The Priceless Pearl

"The girl is simply too good-looking," said Bunner, the office manager, in a high, complaining voice. "She is industrious, intelligent, punctual and well-mannered, but simply too good-looking--a disturbing element in the office on account of her appearance. I made a grave mistake in engaging her."

The president, who had been a professor of botany at a great university before he resigned in order to become head of The Universal Encyclopedia of Necessary Knowledge Publishing Corporation, was a trifle deaf, but had not as yet admitted the fact to himself; and he inquired with the patient, slightly contemptuous surprise of the deaf, "But I do not understand why she is crying."

"It is not she who is crying," answered the office manager regretfully; "it is Mr. Rixon, our third vice president. He is crying because he has most unfortunately become interested in the young woman--fallen in love with her--so my stenographer tells me."

The president peered through his bifocal lenses. He did not wish to be thought one of those unsophisticated scientists who understand only the plain unpsychological process of plants. He inquired whether the girl had encouraged the third vice president, whether, in a word, she had given him to understand that she took a deeper interest in him than was actually the fact, "the disappointment of the discovery being the direct cause of the emotional outbreak which you have just described."

Bunner hesitated. He would have liked to consider that Miss Leavitt was to blame, for otherwise the responsibility was entirely his own. In his heart he believed she was, for he was one of those men who despise women and yet consider them omnipotent.

"I can't say I've ever seen her do more than say good morning to him," he answered rather crossly. "But I believe there is a way of avoiding a man--with her appearance. You have probably never noticed her, sir, but----"

"Oh, I've noticed her," said the president, nodding his old head. "I've noticed a certain youth and exuberant vitality, and--yes, I may say beauty--decided beauty."

Bunner sighed.

"A girl like that ought to get married," he said. "They ought not to be working in offices, making trouble. It's hard on young men of susceptible natures like Mr. Rixon. You can hardly blame him."

No, they agreed they did not blame him at all; and so they decided to let the young woman have her salary to the first of the month and let her go immediately.

"That will be best, Bunner," said the president, and dismissed the matter from his mind.

But Bunner, who knew that there was a possibility that even a beautiful young woman might not enjoy losing her job, could not dismiss the matter from his mind until the interview with her was over. He decided, therefore, to hold it at once, and withdrew from the president's room, where, as a directors' meeting was about to take place, the members of the board were already beginning to gather.

Bunner was a pale fat man of forty, who was as cold to the excessive emotion of the third vice president as he was to the inconvenient beauty which had caused it. He paused beside Miss Leavitt's desk in the outer office and requested a moment of her time.

She had finished going over the article on Corals and was about to begin that on Coronach--a Scotch dirge or lamentation for the dead. She had just been wondering whether any created being would ever want to know anything about coronach, when Mr. Bunner spoke to her. If she had followed her first impulse she would have looked up and beamed at him, for she was of the most friendly and warmhearted nature; but she remembered that beaming was not safe where men were concerned--even when they were fat and forty--so she answered coldly, "Yes, Mr. Bunner," and rose and followed him to his own little office.