"I can't see why he doesn't pay you regularly," ventured Edith.

"Oh, it's the way they do things. The acts don't always pay

regularly. It's show business." He emphasized the last words by a

sneer and Edith glanced at him with a sudden, swift hope.

"Blake," she said, "I have a letter from your mother. Wouldn't you

like to go back home for a short visit and look around? Perhaps you

would like it so much better now." In her eagerness, she was leaning

over and looking wistfully into his eyes.

He withdrew them. "No!" he said.

"It wouldn't be giving up. It would be just a visit."

"No."

But they were talking now, they were discussing their common life,

and even negation was more cheerful than a return to silence.

"You know I'm not so well, Blake," she went on gently. "It's my

heart."

He could not help a pale smile behind the paper. He looked to see

whether she, too, had noticed. But no, she was entirely unaware,

entirely serious, as she continued, "Having the child has strained my

heart, the doctor says."

Now he looked her straight in the eye. "Whose fault was that?" his

eyes challenged her, and, flushing, she would not lower hers and

answered them with pride.

"Well?" he said.

"The rest would do me good."

He rustled a sheet of his paper while she waited. She had some

moments to imagine the elation with which she would return home, the

relief at having removed him, at least for a while, from this

environment which had so changed him, so that his next words struck

her with twice the force of surprise.

"Well, why don't you go, then?" he said quietly. "I guess I can

raise the fare, if that worries you."

She was speechless. She stared at him, searching his immobility with

a last intense and useless effort, like a searchlight attempting to

probe a stone wall. Every line of his face was obvious to her; she

saw the tight-shut lips, the pale brows drawn together, the cheeks

too thin for their squareness, and a light lock of hair falling over

the temples, and that was all. For a second his neutrality had

vanished; a rift had appeared in the wall, offering a glimpse of what

lay behind it, and had closed in that second, too swiftly for her to

see. Why had she not been alert? Now, search as she would, scan

every detail of his expression, no trace remained of where the rift

lay, much less of why it lay there, if it did. She rose at last. At

the door she paused, trying to get less than an idea, merely a hint

of some idea.

"Would it relieve you," she asked, "if I went home for a time?"

"What do you think?"

She went into the kitchen and set about making fresh coffee with many

small busy movements, so as not to think at present. When she looked

into the room again the light had been put out and she could not see

his face where he lay on the couch. But she thought that he slept.

CHAPTER SIX

Not till the plant has forged through the ground can we see that the

seed was fertile and events ripe for its blossoming. Thus, too, our

lives are made up of accidents, chance seeds of the residue Nature

provides against barrenness, blown by the wind of every-day, taking

no root in our existence; and of coincidences which are accidents

that find the soil receptive and come to fruition. Without specific

design on Blake's part, the conjunction of a certain mood of his and

certain words of Edith's had caused to happen that which he and Grace

had so much desired. Edith had withdrawn voluntarily. She went home

on what she thought was a long visit. Blake had merely now to keep

her there, which was simpler.

The sunshine of the noons to which Blake opened his eyes that summer

stroked his lids with a special zest. He had divested himself of the

apartment in Brooklyn and gone to live with Jerry. From the first

moment of waking he felt the hum of the street outside, a midtown

Manhattan street that repeated like a second, fainter chorus the

shining song of Fifth Avenue, mingled with the troubled, grimier

notes of Sixth, where men stood with eyes glued to employment lists,

where the El roared and small shops jostled each other and clamored.

Blake's bed was soft and wide. It was part of the bedroom suite

brought from St. Louis via Brooklyn, and in the midst of the dark

blue hush of a semi-sacred parlor set which Edith had once chosen

with such care, Jerry sprawled, his clothes neatly folded and himself

sunk in a red, torpid slumber.

Their place and the house itself had the quietude of sleep, in spite

of the sunshine, the sound of wheels sizzling up the black, hot

street, the hoots of cars and a light zigzag of some work far off

that rose, that ebbed, that never ceased. Negro maids were treading

the carpeted stairs, clicking keys in doors closed upon a similar

silence, and outside the black porter applied luster to the banisters

with a languid hand.

When the telephone buzzed Blake dragged it into bed with him by its

cord and spoke sleepily to Grace. "Hello," he said, and "Yes," he

said with a yawn, "I'm just getting up." A more distinct effort of

gallantry greeted the next call. Nearly every day this female voice,

which had phoned to ask about one of his vaudeville playlets,

continued to pursue him with semi-mysterious and flattering banter.

"Who'z'at?" called Jerry drowsily from the living room. He made his

entrance, rumpled, opening and shutting gelid lids to the motes of

sunshine, as if in a sort of exercise, and in his brief glimpses

expressing disapproval of the tossed state of the room. In contrast

with his genial disposition and life of easy concurrence, Jerry was a

stickler for the tidiness of material objects. He picked up things;

he straightened things; ashes on the carpet turned his face wry as

much as a false note or a piano out of tune. "Who'z'at?" he said,

and sitting down on the bed, "I got to cut this out."

"No one for you. You want to train your lady friends not to call you

at 3 A.M. There was some girl ringing this phone every half hour

from three to five."

"Same girl? Mm. Musta been Madalynne. You got yours trained,

haven't you?" said Jerry sadly.

In leisurely fashion, Blake's day unwound ahead of him. He walked up

his street which pleased him with its width, the houses having long

ago been built back so that they, too, seemed to have leisure. On

Sixth Avenue he passed the groups of men who stood before the

employment bulletins, their hands hanging loose, their mouths dully

open, peering at each letter and still irresolute whether to enter or

leave, as if they knew that, no matter which action they chose, it

would come to the same thing in the end. The air, brilliant with

heat, picked out each spot of wear, each harsh line, awkward bones,

and coarse hands, weaving in and out and about the groups in a nimble

grotesquerie of light and more light and in final, swift rays not

ignoring the stocky ankles of women, the cheap glazed fibers of a

stocking, a smudge of a face, dingy, blemished, under the inquiring

eye of the sun. Blake moved around them. Turning the corner, he

went by the Friars' Club. Here was another knot of men loath to

leave the sunshine that stroked their sleek shoulders and polished

boots and tinged full cheeks and fleshy cheeks. Blake sent a cool

glance through this group. He knew some of the men by sight.

When he reached the restaurant on Broadway he opened his mail and

lost some of his tranquillity. He had a letter from his wife, three

pages of small, even words, upon which a few bulbs, burning high in

the chandelier even at noon, cast a weird, too-naked light. It was

as if this room could not exist without some promise of the

glittering night. Its chandeliers were gilded and its walls were

adorned wherever possible with the same grimy gilt. The raucous

blonde hair of his waitress remonstrated harshly with long, dusty

rays of sunlight creeping in--and so did her gold teeth.

He wished to tear the letter up but there was no place to throw the

pieces, so with a frown he restored it to his pocket. He had formed

the habit of sending his wife money with merely a line of enclosure,

but her small, even words continued to groove a path to reach him,

each word wearing as a drop of water, each containing a minute part

of the energy of its sender, and each to be evaded by the intangible

negation of its recipient.

Afterward Blake went to the theater where his show was to be

rehearsed. At the press agent's suggestion they had sent out a call

for chorus girls with long hair. Blake found a few reporters; Jerry,

with his coat off, haranguing the orchestra which he was to conduct;

and the bare lines of the stage, its bare steps, even its bare floor,

hidden by the soft bodies, the pale arms, long legs, the bright

clothes of girls. Most of them had taken off their hats, and a few

had even loosened their hair, spreading triumphant, delicate fans of

gold and auburn, of dusk and chestnut about them.

The press agent was counting the long-haired ones. He returned in

disgust.

"This is Mother's Day in the Old Ladies' Home," he said. "Not a

long-haired dame under forty, I swear."

"There's a little blonde over there," suggested a reporter.

"Yeh--go look at her close and you'll find she has a grandchild. If

you can pick anything out of this lot----"

The producer lowered himself into a front-row seat, resting a short

arm on either side and his jowls on his chest. The director, on the

other hand, was a tiny, gnarled person who wiped the back of his neck

with a bandanna and cursed legs and girls. The theater was choked

with heat. The girls said, "Whew!" and waved bits of handkerchiefs

and rubbed and powdered their noses without respite.

"Now, you girls stand up and come to the center of the stage. No.

_Not_ all at once. Say, you Bill, you get them into line. A dozen

at a time, Bill. Goddamn this heat. Goddamn everything above two

inches."

Some of the girls thought fit to smile. Others held grave faces and

looked loftily up to the dome of the theater. Others drew themselves

up in the line, took a dancing pose, gyrated slowly round like

models. And each dozen, clad in varying plumage--in summer silk that

clung to hips and breasts, in organdy with great, crisp hats, in

practice bloomers that exposed pink flesh, dimples, the slim bones of

ankles in businesslike nakedness, leaving the girls as pathetically

unhidden as long, plucked fowls--each dozen moved with sealed faces,

with indifferent faces, with open giggles before the lidded eyes of

the producer and the sneering inspection of the director, before

Blake to whom they all looked flawed for his show, who was

disappointed in all of them, before Jerry who was touched by each

pretty face, before the reporters who were pleased to be in the

presence of so many chorus girls.

"Here, you with the Dutch cut--no, _not_ you--that girl there." A

girl seemed startled, said, "Me?" and stepped to one side. "You with

the blue bloomers. Yeh. That one. And that one. Step back you

with the hair and let me see the others. Yes, I mean you. Goddamn

it, dear, _will_ you step back?"

The producer whispered to the director.

"That little girl with the curls, didn't I see you around the Savoy

in London?"

The others cast sharp looks from her to the men. "Why, I've been to

England," said the girl haughtily.

Someone snickered.

"Just stop that noise, now, just stop that noise," shouted the

director. "Whaddye think this is, a tea party? You girls, what are

you waiting for? If your names haven't been taken, go on home. Go

on. Get them out, Bill."

A girl called, "You haven't even looked at us."

"Oh, I haven't looked at you, haven't I? All right, step forward,

I'll look at you now."

She stepped forward hardily, pirouetted, kicked out and would have

continued.

"That's all right," snapped the director. "You don't have to go into

your dance for us. We know you're a Pavlowa. But I'll say that for

you, dear," he added, "you're worth looking at. Take her name, Bill.

Any others we haven't looked at? Come on. Step forward or go home."

Those who had not been chosen lingered about the stage. The youth

named Bill, his collar open at the throat, a pad in his hand,

dispersed group after group into receding fragments, only to have

them congeal again, murmuring, with eyes on the men who had not yet

gone, opposing to his hoarse shouts the massed immobility of their

hope. Drive them as he would, they moved forward, they moved back,

unheeding, passive, according to some pattern of their own instinct.

"Only two in the bunch with long hair," said the press agent to the

reporters. "That's a hot one for you."

"These babies look all right, but can they sing and dance? That's

what I'd like to know," said the director. "Bill, tell 'em to come

here same time to-morrow. Hey, you, all of you whose names we got,

same time to-morrow. And no use any of you others coming--hear

me?--no use!"

He added pessimistically, "Better send out a call for another batch."

When Blake turned the corner of his street again the retreating sun

had strewn the sky with minute pink clouds, crisping one within the

other like rose petals across one side of heaven. Lucent the air lay

over the brownstone houses and bright summer awnings of tea rooms and

over the bodies of limousines before the smooth shop windows. And in

his house, where the windows were open, the light swam over Grace's

pure skin as in another ether, in tiny bounding motes of light and

shade. There was a mote on her nose and one that fled along her

cheek and he kissed these, searching them out to the reward of her

deep amusement. They made a circuit of the room in an embrace

exaggerated so as not to come within the terms of sentimentality, an

improbable embrace, a travesty on embraces, which yet could not

conceal the force and persistence of their arms about each other,

their utter absorption in each other, as, like great actors immersed

in their parts, they set up a dais for themselves and swept below,

aside, the audience of Jerry and his exuberant Madalynne.

