The Lonely Stronghold

The sleet drove spitefully against the dirty windows of the stuffy room behind the Palatine Bank in the High Street of Bramforth.

The air was close, without being warm; a smell of tea and toasted bread lingered upon it. The clock struck, and the girls who sat upon their high stools, cramped over columns of figures, straightened their backs with long sighs of relief.

"Snakes! What weather!" muttered Miss Hand as she pushed back her stool until it almost overbalanced in her efforts to gaze at the December night without.

"With my usual luck, came without a gamp this morning," grumbled Miss Turner, collecting loose sheets with a dexterity born of long practice.

"And you've got a mile to walk when you get off the tram," exclaimed Miss Donkin sympathetically.

Mrs. Barnes, who presided, seated not at a desk but at a central table, wiped her pen, looking across the zoom with knitted brows.

"It has struck, Miss Innes," said she.

The click of the typewriter went on nevertheless, and the operator replied without desisting from her work. "Let me get to the foot of this page, please."

There began the rustle and murmur of the girls leaving their places, in what was described by the bank managers as "The ladies' room." Mabel Hirst, a pretty girl with dark eyes, ran to the fire and held her chilblained hands to its warmth. "Oh, my goody," said she, "when will old Storky start in on that 'chauffage centrale' which he is always gassing about?"

"At the coming of the coquecigrues, I should think," said the voice of Miss Innes, who now ceased her clicking, rose from her chair, and raised her arms above her head, breathing a long "A-ah!" of relief.

"Not that I think it would be much improvement," she went on. "It probably wouldn't work. Nothing does work in this old town; and as long as we have the fire there is at least one place where you can go and thaw now and then."

An electric bell rang twice.

"Hallo, Barney, old Storky wants you," said Mabel Hirst. "Beg him to accept my compliments, and ask if he ever gives compensation for chilblains."

"Tell him it's my birthday to-morrow!"

"Say you think my work during this past quarter merits a rise!"

"Suggest he gives us a Christmas treat--stalls for the panto!"

The chorus was practically simultaneous, and Mrs. Barnes put her hands over her ears. "I'm far more likely to ask permission to increase the fines for talking," was her parting shaft, as she vanished in obedience to the summons.

"You look a bit fagged, Innes," remarked Mabel Hirst, as the typist approached the fire, and knelt down so that the flames shone upon her small, intense face.

"Oh, it's not fag so much as disgust," she replied, in a voice of individual quality. "I don't think I can stick this any longer. I didn't take a secretarial training in order to type out rows of figures all day long. I am bored, dears--bored stiff! All my powers are wasting their sweetness on the desert air--or rather the town lack of air! The desert would be all right. I shouldn't a scrap mind blushing unseen if I had plenty of space to blush in! Ouf! I feel as if I should choke!"

She stared at the fire with firmly folded lips, every line of her slender person seeming to breathe the resentment she felt.

"It's pretty bad," agreed Miss Turner, who was lacing up her hoots. "Suppose nobody's got a raincloak they'll be saint enough to lend?"