I think I know how to order
a dinner."
Her instant conquest of the difficult and valuable Gideon so
elated Jeffries that he piled the work on her. He used her
with every important buyer who came that day. The temperature
was up in the high nineties, the hot moist air stood stagnant
as a barnyard pool; the winter models were cruelly hot and
heavy. All day long, with a pause of half an hour to eat her
roll and drink a glass of water, Susan walked up and down the
show parlors weighted with dresses and cloaks, furs for arctic
weather. The other girls, even those doing almost nothing,
were all but prostrated. It was little short of intolerable,
this struggle to gain the "honest, self-respecting living by
honest work" that there was so much talk about. Toward five
o'clock her nerves abruptly and completely gave way, and she
fainted--for the first time in her life. At once the whole
establishment was in an uproar. Jeffries cursed himself loudly
for his shortsightedness, for his overestimating her young
strength. "She'll look like hell this evening," he wailed,
wringing his hands like a distracted peasant woman. "Maybe she
won't be able to go out at all."
She soon came round. They brought her whiskey, and afterward
tea and sandwiches. And with the power of quick recuperation
that is the most fascinating miracle of healthy youth, she not
only showed no sign of her breakdown but looked much better.
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