Madalynne was a girl with a superfluity of everything--of flesh, of

hair, of clothes, of complexion, of voice, and of the love which she

lavished on Jerry. Even her name was over-spelt. With Grace she had

felt it necessary to adopt a superfluity of dignity, matching, she

thought, Grace's own, but in the presence of this embrace she felt

that the barriers had been let down. She cast herself on Jerry's

bosom, exuding baby talk at every pore.

Grace and Blake laughed into each other's eyes with a mute laughter,

with a derisive understanding. "The perfect hot momma," murmured

Grace, and aloud, taking pity on Jerry, she said to him, "Does

Blake's mysterious lady still call every day?"

"Does he tell you that?" said Jerry. He freed himself by a number of

shakes and pats, good-natured and indifferent, much as one does with

an over-fond dog. "I'll never understand you two."

"And you stand for it?" demanded Madalynne. "My God! How can you

bear it?" she cried. "Why, if such a thing happened with Jerry I'd

never rest till I settled it. And Blake, how can you act that way to

your girl friend? Shame on you! Jerry wouldn't do that to Momma,

would'ums? Yum-yum."

Grace quickly put her hand up to her mouth. "I want him to ask her

to the opening," she said.

"So you can meet her and judge what you're up against?"

Blake could not hide a certain gratification and Grace said to him,

"I can meet her without you. Dee knows a woman who knows her."

"I knew I shouldn't have told you her name."

"Always keep your girls separate," declared Jerry solemnly. "Take it

from me----"

"What! What girls are you keeping separate, Jerry Barker?"

"Not a one, hon. Honest-to-God, dear. I'm just advising Blake.

You're the only girl for me."

"That's what you say. But I'd like to know about this. How come you

know so much about keeping girls separate? I tell you I won't stand

for any of that. I don't like the idea of girls being free to chase

in and out of this place--I don't mean you, Grace. You tell Momma,

Jerry, you 'fess up, you naughty boy, what've you been up to?"

"I swear to you, hon, I've had enough of--I mean--I've got you and

that's enough for me."

"Jerry lov'ums his momma?"

"Absolutely, hon."

Outside, Grace remarked, "Does she really think Jerry'll marry her?

She told me he promised her a diamond ring if the show went over."

"She can think what she likes," said Blake. "So he promised her a

diamond ring?" He smiled sardonically. "The more fool he. He's got

his hands full."

Grace sent him a strange, fleeting look. How men did resent a woman

who concluded that the most heart-easing satisfaction she was likely

to obtain from a man was money or its equivalent! Was it because she

was a proof, which even they could not overlook, of the insufficiency

of their own irresistible charms?

However, she kept quiet.

CHAPTER SEVEN

On the night Blake's play opened, as she entered the theater, the

first person Anita saw was Grace. She stood at the head of the

center aisle, within a little group of which she was acting as heart

and core. To her throat, held aloof, as if beyond the reach of

glances from the inflowing and anonymous crowd and almost beyond the

reach of friendly nods, she was folded in a shawl of ivory silk. And

her very soul had sheathed itself in silken hauteur, as she stood

with eyes that wandered deeply over the lighted theater and the faces

agog for pleasure, over silken shoulders and bare shoulders and

shoulders black and gray jostling down the aisles and across the

aisles toward pleasure. Now and then she murmured some preoccupied

reply, not deigning to lower her eyes, to one of the group

surrounding her.

Now and then she emerged from this group, swooped from her height

with a sudden nod to an entering person, a greeting of unexpected

cordiality, a fastening of her eyes upon him.

As Anita was about to approach she issued entirely from her circle

and, with no move of seizure, with her arms close under the ivory

shawl, she seemed to assume possession of a man just passing by, to

spiritually clutch his coat-tails and bring him to a halt.

"I'm so glad--you could come, Maurice," she said with her significant

pauses.

To the girl who had loosed his arm and moved ahead of him she gave no

attention at the moment. However, without waiting for notice, this

girl carelessly turned her face. It was fair as a spring morning.

She drawled to Grace, "H'are yuh? Gettin' along?"

And she added with a derisive sweep of her hands up from her nose, "I

see yuh're comin' up in the world--yup-in-the-world," and swayed down

the aisle.

Imperceptibly, the group drew near Grace again and imperceptibly drew

nearer, as if there was that in her shadow which separated them from

the anonymous inflow. They kept close under her wing--Letty and

Harold, the Lindens, who were friends of theirs, and some persons

Anita did not know--staring about over the theater, mantled by her

importance, individualizing themselves again as the friends of the

author.

Anita attracted a vague "hello" from Grace. In spite of motions from

Letty, she went on to her seat. She had not wished to come, but

Grace seemed to find her lack of excitement annoying and she did not

like to offend Grace. The latter had been so kind about getting her

her job. She was alone. She had never been to an opening night and

watched with solitary interest a hocus-pocus of ceremonial new to her.

In the first rows, among which she sat, everyone seemed to perform

the ritual of knowing one another. As soon as a person reached a

seat, he or she would search the surrounding faces for signs of

recognition and attempt to form alliance with some portion of the

scattered inner circle who were making this opening their festive and

intimate occasion. All the other undifferentiated faces, tiers and

tiers, on the balcony, up and down the rows, pressed heavily forward;

a shower of undifferentiated chatter and laughter splashed the

theater like a shower of bright raindrops. One mustn't let oneself

be swamped by these other faces. And every nod, every acknowledging

glance, every knowing remark was a slight thread to grasp with which

to outline the boundary between those within and the other

undistinguished mass without. It was as if the more nods, the more

smiles they collected, the more exchanges of specialized gossip, the

more assurance they gained that this boundary was defined. It was as

if each nod, each smile, each familiar greeting slowly brought their

individualities into shape from formlessness, like chemicals etching

on seemingly blank paper inch by inch the outlines of a secret

script. It was as if, in the widening scope of these nods, these

smiles, these familiar greetings, they could see their

individualities expand and gauge their bulk, as one may gauge the

bulk of a stone by the widening ripples in the water.

In the anticipant hush after the first lights had been dimmed Grace

advanced down the aisle. Blake would not sit with her. Sleek in

evening clothes, he spoke quietly and did his best to suppress

excitement or suspense. But his voice gave him away. He was quite

hoarse. Grace was saying, "Considering that it's a musical show and

there are two other openings, what can you expect? The critics would

naturally choose Toreador. Maurice Lensky came anyway--that's

something. And I saw Edmond Edmonds, too. Really--if you get two of

the second-string critics, that's doing very well, with two--more

imposing--shows opening the same night."

Blake frowned and moved away. Her eyes looked after him in some

surprise, while a smile rose to her lips, and seeing Anita near her

she whispered, "He hates me to say any show is more important. I

never dreamed he would take this--so seriously." She passed, smiling

to herself, and was followed by Diana Porter Reece with her husband

and a man who, Anita noticed gratefully, also wore his every-day

clothes.

"You go sit by Anita," said Diana Reece.

Somebody shushed her. The last lights went out and left this man,

whose red hair was plastered every which way on his neck and

forehead, fumbling at his seat. He grinned at Anita. The curtain

rose.

Soon after the play had started a whisper fluttered along the row

from Grace through Diana Reece and reached Anita. She saw a man

proceeding down the aisle, followed by a blonde woman who dragged

tennis rackets. The man took his seat first, then drew himself away

so that he hung over the aisle, in order to let the woman pass. He

continued to sit in this fashion. It was a colyumnist with his wife.

From time to time Grace craned her neck to see whether he smiled or

applauded.

The play was a neat little play, neither as lavish as most musical

comedies nor quite as vapid. Blake had permitted himself the boast

that there was not one scene in which the hero dreamed of chorus

girls portraying anything, whether the Spirits of Bituminous Coal or

the Fashions of Yesteryear. His boast was justified. The curtain

fell on the mild glow of a neat little melody, "Your Kisses Are

Blisses." The audience hummed it and the orchestra plugged away at

it. All the people who knew each other rose and hurried to the

lobby. "Come along," said Diana Reece kindly. So Anita came along,

too.

The confusion of the lobby under yellow lights gradually resolved

itself into groups of people, smiling, nodding, exchanging

specialized gossip, asking each other how they liked the show and

answering with an aplomb that would mark them for the initiate.

"Well, what do you think of it?" "Not so hot, huh?" "Think it'll go?"

"Why not?" "Got one good song." "And one set. It won't take 'em long

to work off the nut, anyhow." "Good chorus. Not a bad idea, a

specialty chorus."

"Well, how do you like it?" said Grace, coming up with warm cheeks of

excitement and enormous eyes. "I don't know where Blake has

disappeared. Everybody wants to see him."

"It's swell so far," declared Diana Reece. The bronze flesh of her

shoulders shone above a blazing wrap.

Her husband added in his heavy, slow voice, "That's a good tune."

"'Your Kisses Are Blisses.' Yes. I think--that should be a hit."

The third man kept a solemn silence. Anita thought that he looked

like the Irishmen in the comic strips, square with a wide, almost

lipless mouth, a stubby nose and, yes, freckles. He had, moreover,

their very expression, subtly naughty and unblinkingly solemn. Grace

was looking at him, too, with a coy lift of her brows that Anita

understood meant she was aware of him.

"How did you like it, Dennis?" she asked.

"O.K.," said Dennis through his nose.

Diana's laughter rippled broadly. "That's all you'll ever get out of

him. Look, Grace," she said. "There's your mysterious telephone

lady. There's Renie Harrington, large as life and just as permanent,

if you can figure out what I mean."

They all saw Blake approaching with a little golden-haired woman, all

in white, lavishing animated hands, animated eyes, and an animated,

pointed face entirely on him, while his own countenance showed, in

spite of itself, a pale tinge of pleasure.

"Try dynamite," advised Diana. "That may dislodge her, but, mind

you, I make no promises."

Grace moved toward them at once, wrapped in her ivory shawl, cool.

"I've been out--gathering opinions," she said to Blake. "Everyone is

crazy about that song."

The other woman paused and, in several glances, they considered each

other. She made a slight retreat. "I've just been telling Mr.

Andrews how _charming_ my husband and I think it is. And we really

do know quite a bit about the theater, in spite of being amateurs.

Even Mr. Andrews has heard of our little theater." Eyes, hands,

lips, and the pointed chin all assisted in a crescendo of admiration,

now discreetly including Grace.

Blake had no choice but to introduce them, so that they could measure

each other in full politeness, reconnoitering with their eyes, with

soft words, along each other's soft, self-contained faces for the

exact situation. "You must all really come and see _our_ little

theater," said Mrs. Harrington. "At the Peck Settlement."

And, "Are you--coming to Blake's party after the show?" said Grace.

"If Mr. Andrews asks us," said Mrs. Harrington coquettishly. So

Blake, glancing at Grace with a rueful amusement, asked her. The

bell tinkled.

Again the curtain rose. This time the colyumnist's seat was empty,

causing Grace's face to fall and whispers to circulate between her

and Diana Reece. Only Anita and the red-haired chap remained

unaffected by this discovery. Soberly, they watched the stage upon

which creatures dazzling in light made no secret of a business-like

exhibition of wares. Neither said a word. Each applauded

conscientiously at the proper moments. At one such moment, as they

caught each other's eye, Dennis became almost articulate. Pressing

one half of his mouth over the other in a slow grin, like a small boy

closing his lips over stolen jam, he winked. It was an expression

that could not be answered by a smile; it engendered a similar grin.

