Edna Ferber: Fanny Herself

17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (continued)

"Then let 'em stay what they are."

Fanny's pencil was tracing and retracing a tortured and meaningless figure on the paper before her. "Tell me, do you remember a girl named Sarah Sapinsky?"

"Never heard of her."

"That's fitting. Sarah Sapinsky was a very pretty, very dissatisfied girl who was a slave to the bundle chute. One day there was a period of two seconds when a bundle didn't pop out at her, and she had time to think. Anyway, she left. I asked about her. She's on the streets."

"Well?"

"Thanks to you and your system."

"Look here, Fanny. I didn't come to you for that kind of talk. Don't, for heaven's sake, give me any sociological drivel to-day. I'm not here just to tell you my troubles. You know what my contract is here with Haynes-Cooper. And you know the amount of stock I hold. If this scheme of Haynes's goes in, I go out. Voluntarily. But at my own price. The Haynes-Cooper plant is at the height of its efficiency now." He dropped his voice. "But the mail order business is in its infancy. There's no limit to what can be done with it in the next few years. Understand? Do you get what I'm trying to tell you?" He leaned forward, tense and terribly in earnest.

Fanny stared at him. Then her hand went to her head in a gesture of weariness. "Not to-day. Please. And not here. Don't think I'm ungrateful for your confidence. But--this month has been a terrific strain. Just let me pass the fifteenth of October. Let me see Theodore on the way----"

Fenger's fingers closed about her wrist. Fanny got to her feet angrily. They glared at each other a moment. Then the humor of the picture they must be making struck Fanny. She began to laugh. Fenger's glare became a frown. He turned abruptly and left the office. Fanny looked down at her wrist ruefully. Four circlets of red marked its smooth whiteness. She laughed again, a little uncertainly this time.