Читать книгу The Gorgeous Girl - Nalbro Bartley - Страница 6

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WHEN the world was considerably younger it dressed children in imitation of its adults––those awful headdresses and heavy stays, long skirts to trip up tender little feet, and jewelled collars to make tiny necks ache. Now that the world “is growing evil and the time is waxing late” the grown-ups have turned the tables and they dress like the children––witness thereof to be found in the costume of Aunt Belle Todd, Mark Constantine’s sister, who had shared her brother’s fortunes ever since his wife had been presented with the marble monument.

Like all women who have ceased having birthdays Aunt Belle had not ceased struggling. She still had hopes of a financier who would carry her off in a storm of warmed-over romance to a castle in Kansas. Her first husband was Thomas Todd, the carpenter, chiefly distinguished for falling off a three-story building on which he was working and never harming a hair of his head; also for singing first bass in the village quartet. Aunt Belle had slightly recoloured her past since she had lived with her brother. The account of Mr. Todd’s singing in the quartet was made to resemble a brilliant début in grand opera which was abandoned because of Aunt Belle’s dislike of stage life and its temptations, while his rolling off the three-story building was never alluded to except when Mark Constantine wished to tease.

She was a short, plump person with permanently 41 jet-black hair and twinkling eyes. Prepared to forgo all else save elegance, she had brought up her gorgeous niece with the idea that it was never possible to have too much luxury. Seated in the Gorgeous Girl’s dressing room she now presented excellent proof that the world was growing very old indeed, for her plump self was squeezed into a short purple affair made like a pinafore, her high-heeled bronze slippers causing her to totter like a mandarin’s wife; and strings of coral beads and a gold lorgnette rose and fell with rhythmic motion as she sighed very properly over her niece’s marriage.

“It will never be the same, darling,” she was saying, glancing in a mirror to see if the light showed the rouge boundaries too clearly––“never quite the same. You’ll understand when your daughter marries––for you have been just as dear as one.”

Beatrice, who was busy inspecting some newly arrived lingerie, did not glance up as she answered: “Don’t be silly. You know it’s a relief. You can sit back and rest from now on––until I’m divorced,” she added with a smile.

“How can you even say such a thing?”

Beatrice tossed the filmy creamy silk somethings or other away and delivered herself of her mind. “Alice Twill was divorced before she married this specimen; so was Coralie Minter; and Harold Atwater; and both the Deralto girls were divorced, and their mother, too. And Jill Briggs is considering it, and I’m sure I don’t blame her. Everyone seems to think a divorce quite the proper caper when things grow dull. You may as well have all the fun you can. Steve wants me to have everything I fancy, and I’m sure he’d never deny me a divorce.”

42

“You are marrying a splendid, self-made young man who adores you and who is making money every day in the week. No girl is to be more envied––you have had a wonderful ten years of being a ‘Gorgeous Girl,’ as your dear papa calls it, and at twenty-six you are to become the bride of a wonderful man––neither too early nor too late an age. I cannot really grieve––when I realize how happy you are going to be, and yet–––”

“Don’t work so hard, aunty,” Bea said, easily. “Of course Steve’s a wonderful old dear and all that––I wish I had asked him for the moon. I do believe he’d have gotten an option on it.” She laughed and reached over to a bonbon dish to rummage for a favourite flavour. She selected a fat, deadly looking affair, only to bite into it and discover her mistake. She tossed it on the floor so that Monster could creep out of her silk-lined basket and devour the remains.

“If you call natural feelings of a mother and an aunt ‘working hard’ I am at a loss–––” her aunt began with attempted indignation.

“Oh, I don’t call anything anything; I’m dead and almost buried.” She looked at her small self in the pier glass. “Think of all I have to go through with before it is over and we are on our way west. Here it is half-past twelve and I’ve not eaten breakfast really. I’m so tired of presents and bored with clothes that I cannot acknowledge another thing or decide anything. I think weddings are a frightful ordeal. Did you know the women on my war-relief committee presented me with a silver jewel box? Lovely of them, wasn’t it? But I deserve it––after slaving all last winter. My bronchitis was just because I sold tags for them during that rainy weather.”

43

“No, I haven’t seen it. But I am glad you decided on a church wedding––there is such a difference between a wedding and just a marriage.”

Beatrice shoved the box of lingerie away. “Those are all wrong, so back they go; and I can’t help it if that woman does need money, I told her I wanted a full inch-and-a-half beading and she has put this crochet edge all round everywhere. I shan’t accept a single piece!”