Anita began to laugh, feeling with surprise that she was happy for no

reason.

The second closing chorus seemed brighter and the finale poured forth

in an urgent volume of vari-colored melody, light, and noise, rising

as high as it could or dared on the highest of high notes. The

orchestra played, "Your Kisses Are Blisses." The audience rose

humming, "Your Kisses Are Blisses." And out in the lobby they were

selling it: "Get the music of the show--'Your Kisses Are Blisses.'"

The crowd moved slowly, unsnarled itself from the tangles at the

exits, out into the summer air which no blatancy of electric lights

could harden or speed. Anita had meant to slip away, but she was

caught tight in a group formed by Grace, who cast her eyes

everywhere, and by other people who were going to the party. Grace's

eyes were somewhat shadowed. Turning to Anita, who stood nearest,

she seized her arm and made a more eager effort to get out. "I'd

better go home," murmured Anita, and Grace looked at her in

amazement. "You won't come to the party? You're silly! You must

come with me. I don't know what's happened to Blake." She was no

longer remote. The outline of her face, always quick to reflect

inner commotion, had hardened. It had a sudden tragic emphasis as

her eyes widened, grew deep and obscure with whatever momentarily

troubled thoughts engaged her. What these could be Anita did not

understand, but she was caught up and swept along.

They found Blake already at his apartment, playing host to the

Harringtons and to some individuals who were devoted exclusively to

the cocktails. Blake strewed cheer like beams of sunshine about him.

He poured drinks for people, hastening here and there almost on the

balls of his feet, and patting Anita's arm, to her great surprise.

Grace seemed almost as surprised, seemed at a loss. With her

all-encompassing gaze, with a serene demeanour in which lurked a hint

of challenge, lovely in chiffon whose rose-hued pallor was

differentiated only by a shade from the glowing pallor of her skin,

she moved about under the watching eyes of Renie Harrington, defining

her place as hostess. Renie Harrington's dashing eyes rested on her

from time to time, sensing, retreating, adjusting. Grace went to sit

by her. They engaged in animated conversation. Anita, passing by,

heard Grace suggest, "Let's--have a lunch date sometime, shall we?"

Shortly, the entrance of the rest of the party was heralded by Diana

Reece. She had thrown off her flaming shawl. She burst upon them

from the doorway in sequins that shimmered and dazzled and glittered

sinuously with each step, in bracelets that clinked, in a bar pin

whose diamond sparkle went clear across the room and stabbed the eyes

of a youth between cocktails and reality. He had had a deal to

drink, and, blinking in this brilliance composed of scintillas that

flashed before his eyes unseizably in his condition, bewildered by

the rays of diamonds, the shine of golden bracelets, the fleshly

luxuriance of rich dark skin and a red mouth, he had one of the

sudden inspirations of the inebriate. He stalked across the room to

Dee and took her hand and faced the company.

"Produced by Morris Gest," he said with due solemnity. And retired

amid the ensuing plaudits and seemed to vanish and was heard of no

more that night.

For a time, Anita and Dennis managed to sit very cheerfully together

by a window open into warm and misty air. They attracted no

attention. They said almost nothing, unless a series of grins and

answering grins could be considered talk. She did not even know his

name. There was between them the curious unrestraint of strangers

meeting with no background but that of the particular time and the

particular space, and sure to part there. But when Anita saw Grace

stare at them with an amused and dawning comprehension in the depths

of her eyes, saw Grace advance toward them, like a mutual friend

breaking in upon the unbounded sympathy of strangers, enclosing it at

once within the restrictions of the social order, she felt a qualm of

uneasiness and wished to retreat. Dennis, however, had now managed

to drink enough to simulate articulateness. He grasped her hand in

alarm, pulling her back. "Ah, no! Don't go!"

Grace took a seat and surveyed them with a slight, surprised smile,

with an approving intimacy.

"What do you find to say to each other?" she demanded.

Taken unawares, they raised their eyes and looked at each other with

another grin. Grace stared at Dennis, then back to Anita more fully,

revolving almost distinctly, on the surface of her eyes, a new

appraisal of Anita's possibilities.

"Why aren't you dancing?" she suggested. They hadn't thought of it.

"Dennis is a very good dancer," said Grace. She probed Anita's face,

seeming to hint for some response to what she was arranging, which

was not clear to Anita. "You ought to see him on a real dance

floor." She added with many pauses and the advance and inflation of

her eyes, "Why don't we--have a dancing date sometime? Dennis and

you and Blake and I and Dee and one of her young men?"

"O.K.," said Dennis agreeably.

"Next week--maybe?"

"O.K.," said Dennis. "Any time you say."

"Well--I'll make the arrangements--and call you," she added, and

glanced at Anita for gratitude. But Anita was flushing. It seemed

to her that the shameless mechanism of Grace's plans must be as

apparent to Dennis as it was to her. Grace had acted in all

friendliness and she would look forward to the date--and yet some of

the easiness had vanished. Her face, when she looked at Dennis

thereafter, must wear a certain constraint.

It was a good party. Two policemen, called by some unaccountable

neighboring spinsters in the small hours, saw at once that no one was

less than conventionally clothed and no one more than conventionally

drunk. They agreed in righteous indignation at the insomnia of

spinsters. They said, "Why this is a nice party!" They were

welcomed into it. A girl borrowed one officer's cap and club and did

a dance, while they watched indulgently from the doorway. They were

offered a drink and did not refuse. Blake, at the peak of goodwill

toward all the world, pressed passes to his show upon them. Everyone

was grateful for the seal of true abandon which they had set on the

party. Everyone would be glad to tell of having been to a party

which had brought police intervention. On leaving, everyone said

with satisfaction, "A swell party!"

Grace was going home with Harold and Letty. She made a definite

ceremony of departure for the benefit of Renie Harrington who,

bolstered by her husband, sat on and glanced and sensed, an acute

reminder of the exigencies of social usage. Renie Harrington's

artful eyes silkily subverted the position of hostess which Grace had

taken such care to indicate.

"We'll--see each other again--soon, won't we?" said Grace.

"Oh, are you going?" said Renie Harrington. And her eyes rubbed in

the fact that, after all, Grace had to go. Ah, those leave-takings

so often, at the end, forcing her outside!

She drew Anita apart to say good-bye.

"Is Dennis taking you home?" she inquired.

He was.

"Anita," said Grace wistfully, "he's awfully nice. We could all have

such a lot of fun together if we had a place."

Her eyes were still, so still, with a velvet pathos. She looked

weary and lines of strain had lengthened her cheeks above the ivory

shawl. She pressed Anita's hand with a sudden clutching warmth, and

had to go.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Grace's lunch date with Renie Harrington had to be postponed, for

Renie explained that she seldom came to town during the summer. As

soon as Grace heard of her return, therefore, she called up.

She was surprised to find herself haled to tea. Perhaps Renie had

discovered that, socially, it was not so possible to remain unaware

of Grace in connection with Blake. This was what Grace minded--not

so much that Blake had been loath to reveal her existence to Renie

Harrington, but that Renie could invite him to her country home for

dinner--alone--and for week-ends--alone. Of course, Grace knew that

she also could move in circles apart from Blake, but she didn't

_want_ to; it gave her a sense of stability to have the pair of them

recognized as a social unit.

Renie Harrington lived on the less fashionable west side of the park.

In a living room lined with books and charming trinkets, and arranged

to express wealth with unusual lack of ostentation, Grace learned

that her hostess spoke French and Spanish, that she knew about

"incunabula," whatever they were, that she collected first editions,

went to auction sales, had an acquaintance by no means naïve and

worshipful, yet a bit wistful, with practitioners of the arts, and

that she and her husband were wrapped up in the theater at the

settlement house. Dick trained the members in acrobatic dancing and

Renie helped him to choose and stage the shows. Yet she was not a

"yearner," Grace thought. She was no fool and very amusing. Her

hair cast a golden shadow over the sharpness of her chin and the

suggestion of lines about her cherubic lips, it sent a gleam like

that of a sunbeam skimming over her words, delicately shining,

delicately hiding. She had many fine gestures to suit.

"Would you mind if we went to look at my child?" she said after a

time. "I'm playing nurse maid this afternoon. Just think, I have

three children. I'd like a fourth. But, you see, there's been a

strange rivalry on that score between myself and my sister and my

cousin; we were all married about the same time and whenever either

of us has a child, the others feel they must have one also. After

the third childbirth my cousin was left so weak that Aunt called upon

Nannie and myself and said, 'Don't you think it's about time you

girls stopped bearing children? You'll be the death of each other

yet.' So we have ceased! _Enfin!_"

Grace raised her eyebrows and remarked that it was, indeed, a strange

rivalry.

They were now in the nursery. "What do you think of Anne-Marie?"

said Renie.

"She's a very--cunning child." Grace approached the crib on tiptoe.

"I should say she looked rather like your husband."

"Doesn't she? Isn't it strange? You'll see how strange it is when I

tell you the story."

Once more in the living room, she settled herself on a green couch,

and though she did not steal looks to right and left, she gave that

impression.

"I shouldn't tell you," she said. "If you'll promise to be as silent

as the grave--well, and so this is what happened. We were in the

hospital, my sister and I, at about the same time, but my little

child died--and Nannie had twins! The irony of it! You can imagine

how devastated I was--and there was poor Nannie with two little girls

already and two more to bring up. So I had a brilliant inspiration

and--in short, Nannie consented to give me one of the twins to raise

as my own--and that twin is Anne-Marie!"

For an instant Grace was genuinely startled.

"Why, but everyone thinks you have three children of your own. I

remember Dee Reece mentioned it--and Blake----"

"Oh," cried Renie with a little squeal, "but we haven't breathed it

to a soul! No one knows except the immediate family. Remember, you

mustn't tell--mustn't tell even Blake--though I suppose you tell each

other everything?"

It was as if she had stroked Grace with a light velvet paw that yet

left a faint, apprehensive suggestion of a sting either just

administered or just to come. What she was after Grace did not yet

quite understand. She was fairly sure of what Blake was up to--some

little thing, some word or expression or lack of expression, the

intuition which was not intuition at all but the most meticulous

observation, never failed to give her a clue. But what might Renie

Harrington be capable of?

"Not--necessarily," she said aloud.

"Well, of course," said Renie, retreating (she was good at retreats,

Grace had noticed), "there might not be anything to tell! Blake is

such a charming young man--and so able--and he has the most perfect

taste, hasn't he? I had to come into town to do some shopping one

day and whom should I stumble upon on Fifth Avenue but Blake! So he

helped me choose scarves and sweaters and socks and shoes--and a

really interesting cigarette case. See--isn't it fascinating?"

"Yes, it's pretty," said Grace, and in spite of her disquiet her lips

curved demurely as she held the silk case in her hands. It happened

that she herself had pointed out the case to Blake in a shop window;

she felt certain that he had sent it to Renie. "The little cat!" she

thought suddenly. "She's playing with me--those goofy stories!

That's what she wanted me up here for."

But why should Renie bother to hide the fact that Blake had sent her

a cigarette case? There was a story Grace had picked up about Renie

in the course of her inquiries, a story which she now remembered.

Renie had married the fiancé of her best friend while the other

girl's back was turned.

"Speaking of Blake," Grace said, "you know we go about a lot to first

nights--I have enough theatrical connections to get good first-night

tickets without much trouble. I wondered--if you'd like to come with

us some time?"

"Oh, I'd like to. I'd have to ask Dick, of course. He's being very

busy just now. We're old-fashioned. We don't believe in having

dates apart from each other."

