"And you are not?"
"No," I said, "I am in Joyce & Carboy's office. I am a stenographer."
Again my answer seemed both to puzzle and to surprise her. She regarded
me doubtfully. I could see that she thought, for some reason, I was
misleading her.
"In an office?" she repeated. Then, as though she had caught me, she
said: "How do you keep so fit?" She asked the question directly, as a
man would have asked it, and as she spoke I was conscious that her eyes
were measuring me and my shoulders, as though she were wondering to what
weight I could strip.
"It's only lately I've worked in an office," I said. "Before that I
always worked out-of-doors; oystering and clamming and, in the fall,
scalloping. And in the summer I played ball on a hotel nine."
I saw that to the beautiful lady my explanation carried no meaning
whatsoever, but before I could explain, the young man with whom she had
come on board walked toward us.
Neither did he appear to find in her talking to a stranger anything
embarrassing. He halted and smiled. His smile was pleasant, but entirely
vague. In the few minutes I was with him, I learned that it was no sign
that he was secretly pleased.
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