South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1917-12-30
By Beatrice Fairfax.

jeanette was a pretty little girl
who sat for a year in the outer cor
ridors of a great corporation OF Of
fees and received callers, customers.
visitors and clients. Her sweetness,
simplicity and quietness made her a
likeable little soul in spite of the
fact that she had the ugly job of
being a buffer between folks who
wanted TO get in and the folks who
wanted her 10 keep them out At
the end of the year her tact and
amiability won her promotion.
She was selected as secretary" by
the junior partner of the firm,
Thomas Fordyce. Jeanette's ad-
vancement from $40 a week TO SIS
meant a great deal 10 her As it
turned out, it meant too much
Quiet little jeanette blOssomed
forth in an elaborate marcel. fluffy
chiffon blouses, dangling chains and
a pair of red lips, wlich were as
conspicuous as jewels themselves.
The IS a week extra, the sudden
promotion. the association with Mr..
Thomas Fordyce seemed all TO get"
jeanette.
Her success dizzied the girl.
Whether it was the IS a week that
went 10 her head or the attentions
Of Thomas Fordyce. no one felt
quite sure. Mr.. Fordyce was the
sort of man who always had pretty
girls in his Office, who took them to
lunch with great frequency. There
were malicious whispers about him
and plying gibes at the girls who
! had positions in his branch Of the
office.
Presently jeanette was advanced
10 $40 a week, and simultaneously
she took 20 wearing patent leather
pumps and silk stockings that would
have been most effective in a comic
opera chorus. Her eyelashes now
became as conspicuously as her lips,
and her blouses more than ever in
cidental.
1T was a real tragedy All the
office asked itself whether Thomas
Fordyce was a ravening wolf and
jeanette his latest victim, when it
wasn't asking itself if Jeanette was
a thoroughly bad lot or whether she
was headed straight for perdition.
Nobody seemed quite able to decide
whether or no she was worth saw
ing.
jeanette had completely lost
/ her head-even if she still retained
/ her moral standard intact. And
there is no getting away from the
sad and cynical fact that in this
world of ours, avoiding the appear
ance Of evil is only exceeded in i'm
portance by really avoiding evil
itself. No one believed that the red
Tipped interloper who had developed
from our sweet little Jeannette Of a
year ago was a good girl"
} No girl can afford 70 let a little
bit of success go TO her head. No
| business woman can afford to look
! like burlesque actress dressed for
! business. Suspicion is one of the
facts with which you have to deal
! in business. The average office is
a hotbed OF gossip. When people
see each other every day for all the
weeks and all the months and all
the years, they come to feel a defin-
tie interest and curiosity in one an
other-they watch each other, they
conjecture about each other And
the successful member of any office
force is the one who does not do
startling or conspicuous things, who
does not dress in outre or bizarre
fashion, who does not make Of him
self a target for ridicule or conjec-
ture.
1t is easy to lose your head. A
little success and you grow drunk
with the wine Of it. A little singing
out from the common herd and you