Her unheeding wanderings led her after an hour or so to a big
department store. Crowds of shoppers, mussy, hot, and cross,
were pushing rudely in and out of the doors. She entered,
approached a well-dressed, bareheaded old gentleman, whom she
rightly placed as floorwalker, inquired of him:
"Where do they ask for work?"
She had been attracted to him because his was the one face
within view not suggesting temper or at least bad humor. It was
more than pleasant, it was benign. He inclined toward Susan with
an air that invited confidence and application for balm for a
wounded spirit. The instant the nature of her inquiry penetrated
through his pose to the man himself, there was a swift change to
lofty disdain--the familiar attitude of workers toward
fellow-workers of what they regard as a lower class. Evidently
he resented her having beguiled him by the false air of young
lady into wasting upon her, mere servility like himself, a
display reserved exclusively for patrons. It was Susan's first
experience of this snobbishness; it at once humbled her into the
dust. She had been put in her place, and that place was not
among people worthy of civil treatment. A girl of his own class
would have flashed at him, probably would have "jawed" him.
Susan meekly submitted; she was once more reminded that she was
an outcast, one for whom the respectable world had no place.
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