"You like to keep your eyes on each other," thought Grace, and she

recollected that, so far, she had never suspected Blake of having any

but afternoon dates with Renie.

"Of course, I meant to include him," she said aloud.

"And you must come up to dinner here some night with Blake and we'll

take you to our theater."

"That would be--lots of fun."

Grace glanced at Renie and it seemed to her that Renie had taken a

swift look at her. Could it be that Dick was jealous and Renie had

been reduced to using her, Grace, as a shield for her coquetries with

Blake? Nothing could suit Grace better. She didn't mind the

coquetries so long as she knew their limitations. She felt somewhat

relieved.

She went into Renie's room to fix her hair. Renie followed, talking

amiably.

"How nice that you've never cut your hair," she remarked. "I can't

imagine you with short hair, any more than I can imagine myself. And

you do it up so perfectly!"

"Well, it isn't so good right now," said Grace. "I usually have a

bit cut off now and then. I hate any hint of a--door-knob--at the

back, don't you?"

"Yes, it could be trimmed," said Renie, with her head to one side.

Suddenly she clapped her hands. "Oh, do let me trim it for you! I

adore cutting hair. I always cut Nannie's hair and my children's

hair. I'm an expert. See, here are the scissors ready to hand. Do

let me--just this once."

Grace laughed and submitted, but with a slight anxiety. She was

rigidly careful of her hair. It had to be marceled just so and

arranged just so. Still--it seemed silly to object. "Please be sure

not to cut too much off--just a very little bit." She watched Renie

in the glass.

There was one snip, then another. "That's enough," said Grace. "No,

it isn't even," declared Renie. Before Grace could stop her there

was a third long snip and Renie had cut off a full quarter of the

hair. Grace jerked her head away. She went quite white and was on

the point of grabbing the shears. Renie stood by, giggling like a

naughty child. "Oh, I couldn't stop myself! It struck me what fun

it would be to bob it. Do let me bob it, now I've started. Do you

know, that's how I bobbed Nannie's hair--she asked me to trim the

ends, and before she knew it I had it all cut off. Such a joke on

her!"

"It must have been," said Grace, quivering. After a second during

which she clenched her hands tight, she gathered the remainder of her

hair into a knot. It was difficult, since Grace's hair had not been

very long in the first place. Some of the hairpins would not hold; a

few ends straggled.

"Oh, you don't really mind," coaxed Renie. Grace could see her face

in the glass. It looked impishly cheerful. "Why, it'll grow in no

time. Nannie and I are always playing jokes like that on each other.

Just this summer, in the country, I asked her to put a freckle lotion

on my face and she spread on some stuff that's supposed to make hair

grow! Fortunately, it didn't work--but we laughed over it for ages."

"What a happy family that must be!" thought Grace. The hair stayed

up, anyhow. It might have been worse. She tucked on her hat and

managed a smile. "Well, it was certainly nearly a joke on me," she

said, in a tone that tried to be tolerant but kept a residue of

crispness. She was, in fact, almost scared, and so nervous that she

could not bear Renie another moment.

The latter showered her with expressions of penitence. "I never

thought you'd mind so much. I can't resist a practical joke--it's an

inane trait, I know. Do let me---- Oh, a Spanish comb would be

stunning on you--with your eyes. I have a gorgeous one presented to

me by an admirer, and, as often happens with the presents of

admirers, I have no use for it. If you can wear it..."

Grace departed with the Spanish comb, with a promise to come to

dinner soon and a disturbed sense of being obliged to defend herself

against unfamiliar weapons. Women weren't supposed to be cats these

days, to fight with rapiers and jeweled daggers and artfully curved

knives, not to mention delicate claws--obsolete weapons all and so

much more flexible and treacherous than the blunt pistol. Think of

trying to ruin your opponent's hair or her complexion--for she felt

almost certain it was with deliberate malice Renie had used the

scissors. It wasn't done, it wasn't modern!

Dusk had already fallen. It was foggy, windy, drizzling, and Grace

started for home. When she reached the Sixth Avenue El, however, she

changed her mind and continued to Broadway. Letty had just moved to

a larger apartment a few blocks away, for she was expecting a child.

There would be a story to tell Letty--and Blake, too.

She was cheered by the lights on Broadway. It was not indeed like

the forest fire of clustered electrics that burned farther down,

shedding, on clear nights, a haze like smoke over the sky for blocks

around. The lights here were small, farther apart; they fell like a

shower of golden raindrops through the mist.

Now that danger was past, she even began to see the humor of Renie's

ways of warfare. She did not blame Renie for a flirtation which

seemed to be mostly an idle test of skill--for Renie, she judged, had

no idea of chancing the throw of so solid a bonnet as Dick Harrington

over any windmills. It was often fun to test one's skill. She did

it herself, and if she, why not Renie? Time was when she would have

trembled with jealousy at Blake's slightest concurrence. But why

should she tremble now? After all, she could concur, too, if she

liked. As one possessing some of the qualities at least which made

for victory, why should she ever be afraid? She wouldn't be. She

wasn't. Let it be always open season, good hunting for all! Let the

defeated, those who were not strong enough, those who were too

squeamish, plead for quarter, balk at the game, struggle to change.

It was merely that she disliked women who did not rule their own

closed seasons--a type like Renie, for instance, for whom much of the

interest in an affair lay in the ability to harass some other woman

by it. It was a type that never trusted others of its sex; no

wonder, when it wasn't to be trusted itself! She, Grace, would not

knowingly engage in a flirtation which meant nothing to herself but

which caused anguish to another girl. All that other had to do was

to ask her to stop.

Of course, if there were some strong compulsion, such as there had

been with Blake--that was beyond blame as it was beyond reason.

People might say she had taken a man away from his wife, but it had

been through neither careless experiment nor selfish plan. She had

been compelled to do so--if indeed she had taken that which had been

just as strongly impelled to go. And she had risked herself, had

taken every chance; to be an "other woman" she had made sacrifices.

She remembered sitting in Schrafft's one day with Ruth, among matrons

who wore diamond engagement rings and diamond-encrusted wedding rings

as they ate whipped-cream lunches between shopping and the matinée.

She and Ruth had to choose more by the prices on the right side of

the menu than by the dishes on the left. And Ruth said, as they were

skipping dessert ("just two cups of coffee, please")--Ruth said, with

a sweep of her hand over the fur-coated, diamond-encrusted mélange,

"Pity the poor wives, Grace! Not a diamond between us and we're

these terrible other women!" Then she and Ruth had to rush back to

their jobs. Jobs bore watching; it was easy to lose jobs. And they

had no one but themselves to rely on. Not laws. Not lovers.

Certainly not Blake! It was his wife whom Blake felt obligated to

shield, his wife whom he permitted to rely on him. She, Grace, was

his equal in love, and equals bear their own responsibilities without

so much as a complaint, let alone a desire to share their burdens.

She did not mind exactly--but so many of the responsibilities had

sprung from or were accentuated by Blake. Ma was on the rampage

again--Grace had believed that bringing Blake to dinner now and then

would cause Ma to subside. But she complained that Grace stayed away

too many nights. "Yes! And if Jerry didn't have his blonde momma,

I'd stay away oftener," thought Grace defiantly. The solution was an

apartment of her own--another responsibility. She had almost induced

Anita to share it. Anita ought to have a place in which to receive

Dennis. He was worth annexing. There was a good deal lacking in him

but, as Grace had told Anita, "You can't have everything.

Personally, I would dispense with a lot in a man for the sake of a

little charm." Yet Anita was so obstinate, so childish in some

respects; she could plan and at the same time she was just as likely

to disrupt all plans by a moment of inopportune revolt. Grace had

offered to collect furniture from among her friends; she had offered

to bear the larger share of expenses. She would have to, since Anita

earned so much less.

Money, money, all this meant money! So much money for Ma instead of

board, so much money for surroundings, so much for attractive

clothes. Fatal to have a lover ashamed of one's background or one's

appearance. And that led back to the job. If she lost her job--a

slip would do it--so much of the structure so carefully raised would

topple. Money. Job. Blake. Anita. Ma. As she walked, the words

lost sense, threshing back and forth in her mind.

At Seventy-second Street she had to pause for the traffic to skid by.

The wind from the west slapped her skirt and the damp girdled her as

with a moist, penetrating arm. The windows of the farther buildings

were glittering scratches, straight up and down and across mist,

hieroglyphs drawn finely and exactly and meaninglessly in space. It

was like being on board ship--the wind beating about one's head, the

air swished with boos and restless with squeals from the boats. How

small this little island squeezed up out of the water--east, west,

below, beyond, on all sides, rising and tossing and throbbing and

falling--no repose anywhere--one vast, moaning, mixed-up flux.

At length the traffic stopped and she went on, perilously clutching

the bit of driftwood which was the pavement with little tentacles of

high heels.

CHAPTER NINE

Not long afterward a situation in the M.A.N. office began to

monopolize Grace's conversations with her most intimate friends.

"You know--how--I worry," was the prefix they had learned to

recognize when she was determined to make them share her troubles.

And Grace was worried.

A man named Graves had arrived from the coast by order of Mr.

Meiselson, who was president of the M.A.N. Mr. Graves had

distinguished himself, as everyone knew, by being the only sober

press agent at a luncheon for a women's committee in the coast

studio. This was his reward. He came East bearing the title of

supervisor of both the New York and the Hollywood publicity offices.

Roy Williams had always understood that this was his position; now

Graves became suddenly his superior. Everyone saw how it would go.

The M.A.N. was never satisfied merely to fire; it liked to prepare

its victims for firing. First Roy Williams had been denuded of his

title; by spring his private office had been taken away from him and

turned over to Graves. While he was still deciding whether, for the

sake of prestige, it would not be best to resign, his duties were

being snatched from him one by one; soon his very typewriter itself

would vanish, and finally his salary.

Small whirlpools of disquiet, expansions of the central whirlpool,

swirled about each of the desks in the outer room. Each wondered who

would be sucked in and who would be left. Grace had been favored so

much by Roy Williams that she feared she would be counted among his

retainers, and it is well known what happens to the friends of the

old régime when the new assumes power. She tried hard to maintain

her neutrality, being docile and sympathetic with Roy Williams;

pliant, serious, and intelligent with Mr. Graves.

Her attitude seemed to work. Graves did not like Mr. Colton, who

handled the daily newspapers and fan magazines. When it came time to

herald the arrival of a newly risen star he ignored Colton, to whom

the job properly belonged, detached Roger Darray from the press books

and Grace from her women's features, and assigned them both to Nola

Winter.

Nola Winter was a fledgling star, still warm from the incubator. The

Broadway opening of her latest picture and her rumored engagement to

a famous movie actor had given the M.A.N. sufficient warrant to send

her on her first trip East. She was traveling in style, chaperoned,

groomed, and stateroomed, to be housed at the Ritz, to be wined and

dined and properly introduced to the fan writers, i.e., the public.

Mr. Graves himself had caught an earlier train to meet the Twentieth

Century and ride down with her. It was the first important effort

that had been required of him in New York--a trial of himself as well

as of Grace and Roger Darray.

With his last-minute instructions still buzzing in their ears, Grace

and Roger walked over to Grand Central. The pavements were caked

with summer heat. Underneath a topcoat of somnolence, the air burned

with a peculiar, needlelike brilliance. Ordinarily they would have

been placid; little could go wrong in a routine arrangement like

this. The New York public, represented by the city editors, was as

anxious to hear from a pretty new movie actress who might be engaged

to Adam Jennifer as Nola Winter was to be heard from. They could be

almost certain of making the afternoon papers--with pictures--and all

one needed to attract a joyful greeting crowd in a station was a

group of cameras. However, even the countenance of Roger, a blank

and solemn individual, reflected the tremors of excitement with which

Mr. Graves had infected them.

