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THE GORGEOUS GIRL
by
NALBRO BARTLEY
Illustrated
[Illustration: "He was very diplomatic in his undertaking"]
Garden City--New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1920
Copyright, 1920, By
Doubleday, Page & Company
All Rights Reserved, Including That of
Translation into Foreign Languages,
Including the Scandinavian
Copyright, 1919, 1920, by The Curtis Publishing Company
ILLUSTRATIONS
"He was very diplomatic in his undertaking" Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
"The Gorgeous Girl had never known anything but the
most gorgeous side of life" 12
"It was with a charming timidity that she tip-toed
into the office" 188
"A get-rich-quick man always pays for his own speed" 284
THE GORGEOUS GIRL
CHAPTER I
"Before long two bank accounts will beat as one," Trudy said to Mary
Faithful. "Tra-la-la-la-la," humming the wedding march while the
office force of the O'Valley Leather Company listened with expressions
ranging from grins to frowns.
"Sh-h-h! Mr. O'Valley has just opened his door." As she was private
secretary and general guardian to Steve O'Valley, president of the
concern, Miss Faithful's word usually had a decisive effect.
But Trudy was irrepressible. Besides boarding at the Faithful home and
thus enjoying a certain intimacy with Mary, she was one of those young
persons who holds a position merely as a means to an end--the sort who
dresses to impress everyone, from the president of the concern if he
is in the matrimonial or romantic market to the elevator boy if said
elevator boy happens to have a bank account capable of taking one to
all the musical shows and to supper afterward. Having been by turns a
milliner's apprentice, assistant in a beauty parlour, and cashier in a
business men's restaurant, Truletta Burrows had acquired a certain
chicness enabling her to twist a remnant of chiffon or straw into a
creation and wear it in impressive contrast with her baby-blue eyes
and Titian-red hair. In the majority of cases where a girl has
neither family nor finances she must seek a business situation in
order to win a husband. Trudy went after her game in no hesitating
manner.
She had no intention of becoming one of the multitude of commercial
nuns who inhabit the United States of America this day--quiet women
with quick eyes, a trifle cold or pensive if analyzed, severely combed
hair, trim tailor suits and mannish blouses with dazzling neckties as
their bit of vanity--the type that often shoulders half the
responsibility of the firm. Whether achieving a private office and a
nervous stenographer who is disappointed at having a lady boss is to
be preferred to a house-and-garden career is, like all vital issues, a
question for debate.
Neither did Trudy propose to shrivel into a timid, slave-like type of
person kept on the pay roll from pity or by reason of the fact that
initiating a novice would be troublesome. Such a one was Miss Nellie
Lunk, who sat in a corner of the hall making out requisition slips and
taking care of unwelcome visitors--a pathetic figure with faded eyes
and scraggly hair, always keeping a posy on her old-style desk and
crocheting whenever there was a lull in work. Thirty years in business
was Miss Lunk's record, twenty-five in Mark Constantine's office and
five in the employ of Mr. O'Valley, that lovable, piratical Irishman
who achieved his success by being a brilliant opportunist and who, it
would seem, ran a shoestring into a fortune by a wink of his blue
eyes.
Trudy knew that Miss Lunk lived alone--the third story back, where she
cooked most of her meals, while a forlorn canary cheeped a welcome.
She possessed a little talking machine with sentimental records, and
on Sundays she went to a cafeteria for a good, hearty meal unless
cousins asked her to their establishment. Some day Miss Lunk would
find herself in a home with other no longer useful old people and here
she would stay with her few keepsakes, of which the world knew nothing
and cared less, the cousins dropping in at intervals to impress upon
her how carefree and fortunate she was!
