The receptionist beckoned two of the waiting men and they went out of the room through a wide archway beyond which Mr Newman could see a corridor of office doors. She was kind enough to tell Mr Newman that he would only have to wait a few more minutes for Mr Ardell. He felt well disposed toward her then. It was the first time since he had arrived that he had felt well disposed toward her, since she was a Jewess. It was this fact – although he would not for a moment take it consciously into account – that had led him to believe he would find a position here. On stepping out of the elevator he had seen and instantly registered her face on his mind, but his mind had a way of blurring what it did not want to see clearly. From the moment he set eyes on her he felt he had a chance here. But not because they hired Jews, for he was no more a Jew than Herbert Hoover was. He simply had a chance here because he had a chance here. As Mr Lawrence Newman, a man of great business experience, he had a chance here. At the moment, no other reason existed on the earth.

The receptionist called to him now. He got up and went to her. She rose from her chair and walked him to the archway and pointed down the corridor and told him how many turns to make and in which directions.

He walked away from her and made his way down the corridor to Mr Ardell’s office. He knocked on the glass pane and heard a voice within. He opened the door and entered, his hat in his hand.

At first the office seemed to be empty because the chair behind the broad desk was vacant. He had stopped just over the threshold when he heard a woman’s voice to his left. He turned his head.

‘Won’ t you sit down?’

In his excitement he saw her but his eyes seemed to be leaping around in his head, so he sat quickly in a chair beside the big desk. His back was toward her, for he would never presume to turn the chair around to face her. All he knew was that something had exploded in his life, and he was blind until the debris settled back to earth.

As she passed his elbow and sat before him at the desk her perfume hit him like a stick. He sensed her thighs flexing as she sat, and the sound of her dress crackled in his ears.

He looked at her and had no idea what expression was on his face. He was trying to smile, however. Her extraordinary right eyebrow, raised as it was, appraised him as it had that other time, but now he could not get up and walk away from it. The curve of her incredibly living lips changed momentarily, as though to conform with the differing opinions of him that were revolving in her mind.