"I hope he doesn't--expect us to meet her waving aloft the keys of

the city, the way they do in California," said Grace nervously.

Roger attempted a polite answer which trailed off into murmurs. He

kept a slight space between them, while at crossings he gave a start,

touched her elbow with his hand, then hastily released it. Grace

could barely repress a smirk, thinking of how afraid of her and

embarrassed with her Roger Darray always was. She had once tried to

attach him, just before his marriage--not very urgently, to be sure,

but so as to keep her hand in--and he had never forgotten how nearly,

according to Grace, he had "fallen" for her. He always gave her the

impression of restraining himself from "falling" even now, a fact

which added to her complacent amusement.

They found one cub reporter lounging at the gate with his press card

nonchalantly stuck in the band of his hat. More appeared within the

interval--all they hoped for: a couple of newspapermen in the twisted

soft hats that seem best to conform to the reportorial head; a girl

whom Grace knew, wearing spectacles and carrying a book into which,

detaching herself from the proceedings, she at once plunged;

photographers, a raft of them, bristling with the legs of cameras,

some with their caps reversed so that the visors slouched on the

napes of their necks. Grace saw with satisfaction that, apart from

the groups of welcoming friends who stared at them curiously, growing

numbers of people paused in their business and, as if under a spell,

without reason or real desire of their own, moved closer and closer

to the cameras, stopping now and then, turning away, then moving

closer and standing, after the manner of their kind, with mouths

slightly agape in an attitude of unalterably patient, of mesmerized

attention.

As the train came in the stragglers pressed forward upon the flanks

of the newspaper party; the latter crushed against, then passed, the

gate, while a few station employees thrust out their arms to bar the

crowd. In spite of themselves, other people's welcoming friends and

the inquisitive bystanders merged, formed a solid, sweating phalanx

around the gate. An impressive greeting to Nola Winter!

The platform was all at once black with scurrying figures, porters,

trucks of baggage.

Gradually a few spaces of gray stone floor were left visible between

feet. The spaces cleared. They widened. They expanded.

"Y'know what stateroom this baby is in?" demanded one of the

photographers.

Grace asked Roger. Mr. Graves had neglected to give them the numbers

of the car and the stateroom.

"Oh, she'll be along soon. Sure. Sure. Pretty soon," said Roger.

The length of the platform stretched forth longer and longer, duller

and duller, barer and barer. It was dark, even damp, but with a

density, a monotony of heat which was unendurable. Far at the other

end antlike creatures were still hastening through the gate.

The reporters waited in boredom. The newspaper girl, with some aid

from the photographers, climbed upon a baggage truck, fanned herself,

and swung her legs. "Are you sure she's on this train?" she said

suspiciously.

Grace and Roger consulted.

"Perhaps she's missed it or something," said Grace.

"She'd have wired Graves," said Roger. "No. She must be on it.

Probably just fixing up--just fixing up."

One of the sections backed off, backed forward. Grace suggested:

"Don't you think--it would be wise--to go through the cars?"

Roger's face was grave. "He must know we're waiting," he said. "He

did say Grand Central, didn't he? Might have been a mistake there."

They stood looking at each other, Grace with enlarged, troubled eyes,

Roger stiff and pale. The platform was wholly empty now. An

occasional employee passed, was questioned, shook his head and went

away. They had been waiting nearly an hour. Each of the reporters

had gone off to telephone and had disappeared. The photographers

gave it up, too, and left one by one, gathering up their cameras and

mumbling indifferent curses.

"We'd better go back to the office," said Grace finally.

They returned slowly down the endless length of the platform, still

gluing their eyes to the train. A sound of movement caused them to

turn their heads. Down the steps of a car close to where they had

waited so long, a short man in a neat gray suit was ushering two

ladies.

It was Mr. Graves.

They halted transfixed. "What in the hell!" said Roger very quietly.

They exchanged a quick glance and, bracing themselves, hurried back

along the platform. Nola Winter and her mother stood withdrawn, with

delicately sniffing nostrils, affecting a self-absorption which did

not quite come off, observing in side-long looks, while Mr. Graves

received his press agents.

"Where were you?" he addressed Roger.

"Right here," said Roger rigidly.

"You were right here!" repeated Mr. Graves in a strangled voice. He

was silent for a few moments, during which he glared at Roger. "Miss

Winter and her mother and I," he said, "have been waiting for you

fully an hour."

"Where?" said Roger reasonably.

"Where? Where?" burst forth Mr. Graves. "Why, in Miss Winter's

stateroom, of course!"

A flash lighted Roger's pale blue eyes; he opened his mouth. Next

instant his face was inscrutable.

"We were waiting on the platform with reporters and photographers,"

he said quietly.

"Why the ---- didn't you bring them to the stateroom, then? Where

d'y' think Miss Winter would receive them?"

"On the platform," said Roger calmly. "Photographers can't set up

their cameras in staterooms. And," he added, as an afterthought,

"you didn't tell us the number of the car."

"Why'n't you look for it, then? Why'n't you find it?"

Roger made no reply.

A colored maid hovered over the car steps, stacking hand luggage.

"You can go back to the office," said Mr. Graves to Roger. "I'll see

you later."

Roger swung on his heel and sauntered off.

Grace was white to the lips.

"Do you--need me, Mr. Graves?" she managed to stammer.

He then took notice of her for the first time. He reflected,

allowing himself a space for recovery. Nodding at her, he said in a

voice still sharp, "Yes. You might as well meet Miss Winter and her

mother. You'll be handling her alone now."

Miss Winter was a fragile, languid young girl under a large hat. She

bent her head slightly to Grace. Her mother was by turns more

condescending and more plaintive. She shook Grace's hand and

complained, "We didn't expect to be received like this." Apparently

Mr. Graves had not quite mollified them.

Grace moved her deep eyes from Mr. Graves to Mrs. Winter. "Don't you

think," she began tentatively, "it will be--better--really to have

Miss Winter interviewed at her--hotel? It will be--less wearing for

her--perhaps. I could--arrange it very shortly."

"Oh, not to-day," put in Miss Winter. "I'm fah too ti-erd."

"The poor child is tired. There's a porter now, honey. No, Nola

must stay in bed to-day," said her mother.

"We'll have to let it go to-day," said Mr. Graves authoritatively.

Grace accompanied them to the taxi, conferring with Mr. Graves. Nola

Winter had a luncheon with the fan writers next day. "We'll ask the

reporters, too," said Mr. Graves. Grace agreed. At the same time

she insinuated that they would perhaps get double publicity by

keeping the reporters and the fan writers separate. Privately, she

thought Mr. Graves didn't know his business. The reporters would

write without being fed, while fan writers required to be fed. In a

case like this, where there was the question of an engagement, they

might easily get two sets of stories. Since she would be held

responsible for the amount of publicity they received or didn't

receive, she had to take the trouble to guide Mr. Graves's footsteps.

It was decided that Miss Winter's official arrival, for the benefit

of the press, would take place to-morrow and the luncheon for the fan

writers would be postponed a day. She arranged with mother and

daughter to call on them early next morning, bade them pleasant

good-byes.

With a great sigh of relief, she headed for the office. Roger

Darray's goose was cooked. But not hers--not yet. She was safe.

Roger was sitting by Mr. Colton's desk, smoking cigarettes and

recounting their mishap. He had no further need of caution. He knew

he would be fired. The whole office knew it. He called to Grace,

"How'd you come out?"

Grace approached slowly. "He told me to--handle her alone.

I'm--sorry, Roger." She fixed her huge, distressed eyes upon him.

She was sorry, very. The loss of a job--especially through no fault

of one's own--was a misery completely comprehensible to her. It was

a danger which they all shared; her turn might come next.

"I'm--sorry," she said again unhappily. But what could she do?

"It's all right--all right. I guess I'm out," said Roger, without

malice.

Colton, who suspected that he also would soon be out, made a helpless

grimace and shrugged. "The ---- ----!" he remarked. "So he thought

Nola Winter ought to receive reporters and photographers in her

stateroom! That's what you gotta take off these bastards who come up

from office boys. A hell of a lot they know about this game!"

"What are--your plans, Roger?" asked Grace low.

"Oh, I'll get along. Yes. Yes. I'll get something."

For several minutes they discussed Roger's prospects, jobs they had

heard of, openings there might be.

Then Grace returned to her desk and picked up her telephone--it is

one of the characteristics of press agents that they are never

without a series of phone calls to make. She could not afford to

waste any more time on condolences. The Three Cheers Club met at one

o'clock and several of her personal plans revolved around it.

CHAPTER TEN

Like others who belonged to it, Grace was wont to excuse herself for

attending the weekly luncheons of the Three Cheers Club on the ground

that it was good business. One made contacts there. One exchanged

the gossip of the day. The club ate in a private dining room at a

Park Avenue hotel. This noon, as Grace walked into the small

antechamber where the members were gathering, her face was strained

with resolution. The girl she searched for stood in a corner, a

large bouncing girl, visible and audible. Grace marched up to her.

"How are you, Madge?" she said, widening her eyes and spacing her

words with an acute gentleness. "I hear--you had--quite a

discussion--about me at your house one night."

The buxom girl stepped back. "Why, no!" she said. "Why, Grace, I

hope you don't think I'd say anything unkind about you or let anyone

in my house say a word against you."

Grace looked at her with a sweet, unbelieving smile.

"Why, no, Grace," she repeated in alarm under that smile. "I don't

know what you heard but I give you my word all that happened was--we

were discussing a lot of things and someone remarked wasn't it a

coincidence that Grace Kline's friend had the same name as the man

who used to be married to a college classmate, Edith Woolever, in St.

Louis. Honestly that's every word that was said."

Wearing the same sweet smile and continuing to fix Madge with her

eyes, Grace replied, "Then perhaps it might--interest you to

know--that he not only used to be married to Edith Woolever, but

still is." She swept past.

An "oh" dropped from Madge's lips and she babbled after Grace scared

phrases at random: "... think the world and all of you ... wouldn't

want you to think otherwise."

Grace betook herself to the shelter of one of her friends who had

witnessed the encounter. Her skin was white but under it the blood

burned in her cheeks. She removed a glove and tried to soothe them

with chilly hands.

"I think I've stopped her," she said. She continued

conversationally, halting now and then for composure. "I've

discovered a swell method, Jeannette, of dealing with people who talk

about you. You just walk up to them very sweet and ruthless and

naïve and ask them did they really say that? It frightens them to

death."

Her friend, a little woman like a little bird, teetering on very tiny

feet and very high heels, patted her arm with a sympathy that was

none the less for being highly spiced with curiosity. She herself

was a tactful, orderly little soul, a good manager, but she was very

broadminded, as she often told people, and regarded Grace with an

admiring and interested wonder. "I wouldn't have told you if I'd

known it would upset you so," she said in real concern.

"Oh, it doesn't upset me any more," said Grace. "I'm getting

hardened."

After a moment she remembered what else had brought her to the club.

"You know Mrs. Whitten, don't you?" she said, now quite alert.

"Introduce me, will you? I'd like to sit next to her--if it can be

arranged."

"Of course, dear. Why? Have you anything in mind for her? I didn't

know you were writing."

"Oh, it's--just an idea," said Grace vaguely. Her eyes wandered

afresh over the room, choosing friends, recording herself again on

the minds of those she knew, and permitting them to record themselves

on her mind; seeing who was present and who was not.

