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window of the store; might be seen a perspiring young man in his shirt sleeves
chalking up baseball scores for the benefit of a crowd below。  Then came the
funereal; liver…coloured; long…windowed Hinckley Block (1872); and on the
corner a modern; glorified drugstore thrusting forth plate glass baystwo on
Faber Street and three on Stanleyfilled with cameras and candy; hot water
bags; throat sprays; catarrh and kidney cures; calendars; fountain pens;
stationery; and handy alcohol lamps。  Flanking the sidewalks; symbolizing and
completing the heterogeneous and bewildering effect of the street were long
rows of heavy hemlock trunks; unpainted and stripped of bark; with crosstrees
bearing webs of wires。  Trolley cars rattled along; banging their gongs; trucks
rumbled across the tracks; automobiles uttered frenzied screeches behind
startled pedestrians。  Janet was always galvanized into alertness here; Faber
Street being no place to dream。  By night an endless procession moved up one
sidewalk and down another; staring hypnotically at the flash…in and flash…out
electric; signs that kept the breakfast foods and ales; the safety razors;
soaps; and soups incessantly in the minds of a fickle public。

Two blocks from Faber Street was the North Canal; with a granite…paved roadway
between it and the monotonous row of company boarding houses。  Even in bright
weather Janet felt a sense of oppression here; on dark; misty mornings the
stern; huge battlements of the mills lining the farther bank were menacing
indeed; bristling with projections; towers; and chimneys; flanked by heavy
walls。  Had her experience included Europe; her imagination might have seized
the medieval parallel;the arched bridges flung at intervals across the water;
lacking only chains to raise them in case of siege。  The place was always
ominously suggestive of impending strife。  Janet's soul was a sensitive
instrument; but she suffered from an inability to find parallels; and thus to
translate her impressions intellectually。  Her feeling about the mills was that
they were at once fortress and prison; and she a slave driven thither day after
day by an all…compelling power; as much a slave as those who trooped in through
the gates in the winter dawn; and wore down; four times a day; the oak treads
of the circular tower stairs。

The sound of the looms was like heavy rain hissing on the waters of the canal。

The administrative offices of a giant mill such as the Chippering in Hampton
are labyrinthine。  Janet did not enter by the great gates her father kept; but
walked through an open courtyard into a vestibule where; day and night; a
watchman stood; she climbed iron…shod stairs; passed the doorway leading to the
paymaster's suite; to catch a glimpse; behind the grill; of numerous young men
settling down at those mysterious and complicated machines that kept so
unerring a record; in dollars and cents; of the human labour of the operatives。
There were other suites for the superintendents; for the purchasing agent; and
at the end of the corridor; on the south side of the mill; she entered the
outer of the two rooms reserved for Mr。 Claude Ditmar; the Agent and general…
in…chief himself of this vast establishment。  In this outer office; behind the
rail that ran the length of it; Janet worked; from the window where her
typewriter stood was a sheer drop of eighty feet or so to the river; which ran
here swiftly through a wide canon whose sides were formed by miles and miles of
mills; built on buttressed stone walls to retain the banks。  The prison…like
buildings on the farther shore were also of colossal size; casting their
shadows far out into the waters; while in the distance; up and down the stream;
could be seen the delicate web of the Stanley and Warren Street bridges; with
trolley cars like toys gliding over them; with insect pedestrians creeping
along the footpaths。

Mr。 Ditmar's immediate staff consisted of Mr。 Price; an elderly bachelor of
tried efficiency whose peculiar genius lay in computation; of a young Mr。
Caldwell who; during the four years since he had left Harvard; had been
learning the textile industry; of Miss Ottway; and Janet。  Miss Ottway was the
agent's private stenographer; a strongly built; capable woman with immense
reserves seemingly inexhaustible。  She had a deep; masculine voice; not
unmusical; the hint of a masculine moustache; a masculine manner of taking to
any job that came to hand。  Nerves were things unknown to her: she was granite;
Janet tempered steel。  Janet was the second stenographer; and performed;
besides; any odd tasks that might be assigned。