Whereupon she sat down at her dressing table and rang for her maid. Madame Pompadour herself had no lovelier boudoir than Beatrice. It was replete with rose-coloured taffeta curtains, padded sky-blue silk walls with garlands of appliquéd flowers. Lace frills covered every possible object; the ivory furniture was emphasized by smart rose upholstery, and the dressing table itself fairly dazzled one by the array of gold-topped bottles and gold-backed brushes.

Johanna, the maid, began brushing the sunshiny hair, the Gorgeous Girl stamping her feet as snarls asserted themselves.

“Two more days before the wedding,” she complained. “There’s the Twill luncheon to-day and a bridge and tea at Marion Kavanaugh’s––I hate her, too. She gave me the most atrocious Chinese idol. I’m going to tell her I have no proper place for it, that it deserves to be alone in a room in order to have it properly appreciated.” She laughed at herself. “So I’ll leave it for papa. The apartment won’t hold but just so much––it’s a tiny affair.” She laughed again, the apartment having only eleven rooms and a profusion of iron grille work at all the windows. “But it’s a wonderful way to start––in an apartment––it is such a good excuse for not dragging in all the 44 terrible wedding presents. I can leave everything I like with papa because he never minds anything as long as he has old slippers and plenty of mince pie. After a year or so I’m going to have a wonderful house copied after one I saw in Italy. By then they will all have forgotten what they gave me and I can furnish it so we won’t have to go about wearing blinders. … The blue dress, Jody, that’s right.”

“And what is it to-night?” her aunt asked, meekly.

“The Farmsworth dinner; and to-morrow another luncheon and the garden party at the club. Then the dinner here, rehearsal; and Wednesday, thank heaven, it will be all ended!”

Johanna helped fasten the king’s-blue satin with seed-pearl trimmings and place a trig black hat atilt on the yellow hair.

“The ermine scarf, please.”

The Gorgeous Girl was slipping matronly looking rings on her fingers and adding an extra dab of powder. She took another chocolate, hugged Monster, gave orders about sending back the lingerie, remarked that she must send her photograph to the society editor for the next day’s edition, and she thought the one taken in her Red Cross outfit would be the sweetest; and then kissing the tip of her aunt’s right ear she sailed downstairs and into the closed car to be whirled to Alice Twill’s house, a duplicate of the Gorgeous Girl’s. There she was enthusiastically embraced and there followed a mutual admiration as to gowns, make-ups, and jewellery, and a mutual sympathy as to being desperately tired and busy.

“My dear, I haven’t had time to breath––it’s perfectly awful! I’ll have to drop out of things next 45 winter. Steve will never allow me to be so overburdened. I can’t sleep unless I take a powder and I can’t have any enthusiasm in the morning unless I have oodles of black coffee. Of course one has had to do serious work––thank heavens the war is over!––but you can’t give up all the good times. … What a lovely centre piece! And those cunning little gilt suitcases for favours! A really truly gold veil pin in each one? You love! Oh, let’s have a cocktail before any one comes in. It does pick me up wonderfully. … Thanks. … Yes, I had breakfast in bed––some coffee and gluten crackers was all, and aunty had to stay in my room half the morning trying to be pensive about my wedding! No, Markham didn’t make my travelling suit half as well as he did Peggy Brewster’s. I shall never go near him again. … And did you hear that Jill found her diamond pendant in her cold cream jar, so it wasn’t a burglar at all!

“Yes, Gaylord Vondeplosshe is going to be an usher. … Well, what else could I do at the last moment? Wasn’t it absurd for a grown man like Fred Jennings to go have the mumps? Gay knows everyone and I’m sure he is quite harmless. … Oh, Steve is well and terribly busy, you know. He is giving me the most wonderful present. Papa hasn’t given me his yet and I’m dying to know what it is, he always gives me such wonderful things, too. … There’s the bell. I do hope it isn’t Lois Taylor, because she always wants people to sign petitions and appear in court. It is Lois Taylor! Why didn’t you leave word to have all petitions checked with wraps?” Giggles. “Good heavens, what a fright of a hat. Well, are you ready to go down?”

46

Five hours later Beatrice was being dressed for the evening’s frolic, dipping into the bonbon box for a stray maple cream, and complaining of her headache. At this juncture her father tiptoed clumsily into her room and laid a white velvet jewel case on her dressing table, standing back to watch her open it.

