oline.

Though Mr. Truax didn't "believe in" women salesmen, one woman briskly
overrode his beliefs: Miss Beatrice Joline, of the Gramercy Park
Jolines, who cheerfully called herself "one of the _nouveau pauvre_,"
and condescended to mere Upper West Side millionaires, and had to earn
her frocks and tea money. She earned them, too; but she declined to be
interested in office regulations or office hours. She sold suburban
homes as a free lance, and only to the very best people. She darted into
the office now and then, slender, tall, shoulder-swinging, an
exclamation-point of a girl, in a smart, check suit and a Bendel hat.
She ignored Una with a coolness which reduced her to the status of a new
stenographer. All the office watched Miss Joline with hypnotized envy.
Always in offices those who have social position outside are observed
with secret awe by those who have not.

Once, when Mr. Truax was in the act of persuading an unfortunate
property-owner to part with a Long Island estate for approximately
enough to buy one lot after the estate should be subdivided into six
hundred lots, Miss Joline had to wait. She perched on Una's desk,
outside Mr. Truax's door, swung her heels, inspected the finger-ends of
her chamois gloves, and issued a command to Una to perform
conversationally.

Una was thinking, "I'd like to spank you--and then I'd adore you. You're
what story-writers call a thoroughbred."

While unconscious that a secretary in a tabby-gray dress and gold
eye-glasses was venturing to appraise her, Miss Joline remarked, in a
high, clear voice: "Beastly bore to have to wait, isn't it! I suppose
you can rush right in to see Mr. Truax any time you want to, Mrs.
Ummmmm."

"Schwirtz. Rotten name, isn't it?" Una smiled up condescendingly.

Miss Joline stopped kicking her heels and stared at Una as though she
might prove to be human, after all.

"Oh no, it's a very nice name," she said. "Fancy being called Joline.
Now Schwirtz sounds rather like Schenck, and that's one of the smartest
of the old names.... Uh, _would_ it be too much trouble to see if Mr.
Truax is still engaged?"

"He is.... Miss Joline, I feel like doing something I've wanted to do
for some time. Of course we both know you think of me as 'that poor
little dub, Mrs. What's-her-name, D. T.'s secretary--'"

"Why, really--"

"--or perhaps you hadn't thought of me at all. I'm naturally quite a
silent little dub, but I've been learning that it's silly to