the coat-closet, and now, like all the other girls, she faced the
room, could see more than any of them, indeed, and keep an eye on
Mr. Brauer, and on the main floor below, visible through the glass
inner wall of the office. Miss Brown was neither orderly nor
industrious, but she had an eye for proportion, and a fine
imagination. She loved small, fussy tasks, docketed and ruled the
contents of her desk scrupulously, and lettered trim labels for
boxes and drawers, but she was a lazy young creature when regular
work was to be done, much given to idle and discontented dreams.

At this time she was not quite twenty-one, and felt herself to be
distressingly advanced in years. Like all except a few very
fortunate girls of her age, Susan was brimming with perverted
energy--she could have done a thousand things well and joyously,
could have used to the utmost the exceptional powers of her body and
soul, but, handicapped by the ideals of her sex, and lacking the
rare guidance that might have saved her, she was drifting, busy with
work she detested, or equally unsatisfied in idleness, sometimes
lazily diverted and soothed by the passing hour, and sometimes stung
to her very soul by longings and ambitions.

"She is no older than I am--she works no harder than I do!" Susan
would reflect, studying the life of some writer or actress with
bitter envy. But how to get out of this groove, and into another,
how to work and fight and climb, she did not know, and nobody ever
helped her to discover.

There was no future for her, or for any girl here, that she knew.
Miss Thornton, after twelve years of work, was being paid forty-five
dollars, Miss Wrenn, after eight years, forty, and Susan only thirty