“You dear–––” she began in stereotyped, high-pitched tones as she pressed the spring. “You duck!” she added a trifle more enthusiastically, viewing the bowknot of gems in the form of a pin––a design of diamonds four inches wide with a centre stone of pigeon’s-blood ruby. “You couldn’t have pleased me more”––trying it against her dressing gown. “See, Jody, isn’t this wonderful? I must kiss you.” She rustled over to her father and brushed her lips across his cheek, rustling back again to tell Jody that she must try the neck coil again––it was entirely too loose.

“I guess Steve can’t go any better than that,” her father said, balancing himself on his toes and, in so doing, rumpling the rug.

He was a tall, heavily built man with harsh features and gray hair, the numerous signs of a self-made man who is satisfied with his own achievements. He had often told his sister: “Bea can be the lady of the family. I’m willing to set back and pay for it. It’d never do for me to start buying antiques or quoting poetry. I can wear a dress suit without disgracing Bea, and make an after-dinner speech if they let me talk about the stockyards. But when it comes to musicals and monocles I ask to be counted out. I had to work too hard the first half of my life to be able to play the last half of it. I wasn’t born in cold storage and baptized with cracked ice the way 47 these rich men’s sons are. I’ve shown this city that a farmer’s boy can own the best in the layout and have his girl be the most gorgeous of the crew––barring none!

“This is a joy,” Beatrice was saying, rapidly, her small face wrinkled with displeasure.

She wished her father would go away because she wanted to think of a hundred details of the next forty-eight hours and her nerves were giving warning that their limit of endurance was near at hand. This big, awkward man who was so harsh a task-master to the world and so abject a slave to her own useless little self annoyed her. He offended in an even deeper sense––he did not interest her. Things which did not interest her were met with grave displeasure. Religion did not interest her; neither did Steve O’Valley’s business––her head ached whenever he ventured to explain it. She never had to listen to anything to which she did not wish to listen; the only rule imposed upon her was that of becoming the most gorgeous girl in Hanover, and this rule she had obeyed.

“Tired?” he asked, timidly.

“Dead. It’s terrible, papa. I don’t know how I’ll stay bucked up. I want to burst out crying every time a bell rings or any one speaks to me. … Oh, Jody, your fingers are all thumbs! Please try it again.”

“It looks nice,” her father ventured, indicating the puff of gold hair.

Beatrice did not answer; she sighed and had Johanna proceed.

“The Harkin detectives will watch the presents,” her father ventured again. “There are some more packages downstairs.”

48

“I’m tired of presents; I want to be through unwrapping crystal vases and gold-lined fruit dishes and silly book ends and having to write notes of thanks when I hate the gifts. My mind seems quivering little wires that won’t let me have a moment’s rest.” She took another piece of candy.

“When I married your mother,” her father remarked, softly, evidently forgetting Johanna’s presence, “we walked to a minister’s house in Gardenville about five miles south of here. Your mother was working for a farmer’s wife and she didn’t say she was going to be married. She was afraid they might try talking her out of it––you know how women do.” He looked round the elegant little room. “I was getting ten dollars a week––that seemed big money in those days. I rented two rooms in the rear cottage of a house on Ontario Street––it’s torn down now. And I bought some second-hand stuff to furnish it.”

He paced up and down; he had a habit of so doing since he was always whisked about in his motor car and he feared growing stiff if he did not exercise.

“But your mother liked the rooms––and the things. I remember I bought a combination chair and stepladder for a dollar and it didn’t work.” He gave a chuckle. “It stayed in a sort of betwixt and between position, about one third stepladder and about two thirds chair, and that worried me a lot. A dollar meant a good deal then. But your mother knew what to do with it, she used it for kindling wood and said we’d charge it up to experience. Yes, sir, we walked to the minister’s––she wore a blue-print dress with a little pink sprig in it, and a sort of a bonnet.” His hand made an awkward descriptive gesture.

“The minister was mighty nice––he took us into his 49 garden and let your mother pick a bunch of roses, and then he hitched up his horse and buggy and drove us back to the farmer’s house. The farmer’s wife cried a little when we told her; she liked your mother. She gave us a crock of butter and some jam. While your mother packed her little trunk––it wasn’t any bigger than one of your hatboxes––I went out and stood at the gate. I kept thinking, ‘By jingo, I’m a married man! Mr. and Mrs. Mark Constantine.’ And I felt sort of afraid––and almost ashamed. It frightened me because I knew it was two to feed instead of one, and I wondered if I’d done wrong to take Hannah away from the farmer’s wife when I was only getting ten dollars a week.

