r husband hated to ask her for
money, that he was large and strong and masculine.

She took him to dinner at the Pequoit, in a room of gold and tapestry.
But he got drunk, and wept into his sherbet that he was a drag on her;
and she was glad to be back in the office after Christmas.

Sec. 2

The mist of newness had passed, that confusion of the recent arrival in
office or summer hotel or revengeful reception; and she now saw the
office inhabitants as separate people. She wondered how she could ever
have thought that the sales-manager and Mr. Fein were confusingly alike,
or have been unable to get the salesmen's names right.

There was the chief, Mr. Daniel T. Truax, usually known as "D. T.," a
fussily courteous whiner with a rabbity face (his pink nose actually
quivered), a little yellow mustache, and a little round stomach. Himself
and his business he took very seriously, though he was far less tricky
than Mr. Pemberton. The Real Estate Board of Trade was impressed by his
unsmiling insistence on the Dignity of the Profession, and always asked
him to serve on committees. It was Mr. Truax who bought the property for
sub-development, and though he had less abstract intelligence than Mr.
Fein, he was a better judge of "what the people want"; of just how high
to make restrictions on property, and what whim would turn the commuters
north or south in their quest for homes.

There was the super-chief, the one person related to the firm whom Una
hated--Mrs. D. T. Truax. She was not officially connected with the
establishment, and her office habits were irregular. Mostly they
consisted in appearing at the most inconvenient hours and asking
maddening questions. She was fat, massaged, glittering, wheezy-voiced,
nagging. Una peculiarly hated Mrs. Truax's nails. Una's own finger-tips
were hard with typing; her manicuring was a domestic matter of clipping
and hypocritical filing. But to Mrs. Truax manicuring was a life-work.
Because of much clipping of the cuticle, the flesh at the base of each
nail had become a noticeably raised cushion of pink flesh. Her nails
were too pink, too shiny, too shapely, and sometimes they were an
unearthly white at the ends, because of nail-paste left under them. At
that startling whiteness Una stared all the while Mrs. Truax was tapping
her fingers and prying into the private morals of the pretty hall-girl,
and enfilading Una with the lorgnon that so perfectly suited her Upper
West Side jowls.