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THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR
by
ELIZABETH JORDAN
Author of "The Wings of Youth," "May Iverson--Her Book,"
"Lovers' Knots," etc.
Illustrated by Paul Meylan
[Illustration: "Well, Princess," he said at last, still trying to speak
lightly]
[Illustration]
New York
The Century Co.
1919
Copyright, 1919, by
The Century Co.
Copyright, 1919, by
Today's Housewife
Published, October, 1919
TO
MRS. HENRY FERRE CUTLER
WITH HAPPY MEMORIES
OF FLORENCE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I BARBARA'S WEDDING 3
II RODNEY LOSES A BATTLE 26
III LAURIE MEETS MISS MAYO 47
IV A PAIR OF GRAY EYES 66
V MR. HERBERT RANSOME SHAW 90
VI LAURIE SOLVES A PROBLEM 99
VII GRIGGS GETS AN ORDER 112
VIII SAMUEL PLAYS A NEW GAME 124
IX AN INVITATION 138
X THE LAIR OF SHAW 151
XI A BIT OF BRIGHT RIBBON 162
XII DORIS TAKES A JOURNEY 180
XIII THE HOUSE IN THE CEDARS 196
XIV LAURIE CHECKS A REVELATION 216
XV MR. SHAW DECIDES TO TALK 240
XVI BURKE MAKES A PROMISE 258
XVII LAURIE MAKES A CONFESSION 270
XVIII A LITTLE LOOK FORWARD 285
XIX "WHAT ABOUT LAURIE?" 296
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"Well, Princess," he said at last, still trying to
speak lightly _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
"You see, what we were going to do isn't done
much nowadays" 64
"There is someone outside that door!" she
whispered 116
"What you been doin' to yerself?" he gasped 264
THE GIRL
IN THE MIRROR
THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR
CHAPTER I
BARBARA'S WEDDING
The little city of Devondale, Ohio, had shaken off for one night at
least the air of aristocratic calm that normally distinguished it from
the busy mill towns on its right and left. Elm Avenue, its leading
residence street, usually presented at this hour only an effect of
watchful trees, dark shrubbery, shaded lamps, and remote domestic peace.
Now, however, it had blossomed into a brilliant thoroughfare, full of
light, color, and movement, on all of which the December stars winked
down as if in intimate understanding.
Automobiles poured through the wide gates of its various homes and
joined a ceaseless procession of vehicles. Pedestrians, representing
every class of the city's social life, jostled one another on the
sidewalks as they hurried onward, following this vanguard. Overwrought
policemen barked instructions at chauffeurs and sternly reprimanded
daring souls who attempted to move in a direction opposite to that the
crowd was following. For the time, indeed, there seemed to be but one
destination which a self-respecting citizen of Devondale might properly
have in mind; and already many of the elect had reached this objective
and had comfortably passed through its wide doors, down its aisles, and
into its cushioned pews.
The Episcopal church of St. Giles was the largest as well as the most
fashionable of Devondale's houses of God, but it had its limitations. It
could not hold the entire population of the town and surrounding
counties. The chosen minority, having presented cards of admission at
the entrance, accepted with sedate satisfaction the comfortable seats
assigned to it. The uninvited but cheerful majority lingered out in the
frosty street, forming a crowd that increasingly blocked the avenue and
the church entrance, besides wrecking the nervous systems of traffic
men.
It was an interested, good-humored, and highly observant crowd, pressing
forward as each automobile approached, to watch with unashamed curiosity
the guests who alighted and made their way along the strip of carpet
stretching from curbstone to church. Devondale's leading citizens were
here, and the spectators knew them all, from those high personages who
were presidents of local banks down to little Jimmy Harrigan, who was
Barbara Devon's favorite caddie at the Country Club.
Unlike most of his fellow guests, Jimmy arrived on foot; but the crowd
saw his unostentatious advent and greeted him with envious badinage.
"Hi, dere, Chimmie, where's yer evenin' soot?" one acquaintance desired
to know. And a second remarked solicitously, "De c'rect ting, Chimmie,
is t' hold yer hat to yer heart as y' goes in!"
Jimmy made no reply to these pleasantries. The occasion was too big and
too novel for that. He merely grinned, presented his card of admission
in a paw washed clean only in spots, and accepted with equal equanimity
the piercing gaze of the usher and the rear seat to which that outraged
youth austerely conducted him.
