, with his hat tipped back over his head and fringe of iron grey curls, and a smile like a shadow on his high-cheek-boned, lean, almost sensitive face. He would look sad and happy, uncertain and determined. People who came in said, “Expecting to go somewhere?”