The girls (not women, but distinctly girls) disposed themselves at

three long tables arranged in the form of an ell. Originally the

Three Cheers Club had unfurled its banner with a provision that

members be self-supporting and a dedication of encouragement to

"women of all professions." But it had become increasingly difficult

to judge the exact extent of their self-support and, though there

might have been members of other professions, they went unnoticed.

Nearly all these women (so distinctly girls) acted, wrote, drew,

sang, clutched the skirts of the various arts in varying capacities

and with varying success and took much credit to themselves for so

doing.

Grace usually sat by Diana Reece in her own coterie that formed one

of the groups within the group. To-day she found herself in a

somewhat different atmosphere between Mrs. Whitten and Jeannette

Croak, looking attentively across the table at a woman who bore well

the dignity of black crêpe de chine and pearl earrings. She was

Rachel Dorf, the one who got two thousand dollars a short story. And

how well she knew it, thought Grace, with a certain detachment in

consequence of her own slight acquaintance in this circle. The two

thousand dollars was apparent in every costly fold of silk, in the

full, massaged texture of her authoritative face, in the commanding

movements of her thick, white hands. She and Mrs. Whitten were

discussing short-story prices. Grace listened with a perfect

demeanor, a blend between that of a novice hearkening to elders and

that of a personage incognito, secure in his own secret status. The

glow shed by her skin and eyes, like the soft, swooning light shed by

the moon, the delicate synthesis of her clothes drew involuntary

glances from Mrs. Dorf and Mrs. Whitten. Each had noticed her in the

past and remembered her and would remember her, wondering why. When

she spoke each looked at her, following the motions of her long,

tender lips and her widening eyes, following each word dropped after

her curious pauses, as if these might furnish the clue to that

glowing mystery which her eyes and her skin had the power to suggest.

Mrs. Dorf was the first to turn her glances away, chafing under the

spell. When Grace spoke she would attempt instinctively to

interrupt, only to hear the low, penetrating contralto superimpose

itself on her voice without effort, continue, and finish the sentence

which Grace had begun.

Mrs. Whitten, who was a small, dowdy person dressed in brown, with

generous brown eyes, frankly allowed herself to be engrossed by

Grace. It gave her pleasure to watch Grace. She answered her

warmly, assuring her that it would be a good idea to do a story about

the movie star, Carolyn Hale.

"I thought," said Grace, "since she had made--such a hit in comedy,

it might be interesting to get her to talk on the feminine sense of

humor."

"N-no," said Mrs. Whitten thoughtfully. "That's a little

too--too--intellectual, I believe, for our readers. Something more

personal is what they would like--for instance, Love: 'What I Think

of Love.' Or perhaps, 'Why I Have Never Married,' if you can get her

to sign it."

Grace looked at Mrs. Whitten with a smile. "Isn't that--a little

obvious?" she hinted. "After all----"

"Yes. After all, everyone knows why she hasn't married. She finds

it more profitable the other way," finished Mrs. Whitten, sharing

Grace's amusement. "But an article on Love, if you can get her to

sign it, would go, I think. Of course, I haven't the final say."

"Oh, I can get her to sign it," said Grace, and sniggered within

herself. She had her own opinion of what Carolyn Hale thought of

Love. Becoming serious, she said intently, "Then--if I get it

written--shall I bring it in to you?"

"Yes, indeed. It's a good idea."

The luncheon was rapidly climbing to its predestined heights. The

president rapped for order; the bubbles of chatter evaporated and the

real business of the session began. She started to announce the

announcements. Grace was sure that this president, a matronly girl,

who conducted an Advice to the Lovelorn column, could hardly wait to

breathe her touching sentiments, with a little comical twist at the

end, anent the arrivals of new babies to club members. Perhaps she

even practised before a glass so as to obtain the exact cloying

simper with which these sentiments emerged from her lips. At this

point, Anita, who had once been present at a luncheon, had caused a

hushed commotion of disapproval by shifting, in her agony, tapping

her plate, shuffling her feet, overturning her water glass, and

muttering comments to Grace. Anita was far too impatient. As for

Grace, she sat in ladylike calm, as others did about the tables, only

permitting herself a small smile when she caught Dee's eye.

"And, girls, I have a _great_ surprise for you. Mary Covill. Can

you guess? Yes, girls, she's been married for _two_ months, and the

lucky man's name you will all like to know is Howard Higgins, in the

advertising business. So now Mary can add the Lucy Stone League to

her list of clubs."

Laughter and applause and a general turning of heads toward where

Mary Covill sat, somewhat flushed but triumphant.

Grace noticed that Mrs. Dorf and Mrs. Whitten and Jeannette were all

applauding quite seriously. Dee sent her an ironic wink across

tables. But Dee was patting her hands too. She made one or two

perfunctory claps.

The president had not yet done. She took another sheet of paper from

her table. She grew sober.

"Now girls," she said, "before I introduce the guests of honor, who

to-day are Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Barnes, the big-game hunters, of whom

you have all heard [applause], I am sure you will all be interested

to know what your co-members have been accomplishing."

She cleared her throat. She said, "I don't want to boast, girls, but

I thought you'd all be pleased to know that your president has at

last entered--oh, very timidly, you may be sure--the Halls of the

Bards. Your president has had a poem accepted by _Home Life_!"

(Applause).

She called prettily through the applause, "Yes, and if you don't like

it, you have only the editor of _Home Life_ to blame. He assures me

it's fine!"

After the excitement had bubbled down there followed a list of

stories sold, sketches placed, designs ordered, jobs changed. The

president sat down, releasing a swarm of chatter.

Immediately she bounced up again. She raised one hand for silence.

"There has just come to my hand," she said impressively, "a belated

announcement which I am sure you will want to have repeated at once.

Girls, Bessie Firestone has--just--sold--her first short story--to

_True Stories_!"

The guests of honor had been brought by their press agent. Grace was

among the first to escape. Meeting Dee in the anteroom, she agreed

that the club was growing "more terrible by the minute," and listened

to a collection of fresh gossip, while her eyes followed the people

she wished to speak with presently. They arranged to sit together at

the next luncheon.

Afterward she taxied across town to the Algonquin and, making her way

through the patronizing groups in the lobby, she reconnoitered over

the ropes of the small dining room. It was easy to pick out Carolyn

Hale from among all the sleekly hatted women. For the sake of her

public, which was accustomed to see her curls unbound in the dramatic

sequences, Carolyn Hale had not yet dared to cut her hair. It was

really golden and really heavy. Great braided loops of it weighted

her head so much that she was always removing her hat. So lovely a

girl on the screen, so frail and wistful, she looked extraordinarily

matter-of-fact in real life. The Publicity Department stressed the

point that she made her own clothes. After seeing them, Grace

thought this likely but saw no reason for pride. She had been in

attendance on Carolyn for several weeks, arranging appointments for

her with the fan writers, taking Carolyn to teas and luncheons, and

ingratiating herself with Carolyn in many ways. They now called each

other by their first names.

Carolyn Hale was lunching with her "girl friend," another movie

actress, a study in ebony, sepia, and scarlet beside Carolyn's

fairness. Pushing a chair out for Grace, she continued to regale

them with an account of an afternoon spent with L. L. Farissey. It

seemed that he had swept her from auctions of antiques to auctions of

pictures to auctions of manuscripts, she "standing on my feet and

perishing from my corns--you can imagine. And that damned old

furniture, you ought to see it. What anybody wants to buy the stuff

for! I just touched a table and I give you my word it jumped apart!

And those pictures! They're enough to give anyone the willies! And

here I had to get blue in the face admiring all that junk. When I

got home I swear my mouth was sore from making ohs.

"And I was out all night," she wailed, "and I had to shop all

morning--and now I have to go see L. L. again. I bet he drags me to

more junk shops this afternoon. Oh, my Gawd! Girls, come on along

with me. I can't see that big bozo alone again; last night was

enough."

Stepping from the cloistered dimness of the Algonquin, they

straightway entered the luxuriant dimness of Carolyn Hale's

limousine, while she wailed comically and did imitations of L. L.

She had a strange voice to come from a creature so heavenly on the

screen--thin, flat, nasal. It made one want to laugh in her face at

its incongruity.

The moment did not seem propitious to speak of Love, but Grace

managed to ask if Carolyn would sign an article for a woman's

magazine.

"Sure, I'll sign anything you say," declared Carolyn. "That would be

swell. Only just don't mention names. I gotta think of my Goddamn

public."

Her friend, Lily, inquired with interest what the article would be

about.

"It's to be called, 'What I Think of Love,'" said Grace hesitantly.

But neither appeared to notice any untoward significance.

Carolyn nodded. "That'll be fine," she said. "The fans will eat

that up."

And, "I wish my press agent would put something like that over for

me," remarked Lily. "I sometimes wonder if he's any good. I notice

you're getting so much for Carolyn."

"Oh, yes, Grace is swell," said Carolyn generously. Lily was a free

lance who earned a great deal and no doubt paid well for publicity

services. But Grace thought it best to keep silent and let Lily make

her own comparisons.

In a great pink and gilt room in a great pink and gilt hotel they

found the great man, L. L. Farissey. He was an automobile magnate

who had got into so many front-page scrapes that it was impossible

not to have heard of him. He was assisting Carolyn Hale to maintain

her position at that special moment in her career. Fat and tousled,

he sat in a suit of fiercely striped pajamas in a mild pink armchair,

looking ill-tempered and eating a meal of sauerkraut, frankfurters,

olives, cheese, and tomatoes. The three girls stood astounded at

this meal. Raising small bloodshot eyes, the great man glanced at

them and grunted. He knew Lily and disregarded her. Being

introduced to Grace, he grunted and disregarded her also. He

muttered to Carolyn Hale in a surly voice, "Havin' my breakfast.

Want some?"

"Oh, L. L. I've just had an _enormous_ lunch," pleaded Carolyn.

He grunted. His silence became stony.

Lily and Grace took chairs by the door and remained quiet, quiet as

little mice, not daring to look at each other and trying not to look

at Carolyn Hale. She had perched herself on the arm of the great

man's chair. Whenever she caught their glances she opened her mouth

and gawped without sound and rolled her eyes over the great man's

shoulder. For her pains with him, she received a series of grunts.

Finally, leaning her face close to his, she said meekly, "L. L.,

could Carolyn have one of these lovely little teeny-weeny olives?

Just _one_ little teeny-weeny olive?"

"Have 'em all!" mumbled the great man magnificently. He took a plate

and piled it high with olives, sauerkraut, tomatoes. "Bet' have some

cheese--" "Well then, I will have a little, teeny-weeny piece. It

looks so good." He added a hunk of cheese. Over his shoulder

Carolyn put her hand to her heart and made a huge gawp with her mouth

and rolled her eyes in extreme despair. She began to pick at the

food, now and then glancing at the two girls and going through the

motions of inaudible signs. The great man's frown seemed to be

moderating. Carolyn, peering around at him, signaled such an

enormous silent gawp of relief behind him that the two girls thought

she would fall backward off the chair.

She leaned her face closer to his. "L. L.," she coaxed, "couldn't we

go to see that lovely picture again this afternoon? You know, the

beautiful, beautiful one that Carolyn liked so much, the one with the

woman on horseback and all the lovely dogs?"

"Hm. Worst one of the whole collection!" grumbled the great man.

But his face had relaxed into some semblance of pleasure.

"Might take a look in the Bitterman Galleries," he murmured, as if to

himself.

Behind his bent head Carolyn raised her hands and twirled her fingers

in the air and let her chin fall and her mouth droop to resemble the

aspect of a half-wit. The two girls simultaneously took out their

handkerchiefs, patted their noses, and hid their giggles.

Carolyn winked and nodded at them and pointed to the door. They

understood. They rose and said farewells which the great man did not

acknowledge.