There, round-eyed, Jimmy stared about him. He had never been inside of
St. Giles's before. It was quite possible that he would never find
himself inside of it again. He took in the beauty of the great church;
its blaze of lights; its masses of flowers; its whispering, waiting
throng; the broad white ribbon that set apart certain front pews for the
bride's special friends, including a party from New York. Jimmy knew all
about those friends and all about this wedding. His grimy little ears
were ceaselessly open to the talk of the town, and for weeks past the
town had talked of nothing but the Devons and Barbara Devon's
approaching wedding. Even now the townspeople were still talking of the
Devons, during the brief interval before the bridal party appeared.
In the pew just in front of Jimmy, Mrs. Arthur Lytton, a lady he
recognized as a ubiquitous member of the Country Club, was giving a few
intimate details of Miss Devon's life to her companion, who evidently
was a new-comer to the city.
"You see," Mrs. Lytton was murmuring, "this is really the most important
wedding we've ever had here. Barbara Devon owns most of Devondale, and
her home, Devon House, is one of the show places of the state. She
hasn't a living relative except her brother Laurie, and I fancy she has
been lonely, notwithstanding her hosts of friends. We all love her, so
we're glad to know she has found the right man to marry, especially as
we are not to lose her ourselves. She intends to live in Devon House
every summer."
The new-comer--a Mrs. Renway who had social aspirations--was politely
attentive.
"I met Laurence Devon at the Country Club yesterday," she said. "He's
the handsomest creature I've ever seen, I think. He's really _too_
good-looking; and they say there's some romantic story about him. Do you
know what it is?"
Her friend nodded.
"Mercy, yes! Every one does."
Observing the other's growing attention, she went on expansively:
"You see, Laurie was the black sheep of the family; so the Devons left
all their great fortune to Barbara and put Laurie in her care. That
infuriated him, of course, for he is a high-spirited youngster. He
promptly took on an extra shade of blackness. He was expelled from
college, and sowed whole crops of wild oats. He gambled, was always in
debt, and Barbara had to pay. For a long time she wasn't able to handle
the situation. They're both young, you know. She's about twenty-four,
and Laurie is a year younger. But last year she suddenly put her mind on
it and pulled him up in a rather spectacular way."
Mrs. Renway's eyes glittered with interest.
"Tell me how!" she begged.
The raconteur settled back into her pew, with the complacent expression
of one who is sure of her hearer's complete absorption in her words.
"Why," she said, "she made Laurie a sporting-proposition, and he
accepted it. He and she were to go to New York and earn their living for
one year, under assumed names and without revealing their identity to
anybody. They were to start with fifty dollars each, and to be wholly
dependent upon themselves after that was gone. Laurie was to give up
all his bad habits and buckle down to the job of self-support. For every
dollar he earned more than Barbara earned, she promised him five dollars
at the end of the year. And if he kept his pledges he was to have ten
thousand dollars when the experiment was over, whether he succeeded or
failed. He and Barbara were to live in different parts of the city, to
be ignorant of each other's addresses, and to see each other only
twice."
She stopped for breath. Her friend drove an urgent elbow into her side.
"Go on!" she pleaded. "What happened?"
"Something very unexpected," chuckled Mrs. Lytton. (For some reason,
Barbara's friends always chuckled at this point in the story.) "Barbara,
who is so clever," she went on, "almost starved to death. And Laurie,
the black sheep, after various struggles and failures fell in with some
theatrical people and finally collaborated with a successful playwright
in writing a play. Perhaps it was partly luck. But the play made a
tremendous hit, Laurie kept his pledges, and Barbara has had to pay him
a small fortune to meet her bargain!"
The hearer smiled sympathetically.
"That's splendid," she said, "for Laurie! But is the cure permanent, do
you think? The boy's so young, and so awfully good-looking--"
"I know," Mrs. Lytton looked ominous. "He is straight as a string so
far, and absorbed in his new work. But of course his future is on the
knees of the gods, for Barbara is going to Japan on her honeymoon, and
Laurie will be alone in New York the rest of the winter. Barbara found
her husband in New York," she added. "He's a broker there, Robert
Warren. That's what _she_ got out of the experiment! She met him while
she was working in the mailing-department of some business house, for
seven dollars a week--" Mrs. Lytton stopped speaking and craned her head
backward. "They're coming!" she whispered excitedly. "Oh, dear, I hope I
sha'n't cry! I always _do_ cry at weddings, and I _never_ know why."
