noon
The young women stenographers in the Chippering Mill , respectable , industrious girls , were attracted by a certain indefinable quality , but finding they made no progress in their advances , presently desisted they were somewhat afraid of her ; as one of them remarked , `` You always knew she was there . '' Miss Lottie Meyers , who worked in the office of Mr. Orcutt , the superintendent across the hall , experienced a brief infatuation that turned to hate . She chewed gum incessantly , Janet found her cheap perfume insupportable ; Miss Meyers , for her part , declared that Janet was `` queer '' and `` stuck up , '' thought herself better than the rest of them . Lottie Meyers was the leader of a group of four or five which gathered in the hallway at the end of the noon hour to enter animatedly into a discussion of waists , hats , and lingerie , to ogle and exchange persiflages with the young men of the paymaster 's corps , to giggle , to relate , sotto voce , certain stories that ended invariably in hysterical laughter . Janet detested these conversations . And the sex question , subtly suggested if not openly dealt with , to her was a mystery over which she did not dare to ponder , terrible , yet too sacred to be degraded . Her feelings , concealed under an exterior of self-possession , deceptive to the casual observer , sometimes became molten , and she was frightened by a passion that made her tremble -- a passion by no means always consciously identified with men , embodying all the fierce unexpressed and unsatisfied desires of her life .