Nelly took Melissa to luncheon at a tidy little place called The
Roof-Tree Inn, where over a cup of tea and a salad they discussed at
length Melissa’s insurrection and its consequences.
Nelly was mildly sardonic about the Marchesa.
“Granny ... h’m’m!” said she. “I wondered a bit at the time--just how
deep Granny went. But seeing as it was none of my affair--Murdock was
so frightfully pleased with her--you, so frightfully close about it
all....”
“I couldn’t,” said Melissa, eating quantities of bread and butter with
a delightful sense of freedom. “I couldn’t explain anything without
explaining everything ... and just at the moment I was really--”
“Pretty well under the old girl’s thumb. So I gathered,” said Nelly
dryly. “The way you and she beat it back to New York the minute Luke’s
cable came. That was none too subtle, now--was it?”
“None of it was very subtle,” admitted Melissa, flushing. “I felt
sometimes as if everybody must know exactly the sort of game we were
playing....”
“One thing saved you,” said Nelly gravely. “Not at all an uncommon
game. Good many other ladies playing it all the time.” She laughed
abruptly and reaching across the little table patted Melissa’s hand.
“Don’t you care, old dear! You’ve bucked her off, now--which is the
chief consideration. You’ll be on your own, henceforward--and thank
God, fasting!... You say Roderick went straight to her with the news
when you wouldn’t have him?”
“I asked him to tell her, at once,” said Melissa.
“And she swooped down on you--directly?”
“Yes--but--you can’t altogether blame her. She’s spent a good bit on
me....”
“She’s gotten a good bit out of you, too, I’d say--in the way of
belated excitement, for her necessarily innocuous old age. No--I
wouldn’t let that worry me--the matter of value received, in her case.
I’d say you’d been manna in the wilderness. Darned clever of her to
have contrived it! Thing to consider now is--where to find you a
job--and how soon?”
“I’m starting out this afternoon--to look for one.”
“Good enough,” said Nelly, pouring herself a second cup and reaching
for her cigarette-case. “However--why waste time in a general drive?
I’ve been thinking it over, since you telephoned this morning, and I
think I know just the thing....”
“Nelly--you’re too good to me!”
“Rot!” said Nelly pleasantly. “I’d like to make an honest woman of you.
I’m getting a big kick out of it. How’s this?... Are you a pretty fair
typist?”
“Rather more than fair,” said Melissa, looking back at her, unsmiling.
“Shorthand?”
“Of course.”
“What did you say your last position was? Before the gilded cage and
the drugged bird-seed?”
“I was in a publishing office.”
“Can you give them as reference?”
Melissa frowned. “I don’t suppose I could--you see, when the Marchesa
offered to do what she did--I just--walked out on them.”
“Not so good, h’m’m?”
“No--I’m quite sure they were annoyed. The junior partner was rather
keen on my doing his letters and all that.”
“I see. Well--” said Nelly thoughtfully, “I’ll use what drag I’ve got
for you. Ever hear of Neith and Brooks ... the playbrokers?”
Melissa said she never had. She sat forward in her chair, tense with an
eagerness which she couldn’t bear even Nelly to see.
“Brooks is rather a friend of mine,” said Nelly. “I happen to know he’s
looking for some one. Had dinner with him the other night. He talked a
lot of shop. I might be able to get you in there. It’s just a chance.
I’ll take your word for it that you’re good.” She had taken out a
card and was scribbling something on it with a stubby pencil from her
bag--she glanced up at Melissa keenly.
“As a typist--I’m good,” said Melissa.
“They probably won’t want you to take over the management of the office
at once,” Nelly assured her. She skidded the card across the table.
“Give that to old Brooks--with my love. He may come through and he may
not. It’s worth trying. Sure you’re through with the other thing?”
“Quite sure,” said Melissa. “I thought I had made you see, Nelly....”
“Only kidding,” said Nelly briefly. “I believe you. Couldn’t be
bothered--if I didn’t. One thing I don’t get ... you went into it with
the idea of collecting an eligible young man ... correct me if I’m
wrong....”
“No--you’re not wrong. That was why I did it.”
“And you had--well--conservatively speaking--four good chances--and
threw ’em all out ... is that right?”
“Quite right,” said Melissa. “That is--with Austin.... I merely
supposed....”
“You could have had Austin,” said Nelly calmly. “He told me all about
it one night on a particularly good party. He was hooked. You had
only to pull him in. Naturally when you didn’t--he got away ... never
mind Austin ... what I’m getting at is--why the change of heart? If
you wanted less than a year ago to marry--why don’t you want to, now?
What’s happened in the meantime to stand you up on your own two feet?
Are you trying to tell me that the mere fact that none of these men was
the mythical _One_ Man.... I’d like to believe you, my dear--but it’s
difficult! Luke alone--Luke’s a knock-out.... No woman in her senses
would say no to him--unless there were somebody else, perhaps....”
Melissa locked her hands together upon the table. “There _was_
somebody else,” she said, “or it would have been Luke.”
Then she told Nelly what she hadn’t quite meant to tell because it made
so implausible a story--with the picture gone--and not even Kathleen
for witness.... When she had finished, Nelly was silent for a moment or
so, then shrugged and snapped her fingers and laughed. As Melissa had
expected.
“You _are_ an old dear!” she said. “It’s a sweet story ... but are you
absolutely certain it isn’t a hang-over from that beastly illness you
had? Remember you were out of your head for days. Or so they told me
whenever I telephoned. You might have dreamed it, then ... mightn’t
you?... Influenza does queer things to the old bean....”