In conclusion Trudy had decided not to accept the third choice of the
modern business woman, which, she decided, was Mary Faithful's
fate--to give your heart to a man who never had thought of you and
never would think of you as other than a reliable and agreeable
machine; as someone--should Florida and a certain Gorgeous Girl named
Beatrice Constantine beckon--who would say:
"Yes, Mr. O'Valley, I understand what to do. I arranged the New
Haven sale this morning. You were at the jewellery store to see
about Miss Constantine's ring. So I long-distanced Martin & Newman
and put it through. If the ring is sent in your absence I know what
you have ordered and can return it if it does not comply with
instructions--platinum set with diamonds, three large stones of a
carat each and the twenty smaller stones surrounding them. And a
king's-blue velvet case with her initials in platinum. And you want me
to discharge Dundee and divide up his work. Yes, I gave the janitor
the gold piece for finding your pet cane. I'll wire you every day."
And Steve O'Valley had swung jauntily out of the office, secure in his
secretary's ability to meet any crisis, to have to work alone in the
almost garish office apparently quite content that she was not going
to Florida, too. Trudy's imagination pictured there a someone
petulant, spoiled, and altogether irresistible in the laciest of white
frocks and a leghorn hat with pink streamers, at whose feet Steve
O'Valley offered some surprise gift worth months of Mary Faithful's
salary while he said: "I ran away from work to play with you, Gorgeous
Girl! See how you demoralize me? Even your father frowned when I said
I was coming. How are you, darling? I don't give a hang if I make poor
Miss Faithful run the shop for a year as long as you want me to play
with you."
Having the advantage of studying Mary Faithful's position both from
the business and family aspects Trudy had long ago decided that she
was not going to be like her. In no way did she envy Mary's position.
Since her dreamer of a father had died and left dependent upon her her
four-year-old brother and a mother whose chief concern in life was to
have the smartest-looking window curtains in the neighbourhood, Mary
went to work at thirteen with a remnant of an education. Possessions
spelled happiness to Mrs. Faithful; poetical dreams had been Mr.
Faithful's chief concern, and as an unexpected consequence their first
child had been endowed with common sense. With Mary at the wheel there
had been just enough to get along with, so they stayed on in the
old-fashioned house while Mrs. Faithful bewailed Mary's having to work
for a living and not be a lady, as she could have been if her father
had had any judgment.
Mrs. Faithful had become quite happy in her martyrdom as she was still
able to maintain the starched window curtains. After a conventional
period of mourning she began to relive the past, her husband's
mistakes, her own girlhood and offers of marriage--such incidents as
these sufficed to keep her from enjoying the present, while Mary rose
from errand girl to grocery clerk, with night school as a recreation,
from grocery clerk to filing clerk, assistant bookkeeper, bookkeeper,
stenographer, and finally private secretary to Steve O'Valley, one of
the war-fortune kings. And she had given her heart to him in the same
loyal way she had always given her services.
At home Trudy noted that Mary worked round the house because she liked
the change from office routine, deaf to the complaining maternal voice
reciting past glories in which Mary had no part. If the parlour
furniture with its tidies and a Rogers group in the front window
sometimes got on her nerves she forced herself to laugh over it and
say: "It's mother's house, and all she has." She concerned herself far
more with Luke, an active, fair-to-middling American boy somewhat
inclined to be spoiled. Mary had taken Luke into the office after
school hours to keep a weather eye on him and make him contribute a
stipend to the expenses.
"If a man won't work he should not eat," she informed him as she
proportioned his wage.
Recalling Mary's position at home--though Trudy rejoiced in her own
front room and the comforts of the household--she shrugged her
shoulders in disapproval. Certainly she could never endure the same
lot in life. For if one man will not love you why waste time bewailing
the fact? Find another. Mary could have had other suitors. Mr.
Tompkins, the city salesman, and young Elias, of Elias & Son, had both
made brave attempts to plead their cause, only to be treated in the
same firm manner that Luke was treated when he hinted of making off to
sea.