From the crowd outside there rose a cheer, evidently at the bride's
appearance. The echoes of it accompanied her progress into the church.
"The mill people adore Barbara," whispered Mrs. Lytton. "She built a big
club-house for them two years ago, and she's the president of most of
their clubs."
In his seat behind her, Jimmy Harrigan, who had given his attention to
the conversation, sniffed contemptuously. If the dame in front was goin'
to talk about Miss Devon, why didn't she tell somethin' worth while? Why
didn't she tell, fer ins'ance, that Miss Devon played the best golf of
any woman in the club, and had beaten Mrs. Lytton to a frazzle in a
match last month? An' why didn't she say somethin' about how generous
Miss Devon was to caddies in the matter of skates and boxing-gloves and
clothes? And why didn't she say what a prince Laurie Devon was, instead
of all dat stale stuff what everybody knew?
But now Mrs. Lytton was exclaiming over the beauty of the bride, and
here Jimmy whole-heartedly agreed with her.
"How lovely she looks!" she breathed. "She's like Laurie, so stunning
she rather takes one's breath away! Oh, dear, I'm going to cry, I know I
am! And crying makes my nose actually purple!"
The excitement in the street had communicated itself to the dignified
assemblage in the church. The occupants of the pews were turning in
their seats. The first notes of the great pipe-organ rolled forth.
Friends who had known and loved Barbara Devon since she was a little
girl, and many who had known her father and mother before her, looked
now at the radiant figure she presented as she walked slowly up the
aisle on her brother's arm, and saw that figure through an unexpected
mist.
"What a pair!" whispered Mrs. Renway, who had a pagan love of beauty.
"They ought to be put in one of their own parks and kept there as a
permanent exhibit for the delight of the public. It's almost criminal
negligence to leave that young man at large," she darkly predicted.
"Something will happen if they do!"
Mrs. Lytton absently agreed.
"The bridegroom is very handsome, too," she murmured. "That stunning,
insolent creature who is acting as matron of honor, and looking bored to
death by it, is his sister, Mrs. Ordway, of New York. The first
bridesmaid is another New York friend, a Russian girl named Sonya
Orleneff, that Barbara met in some lodging-house. And _will_ you look at
the Infant Samuel!"
An expression of acute strain settled over the features of Mrs. Renway.
She hurriedly adjusted her eye-glasses.
"The _what?_" she whispered, excitedly. "Where? I don't see any infant!"
Mrs. Lytton laughed.
"Of course you don't! It's too small and too near the floor. It's a
thirty-months-old youngster Barbara picked up in a New York tenement.
She calls him the Infant Samuel, and she has brought him here with his
mother, to live on her estate. They say she intends to educate him. He's
carrying her train and he's dressed as a page, in tiny white satin
breeches and lace ruffles. Oh, _don't_ miss him!"
A little ripple stirred the assemblage. Three figures in the long
advancing line of the bridal party held the attention of observers. Two
were the bride and her brother. The third, stalking behind her, with her
train grasped in his tiny fists, his round brown eyes staring straight
ahead, and his fluffy brown hair flying out as if swept backward by an
eternal breeze, was obviously the Infant Samuel Mrs. Lytton had
mentioned.
From a rear pew the Infant's mother watched her offspring with pride and
shuddering apprehension. It was quite on the cards that he might
suddenly decide to leave the procession and undertake a brief side
excursion into the pews. But Samuel had been assured that he was "taking
a walk," and as taking a walk happened to be his favorite pastime he
kept manfully to this new form of diversion, even though it had features
that did not strongly appeal to him. His short legs wabbled, and his
tiny arms ached under the light weight of the bridal train, but
Something would happen if he let that train drop. He did not know quite
what this Something would be, but he abysmally inferred that it would be
extremely unpleasant. He held grimly to his burden.
Suddenly he forgot it. The air was full of wonderful sounds such as he
had never heard before. His eyes grew larger. His mouth formed the "O"
that expressed his deepest wonder. He longed to stop and find out where
the sounds came from, but the train drew him on and on. With an
unconscious sigh he accompanied the train; bad as things were, they
might have been worse, for he knew that somewhere in advance of him,
lost in a mass of white stuff, was the "Babs" he adored.