“Well, when she came out of the door she looked as pretty as you’ll look in all your stuff, and she came right up to me and said, game as a pebble, ‘Mark, we’re man and wife and we’ll never be sorry, will we? And when you’re rich and I’m old we will stay just as loving!’ I didn’t feel sorry or frightened any more––not once. Not until you came and they told me she had gone on. Then I felt mighty sorry––and frightened. She looked so tired when I saw her then––so tired.”

He paused, staring at his sunken gardens as seen from Beatrice’s windows. Some men lazily raked new-cut grass and a peacock preened itself by the sundial. The glass conservatory showed signs of activity. The florists were at work for the coming event. Then he looked at his daughter, who waited with polite restraint until his reverie was ended.

“I’ve given you all she would have had,” he said, as if in debate with himself that this was the last rebuttal against possible criticism.

50

Beatrice glided over beside him; she looked out of the window, too, and then at her father. Something quite like tears was in his harsh eyes.

“Daddy,” she began with a quick indrawing of her breath, “do you think she’d have wanted me to have all––all this?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” he answered, taking her arm gently. He had always treated her with a formality amounting almost to awe.

“I don’t know––only I sometimes do almost think––would you suspect it? When I go to the office and watch those queerly dressed women bending over desks and earning a few dollars a week and having to live on it––and when I see how they manage to smile in spite of it––and how I waste and spend––and shed a great many tears––well, I wonder if it is quite safe to start as Steve and I are starting!” Then she threw her arms round him. “Steve won’t believe that I’ve been serious, will he? Now, daddy dear, please go ’way and let me dress, for I’m ’way late.”

She kissed him almost patronizingly and he tiptoed out of her room, rather glad to get into his own domain––the majestic library with its partially arranged wedding gifts.

“We’re doing ourselves proud,” he remarked to his sister, who had been rearranging them.

“What I told Beatrice this morning. Only she is all nerves. She can’t enjoy anything––it will be a relief to me, Mark, as well as a loss, when it is over.”

Her brother viewed her with a quizzical expression. Like the rest of the world his sister never fooled him. But like all supermen there was one human being in 51 whom all his trust was centred, and who very often thus brought about his defeat. In his case, as with Steve O’Valley, it chanced to be Beatrice.

Regarding her both men––merciless with their associates and dubbed as fish-blooded coroners by their enemies––were like gullible children following a lovely and willful Pied Piperess. But Mark’s sister with her vanities and fibs irritated and amused him by turns. Perhaps he resented her sharing this material triumph instead of the tired-faced woman in the churchyard.

“Do you remember the time you did the beadwork for the head carpenter’s wife and when she paid you for it you spent the dollar for liquid rouge? Todd was so mad he wouldn’t speak for a week,” he chuckled, unkindly.

“Don’t say such things! Think how it would embarrass Bea. Of course I don’t remember. Neither do you.”

“Oh, don’t I? What’s the harm recalling old times? I remember when you tried to make Todd a winter overcoat and he said it looked most as good as a deep-sea diver’s outfit. My Hannah nearly died a-laughing.”

Fortunately Steve appeared, flourishing Beatrice’s corsage by way of a greeting.

“Aha, the conquerer comes. My dear lad, your lady love has just ousted me from her room, she’ll be down presently. Belle, Steve and I are going into the den to smoke.”

“I’m trying to look as amiable as possible, but I wish fuss and feathers were not the mode.” Steve smiled his sweetest at Aunt Belle and then took Constantine’s arm. “The cave-man style of 52 clubbing one’s chosen into unconsciousness and strolling at leisure through the jungle with her wasn’t half bad. By the way, I did sell the Allandale man to-day, and the razor-factory stock is going to boom instead of flatten out––I’m sure of it.”

He lit a cigarette and threw himself into an easy-chair. Constantine selected a cigar and trimmed its end, watching Steve as he did so.

“You’ve come on about as well as they ever do,” he remarked, unexpectedly. “None of these rich young dogs could have matched you. Seen the presents?”

“Scads of ’em. Awful stuff. I don’t know what half of it is for. Bea is going to hand you most of it. The apartment is to be a thing of beauty and she won’t hear of taking the offerings along.”

“How is the shop?”

“Splendid––Mary Faithful will manage it quite as well as I do. I shall hear from her daily, you’ll stroll over that way, and I can manage to keep my left little finger on the wheel.”

