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III

Phyllis Hanson put the cover over her typewriter and locked the correspondence drawer. Another day was done, another evening about to begin.

She filed into the washroom with the other girls and carefully redid her face. It was getting hard to disguise the worry lines, to paint away the faint crow’s-feet around her eyes.

She wasn’t, she admitted to herself for the thousandth time, what you would call beautiful. She inspected herself carefully in her compact mirror. In a sudden flash of honesty, she had to admit that she wasn’t even what you would call pretty. Her face was too broad, her nose a fraction too long, and her hair was dull. Not homely, exactly—but not pretty, either.

Conversation hummed around her, most of it from the little group in the corner, where the extreme few who were married sat as practically a race apart. Their advice was sought, their suggestions avidly followed.

“Going out tonight, Phyl?”

She hesitated a moment, then slowly painted on the rest of her mouth. The question was technically a privacy violator, but she thought she would sidestep it this time, instead of refusing to answer point-blank.