There were; in the various offices of the superintendents; the paymaster and
purchasing agent; other young women stenographers whose companionship Janet;
had she been differently organized; might have found congenial; but something
in her refused to dissolve to their proffered friendship。  She had but one
friend;if Eda Rawle; who worked in a bank; and whom she had met at a lunch
counter by accident; may be called so。  As has been admirably said in another
language; one kisses; the other offers a cheek: Janet offered the cheek。  All
unconsciously she sought a relationship rarely to be found in banks and
business offices; would yield herself to none other。  The young women
stenographers in the Chippering Mill; respectable; industrious girls; were
attracted by a certain indefinable quality; but finding they made no progress
in their advances; presently desisted they were somewhat afraid of her; as one
of them remarked; 〃You always knew she was there。〃  Miss Lottie Meyers; who
worked in the office of Mr。 Orcutt; the superintendent across the hall;
experienced a brief infatuation that turned to hate。  She chewed gum
incessantly; Janet found her cheap perfume insupportable; Miss Meyers; for her
part; declared that Janet was 〃queer〃 and 〃stuck up;〃 thought herself better
than the rest of them。  Lottie Meyers was the leader of a group of four or five
which gathered in the hallway at the end of the noon hour to enter animatedly
into a discussion of waists; hats; and lingerie; to ogle and exchange
persiflages with the young men of the paymaster's corps; to giggle; to relate;
sotto voce; certain stories that ended invariably in hysterical laughter。
Janet detested these conversations。  And the sex question; subtly suggested if
not openly dealt with; to her was a mystery over which she did not dare to
ponder; terrible; yet too sacred to be degraded。  Her feelings; concealed under
an exterior of self…possession; deceptive to the casual observer; sometimes
became molten; and she was frightened by a passion that made her tremblea
passion by no means always consciously identified with men; embodying all the
fierce unexpressed and unsatisfied desires of her life。

These emotions; often suggested by some hint of beauty; as of the sun glinting
on the river on a bright blue day; had a sudden way of possessing her; and the
longing they induced was pain。  Longing for what?  For some unimagined
existence where beauty dwelt; and light; where the ecstasy induced by these was
neither moiled nor degraded; where shame; as now; might not assail her。  Why
should she feel her body hot with shame; her cheeks afire?  At such moments she
would turn to the typewriter; her fingers striking the keys with amazing
rapidity; with extraordinary accuracy and force;force vaguely disturbing to
Mr。 Claude Ditmar as he entered the office one morning and involuntarily paused
to watch her。  She was unaware of his gaze; but her colour was like a crimson
signal that flashed to him and was gone。  Why had he never noticed her before?
All these months; for more than a year; perhaps;she had been in his office;
and he had not so much as looked at her twice。  The unguessed answer was that
he had never surprised her in a vivid moment。  He had a flair for women; though
he had never encountered any possessing the higher values; and it was
characteristic of the plane of his mental processes that this one should remind
him now of a dark; lithe panther; tensely strung; capable of fierceness。  The
pain of having her scratch him would be delectable。

When he measured her it was to discover that she was not so little; and the
shoulder…curve of her uplifted arms; as her fingers played over the keys;
seemed to belie that apparent slimness。  And had he not been unacquainted with
the subtleties of the French mind and language; he
might have classed her as a fausse maigre。  Her head was small; her hair like a
dark; blurred shadow clinging round it。 He wanted to examine her hair; to see
whether it would not betray; at closer range; an imperceptible wave;but not
daring to linger he went into his office; closed the door; and sat down with a
sensation akin to weakness; somewhat appalled by his discovery; considerably
amazed at his previous stupidity。  He had thought of Janetwhen she had
entered his mind at allas unobtrusive; demure; now he recognized this
demureness as repression。  Her qualities needed illumination; and he; Claude
Ditmar; had seen them struck with fire。  He wondered whether any other man
had been as fortunate。

Later in the morning; quite cas

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