Out in the lobby Grace at once found her way to a telephone booth.

She had been on the trail of Susanna Beddes all morning. It was most

important that Susanna Beddes should be notified of the lunch for

Nola Winter and should promise to attend. She was a personage. She

wrote a widely syndicated motion-picture column. Press agents might

mimic Susanna Beddes' coy habit of speaking of herself in the third

person ("Susanna is feeling thus and so"--"Susanna is doing this and

that"--"Susanna is very busy just now") but in her presence they

trembled. At least, Susanna did everything in her power to cause

them to tremble. Grace finally traced Susanna to her home.

"Oh, Susanna has such a headache to-day," she moaned over the

telephone. "Don't speak to Susanna about business! She's desperate."

A lengthy conversation followed, soothing, apologetic, consoling on

Grace's part, bored and reluctant on Susanna's. Susanna really could

not think. Susanna really did not know what engagements she had.

Susanna did not care about these group interviews. She preferred

tête-à-têtes.

"Oh, I'm certain--Miss Winter would be delighted to have you take

lunch with her," Grace assured her. "I was--just about to ask you.

But we--would like you to be present at the formal reception too."

Susanna said that she would see.

"Shall I--call you at the office then--to-morrow?"

Susanna said that she might do so.

Grace had spent almost half an hour in the stifling booth. She

staggered into the pink and gilt lobby, rested for a few minutes,

inhaled a few pink and gilt breaths. She supposed it might be good

policy to send Susanna Beddes flowers--from the M.A.N.--or some such

touching recognition of her headache.

When Grace at last stepped out of the hotel she paused, startled, she

could not say why, to see the sky so blue. A faint breeze stirred

the blazing, dust-moted air. The interiors of the serene shops along

Madison Avenue looked limpid as water to a parched throat. A great

breath melted in her lungs and gave a special luster to her face. A

trolley clattered by with open sides. The tops of all the taxis were

down; their black upholsteries glistened between smears of dust. The

heavy sidewalks bloomed here and there unexpectedly with the dresses

of girls, yellow silks and green silks, and rose and lavender, slimly

conforming to their bodies. Of course. It was summer, a season that

she loved, and the middle of the afternoon.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Anita's office, a free employment bureau, closed early, so that she

was always the first to return to the apartment which she and Grace

now shared. It stood on the same street as Dee's old studio, and at

this time of the afternoon, in the lull between the exodus from shops

and offices and the re-migration to restaurants and theaters, it

greeted Anita with a soothing fragrance of quiet. She threw herself

down on the couch. The odds and ends of gray, home-painted furniture

were spotted with lingering sunshine; one pale beam lay across the

bookcase; an orange vase shone. She was sure of perhaps half an hour

of utter peace.

Thereafter the telephone began to squeal. The early calls were

always for Grace. Then there would be a short interval. Finally,

always to Anita with the force of surprise, the tone of Dennis

Meloney's "Hul-lo," long-drawn and resonant, warm and vague, drifted

through the telephone.

Anita said, as always, "Is--this--you, Dennis?"

He answered reassuringly, as always, the words resounding through his

nose, "None other!"

"Sober?"

"Very!" said Dennis, with too much conviction. He added, "I'll be

right over."

As she knew from experience, this might well mean several hours

later. It was one of the phrases which Dennis used to assert his

complete spiritual willingness behind which the uncontrollable body

lagged under no matter what goads, to his bewilderment, even to his

dismay. He had informed Anita, in one of his solemn moments of

drunken articulateness, "You'll learn this about me--I'm a terrible

liar." Anita had only been able to smile and sigh and shake her head

in resignation that had in it a note of noblesse oblige, of staying

one's hand as with an inferior in one's power. She was often on the

point of not bearing with Dennis any longer. If she had been alone

she could have swiftly made up her mind, but with Grace in the

background she felt almost as if she were playing before an audience,

as if she were constrained to go on with the performance before it

though hampered by its presence. Grace, she knew, did not treat her

as a poor relation because she "had Dennis." She could almost see

the idea behind Grace's mounting intimacy. A girl who could attach

even one not wholly undesirable man for that length of time and with

that comparative regularity could not be beyond the pale, might even

be "one of us." The old formula of contrast, a beautiful girl

selecting a colorless girl as companion and foil, is outmoded. Two

charming girls, it has been learned, are better than one to attract

men.

The telephone rang more and more insistently. Blake called up and

left a message. The entry of Grace dispersed the last vestige of

solitude.

She searched the room with a wide and tenacious gaze.

"What have you been doing?" she said, and, not waiting for a reply,

she launched into an account of her afternoon.

"I don't believe--I'll have any more trouble with Madge Murphy," she

concluded. "I can't understand--girls like that! Madge Murphy gets

around a lot; she knows a lot of people. I don't see how she does

it. She's so homely! She has little, wrinkled, blackish eyes,

raisin eyes. She's one of those girls who--stick--out in front and

in back and who always, by instinct, sort of, gravitate to stripes,

those heavy, long stripes, in purple and red, you know. I suppose

they think it makes them look thin! Nothing could make her look

thin--not even a steam roller!"

This trick of Grace's of describing people by means of the

simplifications of the caricaturist always seemed strange to Anita.

How could Grace, who disapproved of Anita's penchant for taking

sides, who, though she enjoyed gossip, was always careful to repeat

it with impartial omniscience--how could Grace, who was so tolerant,

pass such cruel judgments with her eyes and ears? Anita had learned

to be on guard against Grace's descriptions, for when she saw the

people herself, they were apt to be so different.

"There are so many girls like that," continued Grace, "that you--meet

around. There's nothing to them that you can put your finger on.

And they take themselves so--seriously. But they seem to get along.

I suppose it's just push," she added thoughtfully. "They

simply--push themselves in everywhere."

She went on: "Anyhow, I've discovered a grand method of dealing with

people who talk about you. Hereafter I mean to confront them as I

did Madge and ask them straight out, but very--sweetly, you know, did

they really say that? It's like confronting a murderer with the body

of his victim. It works."

"It wouldn't work with me. I'd just answer yes," said Anita coolly.

"Besides," she added, "there's danger in that method. It might

actually keep people from talking about you."

But Grace didn't mind. That was just Anita's way. "We can't all be

little tartars like you," she said amiably.

The deliberate rhythm of her movements as she went about the business

of making her toilette and choosing her clothes for the evening could

not be ruffled. Each motion was so precise, followed upon every

other so perfectly, had such a smooth place in Grace's daily ritual,

that Anita could not resist following with her eyes and even with her

mind, as one follows involuntarily the rhythm of the hymns and

genuflections in a church, the rhythm of the Perpetual Adoration

before an altar. Grace was ready to do up her hair when Dennis

appeared. She was still engaged with it when Blake followed him.

Making her entrance through the bedroom door, she stood poised for a

moment, in a pale, ocher-colored, georgette dress, the glamorous

product at last of all her small, attuned labors. She glanced at

Dennis, who was neither entirely drunk nor entirely sober, with a

smile of intimate and amused understanding, then turned her eyes to

Anita, as if to reassure her that smiles for Dennis must also be

smiles for her.

"How--are you?" she said gravely, with a slight, coy lift of her brow.

"O.K.," said Dennis. Viewing her luminous harmony with a pleasure

that imprinted itself on his face, he found nothing more to say. He

retired into the silence which was his only way of being dignified

and polite.

Grace passed in front of him and took her place on Blake's lap.

"You ought to be able--to help me out," she said, drawing the great

pools of her eyes from Dennis to Anita, then to their final resting

place on Blake's countenance. "I have to write a woman's magazine

article about Carolyn Hale called, 'What I Think of Love.'"

Blake snickered. "Be sure to spell love with a capital letter. The

capitalization of love is very appropriate for Carolyn Hale."

"Are you--punning, Blake, by any chance?"

She secured her attention entirely to him, gazing in his face and

beginning for him the motions of her special laugh.

"Punning, Blake, is the lowest form of humor," said Anita.

But neither Grace nor Blake appeared to hear or to be affected. They

continued the duet of their particular amusement, while Dennis sat,

silent, with a polite grin glued to his mouth and Anita did not smile

at all and tapped a foot.

It was Grace who interrupted herself, not having lost track of her

plans.

"It's rather--important," she explained. "I'd like to get in with

Carolyn. If I can put this over it'll be quite a good stunt for her.

It might--give me a start with the magazines. And, on the strength

of it, I might--be able to sell Carolyn the idea of making Blake's

play into a movie."

She looked questioningly at Blake. Grace was always tactful about

injecting herself into Blake's affairs, but Anita couldn't help

wondering how much of her interest was a sincere wish to help Blake

and how much was a desire to show him that she was no mere hanger-on

of his new-found importance, that she and her connections were

valuable to him.

He replied by a pleased lift of his brows.

Grace addressed Dennis: "You ought to have some ideas for me, Dennis.

You're a press agent yourself."

"I got out a story like that for a fan magazine," offered Dennis

after a deep silence. "It's the same old hokum. But it might give

you an idea. I could look it up for you."

"That's what they want, the same old hokum," said Blake.

And, "That sounds perfect," declared Grace. "I don't suppose--you

care if I--use--some of it."

"O.K.," said Dennis, shrugging.

Grace paused. "You wouldn't like--to come back here after dinner and

help me--plan it?" She let each word drop slowly from the edges of

her mouth, sweetened with a tentative smile, and glanced at Anita.

"No," said Anita crisply, "we wouldn't like. Are we going to dinner

or aren't we? _I'm_ starved."

Dennis was about to pick up his hat when Grace asked, "Would

you--mind--if I ate with you? Blake has to go to dinner with some

man."

"Oh, all right, come along. We're meeting some friends of Dennis's

later."

"I have to leave you right after dinner," stated Grace.

It was always like that, Anita thought. Not that she objected to

Grace's accompanying them when nothing better turned up--Grace often

invited her along, made many kind attempts to include the social life

of Anita, with Dennis, in the convolutions of her own. But Anita

waited to be asked, while Grace, though it was she who had

established the rule that neither should interfere with the other's

engagements--Grace took it for granted that she was welcome, unless

told otherwise. Anita repeated to herself that she had no right to

resent trifles, considering all Grace had done for her.

She looked from her own work-day silk to Grace's clothes of leisure.

"I suppose I ought to get dressed."

"No," she said suddenly, "I shan't bother." She walked into the

bedroom to smooth her hair. She couldn't and wouldn't compete.

Dennis ought to know by now that she was no beauty alongside of

Grace. Besides, what was there to compete for anyhow?

Grace, following on her heels, offered, "You can wear my blue dress."

"Thanks. No."

Grace would not give advice, but she did think Anita was careless.

"You ought to get--yourself--some more things," she said, with

meaning. "Clothes--are an investment, Anita."

"An investment in what?"

"Well, you needn't be so scornful. Things like that--help."

CHAPTER TWELVE

At two o'clock next morning Anita was riding home alone from Two

Hundred and Twentieth Street. Dark houses, like regimented soldiers,

stood up straight, then fell before the onslaught of the train.

Around her all the drowsy couples were sagging toward each other;

heads nodded lower and lower; heads jerked up to a moment of

consciousness at each stoppage of the train. She should be angry to

be taking this weary subway ride alone at night, yet watching

them--watching the even houses, the drowsy couples, the nodding

heads--she was flooded with the vast relief of her solitary

aliveness; she only felt relief rising like a flag of triumph within

her.