"She'll spend her life loving Steve O'Valley and slaving for him,"
Trudy had confided to her dozen intimate friends, who never repeated
anything told them. "And he will spend his life being trampled on by
Beatrice Constantine, and after they are married she will be meaner
than ever to him. But he will love her all the more. Honest, business
men make the grandest husbands! College professors are lots harder to
get along with--but business men are as cross as two sticks in their
offices and at home they're so sweet it would melt pig iron."
The first plank in Trudy's platform was to marry a business man as
nearly like Steve O'Valley as possible. The second was--whether or not
she had a stunning home with brick fireplaces--never to spend her days
hanging round them. Her most envied friend lived in New York, and her
life was just one roof garden after another. She had everything heart
could desire--Oriental rugs, a grandfather's clock, a mechanical
piano, bird-of-paradise sprays for her hat, a sealskin ulster, and
plenty of alimony. And in case said business man proved unsatisfactory
Trudy had resolved to exchange him for unlimited legal support at the
earliest possible opportunity.
But she would not trespass upon Mary's platform, which consisted of
loving Steve O'Valley yet knowing of his love for the Gorgeous Girl,
as Mark Constantine had named his daughter. And of course Mary must
have realized that though she might earn three thousand a year as
private secretary she would eternally lock her desk at six o'clock and
trudge home to her mother and the starched window curtains, watch
Luke fall in love and scorn her advice, wash her hemstitched ruffles
and black her boots, and keep her secret as she grew older and plainer
of face!
Trudy often tried to decide just how handsome and how plain Mary was;
it was a matter for argument because the expression of Mary Faithful's
eyes largely determined her charm. She was a sober young person with
thick braids of brown hair and surprising niceties of dress, sensible
shoes, a frill of real lace on her serge dress, no hint of perfume, no
attempt at wearing party attire for business as the rest of the staff
not only attempted but unfortunately achieved. She had honest gray
eyes, the prophecy of true greatness in her face with its flexible
mouth and prominent cheek bones, the sort of woman who would be the
mother of great men, tall and angular in build and walking with an
athletic stride offset by a feminine cry-baby chin and the usual
mediocre allotment of freckles on the usual mediocre nose! Mary
Faithful was not pretty; she was a "good-looking thing," Trudy would
usually conclude, glancing in a near-by mirror to approve of the way
her fluff of pink tulle harmonized with her pink camisole under the
tissue-paper bodice.
Indulging in one of these reveries Trudy suddenly realized that she
had not added the checks on her desk. She went to work disdainfully,
first feeling of her skirt and waist at the back, slipping a caramel
in her mouth, and making eyes at a clerk who passed her desk.
Mary came out of her office and stopped before Trudy accusingly. "I've
been waiting for these," she said.
"It's so grand out to-day--look at that sunshine! May's the hardest
month of the year to work; you just can't help planning your summer
clothes."
"Miss Constantine is coming to call for Mr. O'Valley and I want his O.
K. on those before he gets away."
"Listen, don't you think the diamonds he is buying her are vulgar? A
bunch of electric bulbs is what I call it, I certainly would not
permit----"
Mary's pencil tapped authoritatively on the desk, then she signed an
order someone brought her.
"Are they going to be married at high noon in church?"
"Yes--June the first."
"Lucky girl! She's older than me; everyone says so. It's only her
money and clothes that has built her up. I don't think she's so much.
Her nose is as flat as a pancake and she rouges something fierce. I
saw them at the theatre and I certainly was----"
Mary took the checks out of Trudy's hand and walked away. Undecided as
to her course of action Trudy hummed a few bars of "Moving Man, Don't
Take My Baby Grand" and then followed Mary into her office.
Mary added up the checks without glancing at her caller. Then she said
sharply: "I cannot pay out someone else's money for work that is not
done."
"Don't get a grouch on; it will spread through the whole plant. When
you're cross everybody's cross."
"Then do your work--for it isn't much." She could not help adding:
"You think I can smooth over everything just because you board with
me."