When the train stopped, he stopped. In response to an urgent suggestion
from some one behind him, he dropped it. In obedience to an equally
urgent inner prompting, he sat down on it and gazed around. The walk had
been rather a long one. Now the big house he was in was very still, save
for one voice, saying something to Babs. It was all strange and
unfamiliar, and Babs seemed far away. Nothing and nobody looked natural.
Samuel became increasingly doubtful about the pleasure of this walk. The
corners of his mouth went down.
A flower fell into his lap, and looking up he saw Sonya Orleneff smiling
at him. Even Sonya was a new Sonya, emerging from what Samuel dimly felt
to be pink clouds. But the eyes were hers, and the smile was hers, and
it was plain that she expected him to play with the pink flower. He
pulled it to pieces, slowly and absorbedly. The task took some time.
From it he passed to a close contemplation of a pink slippered foot
which also proved to be Sonya's, and then to a careful study of a black
pump and black silk sock that proved to be Lawwie's. Lawwie was smiling
down at Samuel, too, and Wobert was standing beside Babs, saying
something in a voice that wabbled.
Samuel sighed again. Perhaps by and by Lawwie would take him out for a
real walk in the snow. All this pink-and-white display around him might
be pretty, but there was nothing in it for a small boy. He gazed
appealingly at Sonya, who promptly hoisted him to his fat legs. The man
at the railing had stopped talking to Babs and the walk was resumed,
this time toward the door. Again that especially precious part of the
white stuff was in Samuel's keeping.
The sounds that now filled the air were more wonderful than ever. They
excited Samuel. His fat arms waved, and the light train waved with them.
A compelling hand, Sonya's, quieted them and it. There was absolutely
nothing a little boy could do in this queer walk. Gloomily but sedately
the Infant Samuel continued his promenade.
"Here he is," murmured Mrs. Lytton to her friend. "You can see him now,
can't you?"
Mrs. Renway gurgled happily. She could.
"Rodney Bangs, the playwright who collaborated with Laurie, is sitting
in the front pew," continued her informant, "and the fat little bald man
next to him is Jacob Epstein, the New York manager who put on their
play."
At the same moment Epstein was whispering to his companion, as the two
watched Barbara and her husband start down the aisle in the first little
journey of their married life.
"Say, Bangs, if ve could put this vedding into a play, just like they
done it here, ve could vake up Broadvay a little--ain't it?"
Bangs nodded, vaguely. His brown eyes were alternately on the bride and
on his chum and partner, her brother. He was conscious of an odd
depression, of an emotion, new and poignant, that made him understand
the tears of Barbara's women friends. Under the influence of this, he
spoke oracularly:
"Weddings are beastly depressing things. What the public wants to see is
something cheerful!"
Epstein nodded in his turn. His thoughts, too, were busy. Like many of
those around him, he was mentally reducing the spectacle he was watching
to terms that he could understand. A wedding conducted on this scale, he
estimated, probably represented a total cost of about ten thousand
dollars. But what was that to a bride with thirty or forty millions? It
was strange her family had left them all to her and none to the boy,
even if the boy had been a little wild. But the boy was all right now.
He'd make his own fortune if life and women and the devil would let him
alone. He had made a good start already. A few more successes like "The
Man Above" would make Epstein forget several failures he had already and
unwisely produced this season. If he could get Bangs and Devon to start
work at once, on another good play--
Epstein closed his eyes, lent his Jewish soul to the spell of the music,
and dreamed on, of Art and Dollars, of Dollars and Art.
A little later, in the automobile that whirled him and Epstein out to
the wedding-reception at Devon House, Rodney Bangs briefly developed the
wedding theme.
"I suppose the reason why women cry at weddings and men feel glum is
that they know what the bride's in for," he remarked, gloomily.
Epstein grunted. "You an' me is bachelors," he reminded the momentarily
cynical youth. "Ve should vorry!"
"What I'm worrying about is Laurie," Bangs admitted.
Epstein turned to him with awakened interest.
"Vell," he demanded, "what about Laurie? He's all right, ain't he?"
"His sister has always kept a collar and leash on Laurie," Bangs
reminded him, "and Laurie has needed them both. Now she's off for Japan
on a four-months' honeymoon. The leash and collar are off, too. It's
going to be mighty interesting and rather anxious business for us to
see what a chap like Laurie does with his new freedom. His nature hasn't
changed in a year, you see, though his circumstances have," he added,
slowly. "And all his promises to Barbara are off. His year of probation
is over."