She held herself stiller in her seat, so that no movement of hers

should flaunt to these people her secret victory. In that subway

train she felt her eyes and her eyes only to be alert with a strange

alertness, darting from her moveless self, drawing these people into

her consciousness, while she herself was alone and apart, content to

be so, unreachable by them, unreachable by all, unreachable (and

heaven be praised therefore) unreachable even by Dennis. Oh, this

was the essence of all victories, the smart of all defeats--there

within the grasp of all, to be discovered by all, and ignored by all

the drowsy eyes, the nodding heads, the somber houses. She tightened

her lips; she would have bit them, feeling as if at any moment a

smile would give the concrete signal of the elation soaring in her

veins.

All was dark in the city. Broadway lay wan and disordered. The

Palace was dark, and the burlesque house was dark. Loungers in the

stuffy side streets west of Sixth, about the pallid hotels and

down-at-heels houses, made little lights with sudden cigarettes.

Running up the stairs, she was surprised to hear the taps of the

typewriter.

"My Gawd!" said Grace, confronting her. "I was about to send the

police for you!"

She pointed to the typewritten sheets. "Blake had to work, so I

thought I might as well begin that story."

She looked at Anita sharply, "What's got you so excited? Where

_have_ you been anyhow?"

Anita sank into a chair. It had been one of those evenings which

seem to traverse many separate periods of time; in moments of

awakening, during the transitions, one finds them, much to one's

surprise, to be still continuing. This sort of evening is better

relished in retrospect, when the memory with its own inarticulate art

is found to have selected and retained only the most diverting

incidents. Anita was overcome with accumulated laughter.

They had been at one time in a Chinese restaurant, and there was a

sign, guardian of the place's respectability, and it said, "Ladies

are requested to dance solely with their own escorts." They had sat

at another time in a clandestine German beer garden through whose

musty lattices oozed a gentle backyard breeze, and Dennis spoke of

the beer picnics of his childhood, how cool had been the first breath

of the green branches for which the children waited in the sweating

cars, and Mac--this was Dennis's friend--spoke of God and the Devil,

and Anita announced, a little drunken with Mac's scared admiration,

her lack of concern with either, and Frances--this was Mac's

girl--said that she didn't know--there must be something when one

considered Nature and she said that she loved flowers.

"So then we went back to Two Hundred and Twentieth Street, where

there was a tableful of liquor," said Anita. "And there was a girl

and a man on the couch. But Frances took me aside and told me it was

all right because the girl was a virgin and the man was a respectable

married man and he had eight children. So, at length, the virgin and

the married man departed and Dennis took a cold bath and went to

sleep and snored and Mac took off his shoes and the radio played, 'My

Wild Irish Rose, the sweetest flower that grows,' and Mac and Frances

had a long argument about a friend of hers who was trying to get her

father into an old folks' home, and Mac said, 'So that's the kind of

a girl you are! You and your girl friend, you'd take an old man away

from his kiddies and stow him in some damned old folks' home. If I

was a daddy,' he said, 'I'd want to stay right with my kiddies!'

"So then I decided to go home. But Mac wouldn't hear of it because

he explained Dennis was out and he was out and I couldn't ride home

alone in the subway--'with all those damned mashers around, moving up

close to the girls in the trains late at night.' He knew, he said,

he'd seen 'em! He said I was to stay, and Frances said I could stay.

She said it wasn't every girl she asked to stay; she said once she

had had two girls there who, when asked to stay, objected and said,

'Oh, but we're not like Frances!' So she turned them out. But I

could stay because she said she could see I wasn't 'that kind of a

girl.' By that time I was a little mixed on the subject myself.

"Anyhow, I decided to go. So Dennis woke up and looked at me a long

time and shook his head and said, 'You're too idealistic.' So I

wanted to know why. So then he said, 'A-aah, yah punkie!' in his

nice street-urchin way. 'You're too damn analytical!' Then he told

me I had no abandon and I was the dumbest jane he'd ever run

across--in fact, I was his dumbest woman. Upon which home truths I

sallied forth."

"In Two Hundred and Twentieth Street!" exclaimed Grace. "It's

improbable. Look--couldn't we all go up there some night--Blake

too--and get a look at them?"

"Well, I'm not exactly running excursions up there," Anita pointed

out.

Grace sniggered. "They sound too good to miss. Blake would love

them. We must arrange it."

She paused. During a period of silence an expression adjusted itself

on her face which warned Anita. She was prepared for the slow fixing

of Grace's eyes that slowly turned to her face, for the halting

phrases. She might have known Grace had stayed up for a purpose.

"I've had--an exciting time myself," said Grace.

Anita folded her hands. She listened.

"Blake nearly had a fight over me," Grace continued, and stopped to

see the effect. If she was disappointed it did not show in the

subtle enjoyment about her mouth, nor did it halt the penetrating

spaced flow of her confidences. Blake had had to see someone at a

theater owned by Trout, a producer whose current musical comedy he

had "doctored." "And never thinking," went on Grace, "I was about

to--look in back stage. I've been there so many times with Blake.

The doorkeeper knows me and was going to--pass me. Then Fred walked

up. You know--he's connected with Trout now. I have always told

Blake that Fred made a point of being particularly nasty to me but he

laid it to my imagination. Well--to-night--he saw for himself. Fred

said, 'Don't pass this girl; we can't have everybody's sweeties

hanging around.'"

She paused and swallowed nervously. Anita noticed how her face had

become strained, her cheeks lengthened, under the narrative. These

concrete signs of emotion never failed to exact sympathy from her, no

matter how she might try to evade, to look everywhere, to prevent the

focusing of her attention.

"I simply stood," went on Grace. Anita could imagine how she had

stood, the tragic hugeness of her eyes. "You know--it's dark

there--at the stage door. Neither of us saw Blake. He hissed! He

actually did. He drew his face close up to Fred and he said, 'As

long as I have any connection with this show, Grace can go in and out

here as she damn well pleases, any time. D'ye hear that?' He was so

_white_. I could see he was ready--to smash his fist into Fred's

face. But Fred drew back. As he naturally would. 'Oh, I didn't

know Grace was with _you_,' he said. Very honeyed. Scared, too. I

dare say he and Blake will not do so much--business together in

future."

Anita frowned, wondering what comment she could adequately make. But

Grace spared her the necessity. "I really didn't mind so much," she

concluded, "after it was over. It sort of opened things up--gave us

a chance to talk. Things have been sliding along so..." She looked

to Anita expectantly.

"The divorce?"

"Well--that appears to be still in the distant future," said Grace

with reserve.

She paused. But as Anita asked no further questions she at length

amended: "It's been--intimated, and I understand it was hinted in

reply very coolly that--there might not be so much difficulty about

_that_ as he thought. But this was quite a while ago. Blake says

she's stopped writing."

Anita spoke suddenly what had been on her mind for a long time:

"Don't you think, if Blake told her about you, she'd give the divorce

and make an end of it? After all, she seems to be quite decent."

To her surprise, Grace replied with feeling, "Yes. And it's hard on

her, too. But Blake seems to be--determined to keep me out of it.

He says because of his family--in case--in the future... And

then--he thinks it would hurt her and there might be a mess. I told

him to tell her. If it's for my sake--I don't care about a mess.

And if I were she, no matter what it was, I'd rather _know_.

Wouldn't you, instead of fighting with shadows? But--he--has his own

ideas."

She rose. "Anyhow," she said, shrugging, "nothing can be arranged

for the present. She's sick; something wrong with her heart."

Grace began to loosen her hair. Looking at Anita, who sat still

where she had been left, she made a slow addition, as if, now that

she had taken advantage of a moment so conducive to confidences, she

might as well take the fullest advantage and divest herself of the

rest of the truth. "I have no--assurance that he'll marry me, you

know," she said softly. "He's never actually said so."

She continued with long, calm strokes to brush her hair that vibrated

in little electric spasms of light down its fine spread to her

shoulders, so that her face, white, hardened, with the chin raised,

seemed to be the face of a stone lady surrounded by the strange,

quivering life of the hair. She made a tiny movement of her head and

shoulders. "That doesn't bother me," she said hardily. "I'm just as

likely to--change _my_ mind, too." She almost smiled at her

reflection in the glass, or rather pressed her lips together to form

an expression that was firm, a little secretive, and a little

malicious. "I'm just as much of a person as Blake--just as free to

do as I please."

She brushed for a few moments, absorbed in thought. Then, with a

sigh, she relaxed into a full shrug. "After all, one can't blame

him," she said, indulgent, condoning. "He doesn't want to get

involved again--in all that--domesticity." She scanned Anita's face.

"I suppose it's that way with Dennis, too," she remarked.

But Anita swiftly stood up. "Don't include me!" she cried. With her

hands, she made motions of shoving away, palms toward Grace, head

turned sideways.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

That winter Diana Reece left her husband. She had adopted Letty as

bosom friend and often came to Letty's house, smothered in mink, her

dark, hot eyes flashing in little torrents of energy above excited

cheeks. When she opened her coat she disclosed a new lissomeness

sheathed in black satin. "I've lost ten pounds," she announced in

her rich voice. Walter liked her thin. Walter was the man she would

marry when she had been divorced and he had been divorced. Walter

also liked her in subdued dress, and black was Diana Reece's sole

notion of a quiet color.

She always seemed to be impressed by the sacrifices she was capable

of making for love and was always boasting of them. "The other day

he was a little late in calling me. I had a hair dresser's

appointment. But I give you my word I couldn't move a step from the

telephone. I was like chained to it until I heard his voice!" With

elated conviction her eyes darted from one to another of the group.

Paul rose from the bridge table with the habituated gallantry of the

lady's man, to remove her coat.

She thrust forward one satined arm whose wrist was locked in gleaming

platinum. "This is what Walter gave me for my birthday."

Simultaneously, she curved an index finger loaded with a huge green

stone that stuck out of its silver setting. "And this, too."

"A diamond wrist watch," said Grace, admiring, though privately she

felt above diamond wrist watches. "How nice of him!"

Blake sneered a little. This sneer was lost in the growing roundness

and ruddiness of his face, and there was a faint sense of

after-dinner relaxation about his posture, with knees far apart, as

if for the stomach to rest between. "A diamond wrist watch is

Grace's idea of heaven, isn't it, Grace? She's never got over

envying Madalynne's wrist watch, have you, Grace? Jerry won't get

over it either for a long time. He's still paying the bill for it

while Madalynne sues for breach of promise."

Grace's soft eyes wandered, drawing in sympathy. She said, in a

special voice, at once submissive and explanatory, which she often

used after some remark of his, "Blake thinks--men who give presents

to girls are silly. He thinks because he's never had to, there

aren't men who _must_. Otherwise, girls would not even look at them.

Or men like Walter who--_like_ to give things from sheer generosity."

"Oh, there's no one like Walter for generosity," said Diana warmly.

She turned with a new conviction to the company. "He never comes to

see me without bringing me something. I don't know what to do with

all the candy and flowers. And bath salts! I have tons of bath

salts. All men haven't your ideas, Blake, thank the Lord! You get

away with murder." Shooting him a look of disapproval from her hot

eyes, she sailed into the bedroom.

There was silence. Blake had paled. His mouth had a wry twist, and

when Grace spoke to him he would not answer. She spoke again and

touched his arm. "After all," she reminded him in an undertone, "it

wasn't I who said that." He grimaced impatiently.

As soon as Dee reappeared he took his departure, saying that he must

look in at the theater. His second play had just opened, and, in

view of the fact that he was to begin a well-earned playwright's

vacation the next day, golfing in Florida, he shook hands around the

bridge table and kissed Letty good-bye. Pointedly he ignored Diana

Reece, and would almost have passed Grace by in his sullen mood if

she had permitted it. She followed him out. Through the half-open

door were to be heard ensuing murmurs and the final kiss of

reconciliation.