Stephen Durland discussed with Grace everything pertaining to his new
connection with the Kemp concern. He had made so many mistakes in his
life that he didn’t want to risk making any more, he said pathetically
at a noon hour which Grace spent with him after he had agreed to the
terms Kemp had proposed through Trenton.
“A thousand dollars just for an option looks mighty big,” he said.
“I never expected to see that much money again. And I’m to draw two
hundred a month from the Kemp Company while I’m building a motor out
there. It’s pretty nice, Grace.”
He wanted to give her the thousand dollars and any income he might
derive from the improved motor as compensation for what he felt was the
wrong she had suffered through his inability to keep her in college.
He was greatly in earnest about this and showed his affection for her
in a shy gentle fashion that touched her deeply. She laughed him into
accepting her rejection of his offer and overruled his decision not to
tell his wife and Ethel of his brightening prospects. The motor might
not stand up under the tests, he said, and he wished to avoid the
necessity of confessing a fresh failure.
“Don’t be afraid; I’ll see that you don’t get scolded! You just strut
around the house and make the most of your success--for that’s what it
is! Mr. Trenton told me he was sure your improvements were enormously
important--greater efficiency, greater economy of operation and every
other little old thing you’ve thought up in that dear bean of yours!”
“Trenton’s a fine man. He’s been mighty nice to me,” said Durland.
“It’s a pleasure to talk to a man who catches an idea so quick. I guess
Kemp does pretty much what he says. I don’t know Kemp. I never thought
of it till after the break, but Cummings never wanted me to meet other
manufacturers in our line. Guess he didn’t trust me,” he ended with a
grim smile. “Afraid I might get away from him before he was sure I’d
petered out.”
“He guessed wrong, daddy! We’ll let Cummings do the worrying now.”
On the day he closed his shop in the Power Building and moved to the
experimental room that had been fitted up for him at Kemp’s big plant
Durland mentioned his new prospects at the supper table. He made the
disclosure so slightingly that Mrs. Durland and Ethel, who had been
busily discussing the merits of a novel they had been reading and Ethel
thought grossly immoral, failed to catch the point of the revelation
until he had cleared his throat and announced for a second time that he
was moving out to Kemp’s to do a little experimenting.
“I guess that’s yours, Allie,” he remarked, producing the check. “Got
it for an option on a patent I’ve been tinkering at. Trenton, that
Pittsburgh expert, recommended it to Kemp.”
“Trenton?” repeated Ethel, carefully scrutinizing the Kemp
Manufacturing Company’s check before passing it on to her mother.
“Yes; Ward Trenton,” Durland replied with a note of pride that so
distinguished an engineer had recognized his merits. “He keeps track
of everything that goes through the patent office for clients he’s got
all over the country. I’m going to build some of my motors at Kemp’s;
they’ve given me a lot better place to work in than I used to have at
Cummings’s, and I’m going to have all the help I want. And I’m to draw
two hundred a month while I’m there. I guess that’s fair enough.”
“This is your friend, Trenton, is it, Grace?” asked Ethel, awed into
respect by the size of the check.
“The same,” Grace replied, carelessly meeting Ethel’s gaze across the
table. “He’s the kindest man imaginable. You can hardly complain of his
treatment of father.”
“I’ve _always_ believed in father,” said Ethel. “I hope Isaac Cummings
will see in this a retribution--God’s punishment for the way he treated
father.”
“Let’s not hand out the retribution to Cummings till Kemp’s satisfied
about the motor,” suggested Grace.
“We’re all proud of you, Stephen,” said Mrs. Durland, smoothing the
creases in the check. “I’m writing Roy tonight and I’ll tell him the
good news. Of course I’ll warn him not to speak of it. Your success
will be a great incentive to the dear boy. He was so contrite over his
behavior while he was home that I’m glad to have this news for him. We
should all feel grateful. Something told me when Isaac Cummings turned
you out that it was for the best. I’ll never again question the ways of
Providence. I don’t feel like taking this money, Stephen, but it will
come in handy in giving Roy a start.”
In the happier spirit that now dominated the home circle Grace’s
increasingly frequent absences for evenings and occasionally for a
night passed with little or no remark.
“You’ve got to live your life in your own way,” Mrs. Durland would say
with a sigh when she found Grace leaving the house after supper. “I
hardly see you any more.”
To guard against awakening in Ethel’s mind any suspicion that her
evenings away from home coincided with Trenton’s presence in town,
which her father usually mentioned, Grace made a point of going out
at times when Trenton was away. There were always things she could
do--entertainments among the Shipley employees, dances, theatre
parties of business girls with whom she had become acquainted. These
engagements she refrained from describing with any particularity as
this would make the more marked her silence on evenings when she went
to Minnie Lawton’s to meet Trenton. She had adopted a regular formula
when she left the house, saying merely, “I’m going out for a little
while,” which her mother and Ethel had schooled themselves to accept as
an adequate explanation of her absences.
Mrs. Bob Cummings looked in on her one day at Shipley’s with the
promised invitation to dinner, and to go to a club dance afterwards,
which Grace refused only because the dramatic club of Shipley employees
was giving a play the same night and she had a leading part. And Miss
Reynolds dropped in to the ready-to-wear department frequently when she
was down town and occasionally asked Grace to dinner.
The mild winter almost imperceptibly gave way before the blithe
heralds of spring and April appeared smiling at the threshold.
No cloud darkened the even course of her affair with Trenton. She was
more and more convinced of the depth and sincerity of her love for him
and he was the tenderest, the most considerate of lovers. When she did
not see him, sometimes for a week or fortnight, his messages floated
back with those constant reassurances of his loyalty and affection that
are the very food of love. He rarely mentioned his wife in their talks
and Grace was no longer a prey to jealousy. She wondered sometimes
whether he had ever broached to Mrs. Trenton the matter of the divorce
at which he had hinted, but Grace found herself caring little about
this one way or another. She exulted in her independence, complacent in
the thought that she was a woman of the Twentieth Century, free to use
her life as she would.