Epstein grunted again. He was fond of saying that he loved Bangs and
Laurie as if they were the sons he had never had; but he was not given
to analysis of himself or others, and he had little patience with it.
His reply showed a tolerance unusual in him.
"Vell, ve keep an eye on him, don't ve?" he predicted.
Bangs frowned.
"We'll have to do it mighty carefully," he muttered. "If Devon catches
us at it, he won't leave us an eye to keep on anything!"
Epstein grunted again.
"Ve keep him busy," he suggested, eagerly. "Start him right avay on
another play. Eh? That's the idea!"
Bangs shook his head.
"That's it," he conceded. "But Laurie has decided that he won't work
again, just yet. He says he's tired and wants a few months' rest.
Besides, he thinks America will declare war before the winter's over.
He's going to volunteer as soon as it does, and he doesn't want any
loose ends dragging here, any half-finished plays, for example."
Epstein looked worried. This was serious news. Without allowing him time
to recover from it, Bangs administered a second jolt.
"And of course, in that case," he added simply, "I'd volunteer, too."
Under the double blow Epstein's head and shoulders went down. He knew in
that moment what even he himself had sometimes doubted, that his boasted
love for the boys was deep and sincere. Few fathers could have
experienced a more poignant combination of pride and pain than that
which shook him now. But he remained, as always, inarticulate.
"Oh, vell," he said vaguely, "I guess ve meet all that if it comes, eh?
Ve needn't go to it to-day."
At Devon House they found the congestion characteristic of
wedding-receptions. A certain line had been drawn at the church.
Seemingly no line at all had been drawn in the matter of guests at the
reception. All Barbara Devon's proteges were there, and they were many;
all the young folks in her clubs; all the old and new friends of her
crowded life. Each of the great and beautiful rooms on the main floor of
Devon House held a human frieze as a background for the throng of
new-comers that grew rather than lessened as the hours passed.
As Bangs and Epstein entered the main hall Laurie Devon saw them over
the heads of the crowd and hurried to meet them, throwing an arm across
the shoulder of each. He was in a mood both men loved and feared, a mood
of high and reckless exhilaration. He liked and approved of his new
brother-in-law. The memory of his own New York triumph was still fresh
enough to give him a thrill. He was devoted to his partners, and proud
of his association with them and their work. But most of all, and this
he himself would loyally have denied, deep in his heart he was exulting
fiercely over his coming freedom.
Laurie loved his sister, but he was weary of leading-strings. Henceforth
he could live his own life. It should be a life worth while, on that he
had decided, and it should continue free from the vices of gambling and
drinking, of which he was sure he had cured himself in the past year. He
had come into a full realization of the folly of these and of the glory
of the work one loves. He hadn't the least notion what he was going to
do with his independence, but a boundless delight filled him in the
prospect of it. Whatever life held he was convinced would be good.
Looking down from his slender height on the plump Epstein and the
stocky Bangs, he smiled into the sober face of each, and under the
influence of that smile their momentary solemnity fell from them like
dropped veils.
"Come and see Barbara," Laurie buoyantly suggested. "She wants to say
good-by to you, and to tell you how to tuck me into my crib every night.
She's going to slip away pretty soon, you know. Bob and I have got her
off in an alcove to get a few minutes' rest."
He led them to this haven, of which only fifty or sixty other guests
seemed aware, for the room was but comfortably filled. They found
Barbara sitting in a high-backed Spanish chair, against which, in her
bridal array and her extraordinary beauty, she made a picture that
unaccountably deepened the new depression in Rodney's soul. On her train
by the side of the chair, the Infant Samuel slumbered in peace, like an
exhausted puppy.
Warren, hovering near his wife, shook hands with the new-comers and
responded to their congratulations. Then, slipping his arm through
Laurie's, he drew him across the room to where his sister, Mrs. Ordway,
was languidly talking to several of the bride's old friends. He knew
that Barbara wanted a final and serious word with her brother's
partners. Laurie knew it, too, and winked at the pair like an impish
child as he permitted himself to be led away.
Young Mrs. Warren, whose title was still so new that she looked startled
when they addressed her by it, greeted them warmly and indicated the
sleeping Samuel with an apologetic smile.