“Mary’s a good sort,” Constantine mused. “Sorry I ever let her go over to your shebang. What’s her family like?”

“Don’t know. Never thought about ’em. Her kid brother works round the place after school. Guess Mary’s the man of the family.”

“How much do you pay her?”

“Forty a week.”

“Cheap enough. A man would draw down seventy and demand an assistant. I never had any luck with women secretaries––they all wanted to marry me,” he admitted, grimly.

“Mary’s not that sort. Business is her life. If 53 she were a man I’d have a rival. I’m going to give her fifty a week from now on; she’s giving up her vacation to stay on the job.”

“Don’t spoil her.”

“No danger. I’ve promised Beatrice to really learn to play bridge,” he changed the conversation.

“Accept my sympathy–––” Constantine began and then Beatrice in a lovely Bohemian rainbow dinner gown came stealing in to stand before them and complain of her headache and admire her corsage and let Steve wrap her in her cape and half carry her to the limousine.

“I shan’t see you a moment until we’re married,” he began, mournfully. “I’ve been most awfully neglected. But as you are going to be all mine I can’t complain. You’re prettier than ever, Bea. … Love me? … Lots? … Whole lots? You don’t say it the way I want you to,” laughing at his own nonsense.

“I’ll scream it and a crowd can gather to bear witness.” She dimpled prettily and nibbled at a rose leaf. “It’s all like a fairy tale––everyone says so, and lots of the girls would like to be marrying you on Wednesday.”

“Tell them I belong to the Gorgeous Girl until six men are walking quietly beside me and assisting me to a permanent resting place. Even then I’ll belong to her,” he added.

“Your nose is so handsome,” she said, wistfully, recalling her own.

“Talking of noses! Bea, sometimes it’s terrible to realize that my ambitions have become true. To dream and work without ceasing and without much 54 caring what you do until your dream merges into reality––it makes even a six-footer as hysterical as a schoolgirl.”

“You’re intense,” she said, soberly. “Jill says you’d make a wonderful actor.”

Steve looked annoyed. “Those scatterbrained time wasters––don’t listen to them. Let’s find our real selves––you and I; be worth while. Now that I’ve made my fortune I want to spend it in a right fashion––I want to be interested in things, not just dollars and cents. Help me, dearest. You know about such things; you’ve never had the ugliness of poverty bruise the very soul of you.”

“You mean having a good time––and parties–––” she began.

“No; books, music; studying human conditions. I want to study the slow healing of industrial wounds and determine the best treatment for them. I have made the real me go ’way, ’way off somewheres for a long time until I won my pile of gold that helped me capture the girl I loved. Now it is done the real me wants to come back and stay.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, vaguely. “Of course there are tiny things to brush up on––greeting people, and you mustn’t be so in earnest at dinner parties and contradict and thump your fist. It isn’t good form.”

“When whippersnappers like Gaylord Vondeplosshe–––”

“Sh-h-h! Gay’s a dear. He is accepted every place.”

“We’re nearly there, tough luck! One kiss, please; no one can see. Say you care, then everything else must true up.”

55

The wedding took place at high noon in church, with the bishop and two curates to officiate. There was a vested choir singing “The Voice That Breathed O’er Eden”; a thousand dollars’ worth of flowers; six bridesmaids in pastel frocks and picture hats, shepherdess’ staffs, and baskets of lilies of the valley; a matron of honour, flower girls, ushers; a best man, a papa, an aunty in black satin with a large section of an ostrich farm for her hat––and a bridegroom.

After the wedding came the breakfast at the Constantine house. Though certain guests murmured that it was a trifle too ultra like the house itself, which was half a medieval castle and half the makings of a village fire department, it was generally considered a success. Nothing was left undone. The bride left the church amid the ringing of chimes; her health was drunk, and she slipped up to the rose-taffeta-adorned boudoir to exchange her ivory satin for a trim suit of emerald green. Everyone wished on the platinum circlet of diamonds and there was the conventional throwing of the bouquet, the rush through the back of the grounds to the hired taxi, the screams of disappointment at the escape––and Mr. and Mrs. O’Valley were en route on their honeymoon.

It remained for the detectives to guard the presents, the society reporters to discover new adjectives of superlative praise, and the guests to drink up the champagne and say: “Wonderful.” “Must have cost thousands.” “Handsome couple. Couldn’t have happened in any other country but America.” “War fortune.” “Oh, yes, no doubt of it––hides and razors turned the trick.” “Well, how long do you think it is going to last?”