“You don’t mean you think I’m--not sane?” cried Melissa in horror.
“Heavens no! Don’t be absurd! But you might have gotten an idée fixe
at that time--and not shaken it off, afterwards. D’y’ see? Or more
likely still ... look here! People change from year to year. A bit more
weight--a bit less hair--and ... there goes Romeo--here comes Babbitt!
The picture may have been taken in Mr. Delano’s tenderer youth ...
before the clumsy hand of Time....”
Melissa shook her head. A sense of utter futility numbed her. She felt
that she had made her last attempt to explain to any one, however
sympathetic, the change in herself and the reason for that change.
She said quietly: “It wasn’t Delano. It couldn’t have been.” But she
stood as she said it and picked up bag and gloves so as to avoid any
further discussion. “Well, Nelly ... if you think there’s a chance ...
I’ll call on Mr. Brooks this afternoon ... and thanks, a lot!”
“Good luck!” said Nelly.
They parted on the sidewalk with a handclasp that was, for Melissa, at
least, curiously comforting.
She thought, as she rode up Fifth Avenue on top of a bus--Neith and
Brooks had an office in the West Thirties--what luck it was for her,
having Nelly as counselor.
Odd, that out of the whole ten months in surroundings which allowed her
all the chance in the world to meet and attach the sort of people she
wanted, she should have come through with one friend ... and that a
woman!
“But Nelly,” thought Melissa, watching the tall buildings slide past
beneath a sultry blue sky ... “is not in the least like other women.
She’s honest. And she’s free.”
So was Melissa free--once more. Free to be as honest as she liked--or
was able. Something like a cry fluttered in her throat. Her eyes filled
suddenly with tears. She blinked them away and set her teeth on her lip.
“What a fool I’ve been! To let that horrible old woman use me like that
... a doll she put together ...” the phrase had always rankled ...
“whether I get this place or not ... I’ll get some place, somewhere
... it’s going to be good, earning what I eat--and wear--once again!
Owning my own soul....”
She left the bus at Thirty-first Street and walked over to the address
which Nelly had given her. When she stood before the black-lettered
door of Neith and Brooks, her heart was thudding in her breast and her
hands were clenched on the little gray leather bag she carried but her
head was well up and her voice was clear; the same contralto which had
first procured her an engagement at reading aloud to the Marchesa ...
how long, how long ago!
“I have a card to Mr. Brooks, from Miss Rivers,” said Melissa. A
non-committal young person took it in to him.
After ten minutes in the outer office, Melissa was admitted.
Mr. Brooks proved not too alarming. A large, rangy, tweed-suited
gentleman with a slightly husky voice and roughish brown hair. He
looked Melissa over at some length and twisting Nelly’s card between
his fingers admitted that he was looking for some one with a fair
amount of speed and a more than fair amount of intelligence.
“Girl that’s been taking my letters for over five years, leaving this
week to get married,” said Mr. Brooks morosely. “I’m a creature of
habit. Get used to one stenographer and hate to make a change. Nelly
Rivers says you’re good.”
Melissa only bowed.
“Y’ look intelligent enough,” continued Mr. Brooks impersonally.
Melissa bowed again.
Mr. Brooks was interrupted by the telephone at his elbow. He held a
brief and rather temperamental conversation with some man at the other
end of it who wished to know--apparently--when he could have lunch with
Mr. Brooks, and discuss a play.
“Call me up next Friday--” said Mr. Brooks in slightly irritated
conclusion and returned to Melissa. He was interrupted at about two
minute intervals, thereafter, in the course of a rather meandering
interview, in which Melissa nevertheless fancied she discerned on his
part keen appraisement and cool swiftness of decision.
She felt she should like to work for Mr. Brooks. And said so,
surprisingly to herself, “I will do my best,” said Melissa earnestly.
“Well--like to do Nelly a favor--and have a good deal of respect for
her judgment. Give you a trial,” said Mr. Brooks. He added details of
salary and working hours.
As Melissa went out, he was once more hunched over the telephone,
exclaiming with extraordinary vehemence.... “For God’s sake, man--I’m
full up the rest of this week. Call me about Tuesday and I’ll take it
up with you, then....”
Life, as Mr. Brooks’ stenographer, Melissa decided, going down in the
elevator, would not be empty of purpose. Nor of interest.
Except for Nelly she might never have heard of Mr. Brooks--might
merely have made the weary round of office after office, clipping
advertisements from the Help Wanted columns of the _Times_, being
turned away here and put off there, being asked to leave her address
... and knowing exactly what that meant. After days of waiting ...
nothing at all!
Nelly had bridged all that--with a card and a scribbled word.
Melissa went back to the studio, flushed with gratitude.
She told Nelly everything over a rather patchy but sufficiently
appetizing dinner of sausages and scrambled eggs which Nelly got
together in the tiny kitchen just off the bathroom,--and Nelly hugged
her and laughed.
“Fine for Brooks! I thought we could land him. Now make good or
bust--will you?”
“I’ll do my best,” promised Melissa once more.
“Because, you see,” said Nelly casually--“I may be opening next month
in a musical show he’s interested in....”
“Oh, Nelly--”
“And I don’t want to give myself a black eye--in the meantime.”
She wouldn’t let Melissa thank her. She began to sing through the
sputter of her cookery--in a rich legato--
“Down near the end of a wandering lane, that runs by the cares of
day--
Where conscience and memory meet and explain their quaint little
quarrels away.
A misty air-castle stands there in the dusk....”
Melissa sat with one foot tucked under her on the chair by the kitchen
window listening, her dark eyes wistful.