an
impudent, Tenderloin sort of way, with a small head, reddish-brown
almond eyes, a trifle tilted, a rapacious mouth, and a beautiful
chin.

"Ain't you under that woman's thumb, though! Call her bluff. She
isn't half the prima donna she thinks she is. On my side of the hall
we know who's who about this place."

The business and editorial departments of "The Outcry" were
separated by a long corridor and a great contempt. Miss Kalski dried
her rings with tissue-paper and studied them with an appraising eye.

"Well, since you're such a 'fraidy-calf,'" she went on, "maybe I can
get a rise out of her myself. Now I've got you a ticket out of that
shirt-front, I want you to go. I'll drop in on Devine this
afternoon."

When Miss Kalski went back to her desk in the business manager's
private office, she turned to him familiarly, but not impertinently.

"Mr. Henderson, I want to send a kid over in the editorial
stenographers' to the Palace Thursday afternoon. She's a nice kid,
only she's scared out of her skin all the time. Miss Devine's her
boss, and she'll be just mean enough not to let the young one off.
Would you say a word to her?"

The business manager lit a cigar.

"I'm not saying words to any of the high-brows over there. Try it
out with Devine yourself. You're not bashful."

Miss Kalski shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"Oh, very well." She serpentined out of the room and crossed the
Rubicon into the editorial offices. She found Ardessa typing
O'Mally's letters and wearing a pained expression.

"Good afternoon, Miss Devine," she said carelessly. "Can we borrow
Becky over there for Thursday afternoon? We're short."

Miss Devine looked piqued and tilted her head.

"I don't think it's customary, Miss Kalski, for the business
department to use our people. We never have girls enough here to do
the work. Of course if Mr. Henderson feels justified--"

"Thanks awfully, Miss Devine,"--Miss Kalski interrupted her with the
perfectly smooth, good-natured tone which never betrayed a hint of
the scorn every line of her sinuous figure expressed,--"I will tell
Mr. Henderson. Perhaps we can do something for you some day."
Whether this was a threat, a kind wish, or an insinuation, no mortal
could have told. Miss Kalski's face was always suggesting insolence
without being quite insolent. As she returned to her own domain she
met the cashier's head clerk in the hall. "That Devine woman's a
crime," she murmured. The head