It seemed very
simple, as he had talked about it. All she had to do was to get
acquainted with the young man next door. Yet the further the subway
carried her from Mr. Fleck's office after her second visit there that
morning, the more her heart sank within her, and the fuller her mind
became of misgivings.
In a big city next door in an apartment house is almost the same thing
as miles away. She ransacked her brain, trying to remember some
acquaintance who might be likely to know the Hoffs, but failed utterly
to recall any one. She reviewed all possible means of getting acquainted
but could find none that seemed practical. Never in her life had she
spoken to a man without having been introduced to him--except of course
to Carter and Mr. Fleck, and these men, she told herself, were
government officials, something like policemen, only nicer. At any rate,
she knew them only in a business way, not socially. If she was to be
successful in learning much about the Hoffs--about young Mr. Hoff--she
felt that it was necessary to make them social acquaintances.
She must manage to meet Frederic Hoff in some proper way, but how? She
thought of such flimsy tricks as dropping a handkerchief or a purse in
the elevator some time when he happened to be in it, but rejected the
plan as disadvantageous.
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