“Who’s looking after the phones?” asked Luba abruptly. “The phones must be covered. Time after time I say it. Time after time, every girl leaves his desk.”

Gabrielle said sulkily, “Leslie’s there.” At that moment Leslie came into the room, and Gabrielle went out without a word.

Leslie came to the mirror and whitened her lips a little with a lipstick taken from her pocket. (She carried a small assortment of cosmetics in her pocket in order not to be seen leaving the office with her handbag.) Over her ashen face she flicked a chalky puff. “What do you use?” she asked, taking up Luba’s powder-box.

Luba finished with her hair and took the powder-box back. “I’m just using that up,” she said. “It’s not really right for me. My skin’s too sensitive.” Seeing Leslie’s skeptical look in the mirror, she added, “Would you like it?”

Leslie said coolly, “Jaspersen was looking for you.”

“What? Just now?” Luba began ramming objects into her handbag. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She met her own wild eyes in the glass. “No time. Never any time.” She transferred her glance again to Leslie. “No wonder we look as we do.”

“It’s O.K.” Leslie brought out a bottle of iridescent nail lacquer from her pocket and began to shake it, her first vigorous action of the day. “He’s gone to the Committee now.”

Jaspersen took up his resolution—his draft resolution, that is to say, with its folder of proposed amendments—bent over his In-tray to read a note on the topmost file there, and walked across to the windows. Jaspersen’s office was carpeted, an obvious indication of senior rank; the carpet was gray and somewhat worn—a more subtle suggestion, perhaps, of modifications within seniority. On Jaspersen’s desk the density of paper was as great as on Nagashima’s window sill, but these papers of Jaspersen’s—these files and false dockets, these drafts for approval and final versions for signature—gave an impression of having just alighted, or of forming the course of an ever-flowing stream, whereas Nagashima’s were as still and stagnant as lake water.

Jaspersen was a man whose Out-tray was fuller than his In-tray; whose head was above water, whose feet were on the ground. Who administered a section, and would one day direct a branch. Jaspersen had everything to live for—in short, every reason to get up in the morning and come to his office. For years he had tranquilly pursued his work as head of the Contingency and Unresolved Disputes Section, and would eventually go on to even more gratifying tasks in areas yet more contentious.