In disgust with himself he got up. His jaw clenched against the pain of his own corruption, and she saw it and seemed to take it for an expression of anger. With her large purse clapping against her thigh she got noisily to her feet.

‘You know what they ought to do with people like you?’ she threatened. ‘They ought to hang yiz!’

She was straining for an argument. Staring, he thought her face looked almost Irish when it thrust forward that way …

‘Every place I go it’s the same stupidity. I’ve had secretarial jobs where I didn’t even have to type! I had jobs that …’

He was not hearing any more, for as she glanced over her shoulder to see if someone was coming to interrupt her he saw the Hebrew dip to the nose and the sad-eyed gloom over the upper face … Turning back to him she leaned forward and dug stiff fingers into the desk top, and they quivered before him like ten red-rtipped arrows. ‘One of these days they’re going to hang you!’ she screamed in a heaving whisper, demanding that he reply in kind.

His spine was exploding with chills. Not since his mother had screamed at him when he was a boy had he been alone with a woman in such throes. He could not blot out the sheen of her dress and the dazzling pin she wore between her breasts, and the bared emotion in her tearing eyes lured him while it fed his fright.

To himself, to his confusion and hateful longing, he muttered ‘I’m sorry,’ and shook his head in refusal.

She swung around, threw open his glass door and crossed the floor through an aisle of desks. She had the vitriol of the Hebrews, he thought, and their lack of taste. He watched her calves go. She was overdressed, overpainted. As she went he noticed for the first time the furpiece swinging from her arm. In a way that clinched it: it was a very hot day. As she vanished into the reception room he saw the tail of the fur brush against her leg ….

Exhausted, he let himself into his chair. He felt loose, lubricated. A sense of evil hung over him. Reaching under his hot jacket he pulled his sleeve garters down and felt the blood circulating into his cold hands. Delicately he removed his glasses and slipped them into his handkerchief pocket and stared at nothing. The rough music of her voice rang in his ears and her perfume still hung in the air.

When time and place once more flowed into his mind his hand jerked quickly in surprise; he was looking into the solid back wall of the cubicle. Angrily he swung about and sat facing the glass walls and through them, the floor full of girls. In a moment he picked up the phone, and ordered, ‘Please send in …’ He broke off, and impatiently grabbed up the application under Miss Hart’s. The words blurred intolerably. His little chin curled furiously under his lips as he drew the paper up to his nose. From the receiver in his hand the operator’s voice crackled. He set the application on the desk and reached into his pocket and took out his glasses and put them on.