U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [132]
checking off with a neat W. the items she could attend to without consulting him. By the time she was back at her desk correcting the spel ing in the copy that had emanated from Mr. Rob-bins' office the day before she began to feel a funny tingle inside her; soon J. Ward would be coming in. She told herself it was al nonsense but every time the outer office door opened she looked up expectantly. She began to worry a little; he might have had an accident driving in from Great Neck. Then when she'd given up expecting him he'd walk hurriedly through with a quick smile al around and the groundglass door of his private office would close behind him. Janey would notice whether he wore a dark or a light suit, what color his necktie was, whether he had a fresh haircut or not. One day he had a splatter of mud on the trouserleg of his blue serge suit and she couldn't keep her mind off it al morning trying to think of a pretext to go in and tel him about it. Rarely he'd look at her directly with a flash of blue eyes as he passed, or stop and ask her a question. Then she'd feel fine.
The work at the office was so interesting. It put her right in the midst of headlines like when she used to talk to Jerry Burnham back at Dreyfus and Carrol 's. There was the Onondaga Salt Products account and literature about bathsalts and chemicals and the employees' basebal team and cafeteria and old age pensions, and Marigold Copper and combating subversive tendencies among the miners who were mostly foreigners who had to be edu-cated in the principles of Americanism, and the Citrus Center Chamber of Commerce's campaign to educate the
-334-smal investors in the North in the stable building quali-ties of the Florida fruit industry, and the slogan to be launched, "Put an Al igator Pear on Every Breakfast Table" for the Avocado Producers Coöperative. That con-cern occasional y sent up a case so that everybody in the office had an al igator pear to take home, except Mr. Rob-bins who wouldn't take his, but said they tasted like soap. Now the biggest account of al was Southwestern Oil campaign to counter the insidious anti-American propa-ganda of the British oilcompanies in Mexico and to op-pose the intervention lobby of the Hearst interests in Washington.
In June Janey went to her sister El en's wedding. It was funny being in Washington again. Going on the train Janey looked forward a whole lot to seeing Alice, but when she saw her they couldn't seem to find much to talk about. She felt out of place at her mother's. El en was marrying a law student at Georgetown University who had been a lodger and the house was ful of col ege boys and young girls after the wedding. They al laughed and giggled around and Mrs. Wil iams and Francie seemed to enjoy it al right, but Janey was glad when it was time for her to go down to the station and take the train to New York again. When she said goodby to Alice she
didn't say anything about her coming down to New York to get an apartment. She felt pretty miserable on the train sitting in the stuffy parlorcar looking out at towns and fields and sign-boards. Getting back to the office the next morning was like getting home.
It was exciting in New York. The sinking of the Lusi- tania had made everybody feel that America's going into the war was only a question of months. There were many flags up on Fifth Avenue. Janey thought a great deal about the war. She had a letter from Joe from Scotland that held been torpedoed on the steamer Marchioness and
-335-that they'd been ten hours in an open boat in a snow-storm off Pentland Firth with the current carrying them out to sea, but that they'd landed and he was feeling fine and that the crew had gotten bonuses and that he was making big money anyway. When she'd read the letter she went in to see J. Ward with a telegram that had just come from Colorado and told him about her brother being torpedoed and he was very much interested. He talked about being patriotic and saving civilization and the his-toric beauties of Rheims cathedral. He said he was ready to do his duty when the time came, and that he thought America's entering the war was only a question of months. A very wel dressed woman came often to see J. Ward. Janey looked enviously at her lovely complexion and her neat dresses, not ostentatious but very chic, and her mani-cured nails and her tiny feet. One day the door swung open so that she could hear her and J. Ward talking familiarly together. "But, J.W., my darling," she was say-ing, "this office is a fright. It's the way they used to have their offices in Chicago in the early eighties." He was laughing. "Wel , Eleanor, why don't you redecorate it for me? Only the work would have to be done without interfering with business. I can't move, not with the press of important business just now."