"His mother is lost somewhere in the crowd," she explained. "He has had
two glasses of milk, four fat cakes, and three plates of ice-cream; and
he's either asleep or unconscious, I'm not sure which." Her manner
sobered. "I'm so glad to have a moment with you two," she said gently.
"You know what I want to talk about."
"We can guess it." Bangs smiled at her with the odd wistfulness his
smile always took on when he spoke to Barbara. To Bangs, Barbara had
become a temple at whose portal he removed his earth-stained shoes. "You
want us to look after Laurie," he added, quietly. "Well, you bet we're
going to do it."
She smiled again, this time the rare smile that warmed her face like a
light from within.
"Then I shall go away happy," she told them. "And there's nothing more
to be said; for of course you both understand that I don't distrust
Laurie. How could I, after he has been so wonderful all this year? It's
only--" she hesitated--"I suppose it's life I'm afraid of," she
confessed. "I never used to be. But--well, I learned in New York how
helpless we are, sometimes."
Rodney's nod was understanding.
"I know," he robustly agreed. "But it's going to be absolutely all
right. Be sure of that."
Epstein added his well-meaning but none too happily chosen bit.
"Laurie can't get into no scrape ve can't get him out of," he earnestly
assured Laurie's sister.
Barbara laughed. A circle of new-comers was forming around them.
"We'll let it go at that," she said, and extended a hand to each man.
"Good-by. I won't try to thank you. But--God bless you both!"
Under the influence of this final benediction, Epstein waddled over to
the corner where Warren, very pale, and Louise Ordway, very much bored,
stood surrounded by a group that included Sonya Orleneff. Firmly
detaching the bridegroom from this congenial assemblage, Epstein led him
to one side.
"Varren," he said solemnly, "I got to congratulate you all over again.
You got von voman in a million--No, you got von voman in eighty
million!"
Warren laughed, rather shakily. Over the heads of the crowd his eyes
caught his wife's and held them for an instant.
"Make it a million million," he suggested joyously, and led Epstein to
the supper room.
Laurie was there with Bangs and a group of friends, who, having
patronized young Devon a year ago, were endeavoring to wipe out the
memory of this indiscretion by an excess of friendly attention. Laurie's
brilliant eyes, filled with the excited glitter they had taken on
to-night, saw through the attempt and the situation. Both amused him. In
his clubs, or anywhere but here, he might have indulged himself to the
extent of having a little fun with these people. But not in his own
home, while he was acting as host at his sister's wedding. Here his
manner was perfect, though colored by the exhilaration of his mood.
"No," Warren and Epstein heard him say to Mrs. Lytton and Mrs. Renway,
"there's nothing I'd like better than to come, thank you. But I'm going
back to New York to-morrow. You see," he added, "this business of
marrying off a sister, and attending to all the details and seeing that
she conducts herself properly as long as she's in my care, is a bit of a
strain. I've got to get back to town and recuperate."
"I suppose you will rest your mind by writing another play?" gushed Mrs.
Renway.
Laurie shook his black head.
"Not a bit of it!" he asserted. "Don't even suggest such a thing before
Epstein, there. It sounds abhorrently like work."
Mrs. Renway's curiosity had a brief and losing struggle with her good
breeding.
"Then what _are_ you going to do?" she demanded coquettishly.
The young man pondered, as if considering the question for the first
time.
"Well," he said at last, "between you and me, I'm going in for
adventure. I intend to devote the next four months to discovering how
much excitement a worthy youth can crowd into his life if he makes a
business of going after the gay bird of adventure, and finding it, and
putting salt on its tail!"
The puzzled countenance of Mrs. Renway cleared.
"Oh, I see," she said brightly, "you're joking."
Laurie smiled and turned to greet a late guest who had come up behind
him. In the little group that had overheard him, three pairs of eyes met
in startled glances.
"Humph!" said Warren. "Hear that?"
"Nice prospect for us!" muttered Rodney Bangs.
Jacob Epstein looked harassed. A little later he joined the throng in
the main hall, and watched the showers of rice fall harmlessly from the
polished sides of Barbara's limousine as the bride and groom were
whirled away from the brilliant entrance of Devon House.
"She's gone," he said to Bangs as the two men turned and reentered the
still crowded yet suddenly empty house. And he added solemnly, "Believe
me, Bangs, on that job she left us you an' me 've got our hands full!"