Having thus become the Voice of Fate, Miss Ruddick, shirt-waisted and daintily shod, slipped away between the pens where clerks were preening themselves before leaving their desks for the day. The old man to whom she had spoken raised his head in the mild surprise of an ox disturbed while grazing. He, too, was leaving his desk for the day, arranging his work with the tidy care of one for whom pens, ink, and ledgers were the vital things of life. Finishing his task, his hands trembled. His smile trembled, too, when a young man in a neighboring pen called out in tones which mingled sarcasm with encouragement:…
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