56

The office forces of the O’Valley and Constantine companies had been excused so as to be present at the ceremony. But Mary Faithful and Trudy Burrows had not availed themselves of the opportunity. Womanly rebellion and heartache suddenly blotted out Mary’s emotionless scheme of action. Besides, there was a valid excuse of waiting to catch an important long-distance call. With Trudy it was mere envy causing her to say over and over: “See Gay, the ragged little beggar, walk up the aisle with one of those rich girls and never glance at me––just because he’s a Vondeplosshe? And me have to sit beside Nellie Lunk, who’ll cry when the organ plays and wear that ridiculous bathtub of a hat? Never! I won’t go unless I can walk up the aisle with Gay. Wait until I see him to-night; I’ll make it very pleasant.”

Life seemed rather empty for Trudy as she sat in the deserted offices pretending to add figures and trying to hum gayly. Even the box of wedding cake laid on her desk––it was laid on everyone’s desk––brought forth no smile or intention of dreaming over it. Was she to spend her days earning fifteen dollars a week in this feudal baron’s employ? Tears marred the intensive cultivation on her rouged cheeks as she looked out the window to see the office force being brought back from the church in trucks.

“Like cattle––peasants––all because of money. A war profiteer, that’s what he was. And she isn’t anything at all except that she has her father’s money.” She glanced toward Mary’s closed door. “Poor Mary,” she thought; “she cares! I don’t––that makes it easier. Well, he could have done worse than to take Mary,” tossing her head as she 57 tried to create the impression of indifference now that the employees were coming back to their desks.

For there was a forked road for Trudy as well as for Mary Faithful. Women are no longer compelled to accept the one unending pathway of domesticity. Trudy’s forked road resolved itself into either marriage with Gay as a stepping stone to marriage with someone else, or a smart shop with society women and actresses as patrons, being able to live at a hotel and do as she wished, inventing a neat little past of escaping from a Turkish harem or being the widow of an English officer who died serving his country. Trudy was not without resources, in her own estimation, and whether she married Gay or achieved the shop was a toss-up. Like the rest of the world she considered herself capable of doing both!

Hearing the scuffle of feet Mary opened the door and forced herself to ask about the wedding. Presently the excitement died down and the round of mechanical drudgery took its place. An hour later someone knocked at an inner door which led to steep side stairs connecting with a side street entrance. Wondering who it was Mary opened it, to find Steve, very flushed and handsome, a flower in his buttonhole yet no hint of rice about him.

“Sh-h-h! Not a word out loud! I want to escape. Mrs. O’Valley is waiting round the corner in a cab. I forgot the long-distance call––the one we expected yesterday.”

“It came while everyone was at the church. I stayed here in case it did. They will pay your price, so I closed the deal.”

“Hurrah for Mary Faithful! But I wish you could have been there. It was like a picture. I never saw 58 her look so lovely. Well, that’s settled. Wire me at Chicago. I think that’s everything. Oh, you’re to have fifty a week from now on. What man isn’t generous on his wedding day? Good-bye, Miss Head of Affairs.” A moment later he was climbing down the rickety flight of stairs.

For a long time Mary sat watching the hands of her desk clock slowly proceed round the dial. Someone knocked at the door and she said to come in, but her voice sounded faint and far away.

Fifty dollars a week––generous on his wedding day! She ought to be very glad; it meant she could save more and have an occasional treat for Luke. It was good to think that women had forked roads these days. How terrible if she were left in the shelter of a home to mourn unchecked. Besides, she was guarding his business; that was a great comfort. The Gorgeous Girl was sharing him with Mary Faithful––would always share him. That was a comfort, too.

After the errand boy left, Mary tried to write a letter but she found herself going into the washroom off Steve’s office and without warning weakly burying her face in an old working coat he had left behind. She had just made a great many dollars for him which he would spend on the Gorgeous Girl; she would make many more during the long summer while she stayed at the post and was Miss Head of Affairs. She had laid her woman’s hopes on the altar of commerce because of Steve O’Valley, and he rewarded her with a ten-dollar-a-week raise since a man was always generous on his wedding day.

Yet there was a distinct satisfaction in the heartache and the responsibility, even in the irony of the ten-dollar-a-week advance. Life might be hard––but 59 it was not empty! She was glad to be in the deserted office replete with his belongings and breathing of his personality. She was glad to be an acknowledged Miss Head of Affairs.

“You’d miss even a heartache if it was all you had,” she whispered to herself from within the folds of Steve’s office coat.