Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1930-11-14
IN
A CLASS
BY
HERSELF
BY FANNIE HURST
"a by Mcclure Newspaper syndicate.l


N eighteen she was earning in
wv her capacity as private sec
rotary to the vice president
Of Lang's department store at least
third more than any youth of her
acquaintance.
Genevieve had what in q man would
be called 'natural-born business abil-
ity." She liked the conflict, the clash
Of wills, the play of cupidity, astute-
ness and shrewdness, that took place
In the busy mercantile world she day
by day beheld milling about her.
When she went home evenings to
the small immaculate bungalow she
shared with her widowed mother. her
talk was of the office; of the tactics
Of the business executives and her
own reactions to their methods. She
was alertly, deeply interested in her
business career. That, of course. was
the major reason why she was des-
tined for outstanding success in a
mercantile world that was chiefly peo-
pied by men. That is why. by the
time she was twenty-three, the name
"Genevieve Johnson, General Mana
GER" was painted in black letters
upon the ground-glass door that led
to her suite of private Offices.
By this time Genevieve was earn
ing at least four or five times as
much as any man Of her acquaintance.
She was in a class by herself-a
phrase which was destined eventually
to grind itself relentlessly into the
conscience of the young executive.
She was in a class by herself.
More and more, in her social life,
awareness of this fact drove itself
home to Genevieye. The boys with
whom she had grown up, gone to
school, and mingled socially, began to
segregate themselves, as it were, into
little groups of aloofness from Gene
We've They admired her, but she rep
resented something inaccessible. What
youth earning less than one-fourth the
amount that this quiet, brown-haired,
brown-eyed girl was commanding,
could feel himself comfortable at
tempting to entertain her? There was
nothing he could do that she could not
more readily accomplish for herself
Il was an insidious and subtle and
gradual thing that began to take place
in little world that revolved around
Geneyieve Johnson.
Even with her girl friends, the iSo-
lation of her kind of superiority be-
gan to rest heavily upon Genevieye.
1t was not. of course, that they re-
acted the way the boys did They re-
garded her with respect and certain
amount of awe. They were proud of
her friendship, and even while they
remained in the lesser capacities of
stenographers and saleswomen. paid
her the tribute of undisguised admi-
ration.
But in the end, what happened to
these girl friends was that they mar
ried off, one by one. The inevitable
pairings of young people who had
grown up together in community be-
gan to take place. Tom married Jen-
ny. Avril married George. The Ken
needy twins married two local mer-
chants. And Rita Irving, Geneyieves
closest friend. made an interesting al
lance with a young artist from Sa-
vannah, Ga.
One by one, slowly, subtly, newt
ably. And with the passing of the
years, there came to Genevieve the
passing of certain illusions, hopes and
dreams. The crash of the last of
them came when Royal Morgan mar
ried visiting girl from Chattanooga
1t was not that Genevieve had admit
ted even to herself that much of her
hope for happiness was bound up in
the figure of this able and amiable
young engineer. But deeply inside of
her, when the blow of his marriage
came, Geneyieve realized that this
time she had been cut to the soul.
1t was a strange marriage. Certain
iy it would have seemed from the very
outset, to those who knew Royal, that
a girl like Genevieve would have been
irrefutably better suited to him than
the one of his choice.
Royal was the level-headed, up-and-
coming type of American young man,
inevitably headed for a substantial
kind of success. The girl he married
was the frilly, scatterpated southern
belle type, that has been crowded to
the wall by her more modern and eff
cient sister.
Genevieve represented pretty nearly
all the things that Royal Morgan
somehow would seem to have needed
in wife. And yet. as Genevieve adj
mitted bitterly to herself, the greater
her success in business, the more sure
ly she and Royal grew apart He had
always shown fine and robust en-
thusiasm of her achievement, hut
there came the time when Royal
iaughingly pointed out to her the fact
that she was earning more money than
he was.
That was the beginning. Royal be-
gan to fall off in his attentions. Royal
haUau IN he annlo0efic in offarino hor