Trudy giggled. "It's the wedding in the air, and spring, and those
diamonds! She never works, she never does anything but spend the money
we make for her. All she has is a good time, and what's the use of
living if you don't have a good time? I'll have it if I have to steal
it. Oh, you needn't look so horrified. Steve O'Valley almost stole his
fortune just because he had to be a rich man before Constantine would
let him marry his daughter. Anyway, I'd rather have a good time for a
few years and then die than to live to be a hundred and never have an
honest-to-goodness party. Wouldn't you?"
"You're foolish to-day. If you only wouldn't wear such low-cut waists
and talk to the men! Mr. O'Valley has noticed it."
"I can get another job and another boarding house," Trudy began,
defiantly.
"You wouldn't last out at either. You need this sort of a place and
our sort of house, you ridiculous little thing. Besides, you have
Gaylord at your beck and call"--Trudy blushed--"and you seem to
manage to have a pretty good time when all is said and done. I do
feel responsible for you because at twenty-three you are more
scatterbrained than----"
"Finish it--than you were at thirteen! Well, what of it? I'm out for a
good time and you are always talking about the right time, I suppose.
I'll take your lecture without weeping and promise to reform. But
don't be surprised at anything I may do regarding tra-la-la-la-la."
She burst into the wedding march again and vanished, Mary shaking her
head as she prepared to sign off some letters.
Steve O'Valley opened the door connecting their offices, displaying a
face as happy as a schoolboy's on a Christmas holiday. "Miss
Constantine is downstairs, I'm going to escort her up," he announced,
shutting the door as abruptly as he had opened it.
Presently there came into Steve's office someone who was saying in a
light, gay voice: "Perfectly awful old place, Stevuns--as bad as
papa's. I hate business offices; make my head ache. It was Red Cross
to-day, and after that I had to rush to cooking school----"
Steve answered in rapt fashion: "I'll have to talk to Miss Faithful
for half a jiffy and then I'm free for the rest of the day----"
opening the door of Mary's office and beckoning to her.
Coming into his office Mary nodded pleasantly at the Gorgeous Girl,
who nodded pleasantly in return and settled herself in an easy-chair
while Steve rehearsed the things to be attended to the following day
since he was not to be at the office.
"I'm getting Miss Faithful ready to run the shop single-handed," he
explained, telling Mary details which she already knew better than he
but to which she listened patiently, her twilight eyes glancing now at
Beatrice and back again at Steve.
Outside the hum of commerce played the proper accompaniment to Steve
O'Valley's orders and Mary's thoughts and Beatrice's actions--a
jangling yet accurate rhythm of typewriters and adding machines and
office chatter, pencil sharpeners, windows being opened, shades
adjusted, wastebaskets dragged into position, boys demanding their
telegrams or delivering the same, phone bells ringing, voices asking
for Mr. O'Valley and being told that he was not in, other voices
asking for Miss Faithful and being told she was not at liberty just
now--would they be seated? Trudy's giggle rose above the hum at odd
intervals, elevators crept up and down, and outside the spring air
escorted the odour of hides and tallow and what not, grease and
machine oil and general junk from across the courtyard; trucks rumbled
on the cobblestones while workingmen laughed and quarrelled--a
confusing symphony of the business world. While Steve hurriedly gave
his orders Mary Faithful in almost the panoramic fashion of the
drowning swiftly recalled the incidents of Steve's life and of the
Gorgeous Girl's and her own as well, forcing herself mechanically to
say yes and no in answer to his questions and to make an occasional
notation.
[Illustration: "The Gorgeous Girl had never known anything but the most
gorgeous side of life"]
The panorama rather bewildered her; it was like being asked to
describe a blizzard while still in it, whereas one should be sitting
in a warm, cheery room looking impersonally at the storm swirl.
First of all, she thought of Steve O'Valley's Irish grandfather, by
like name, who spent his life in Virginia City trying to find a claim
equal to the Comstock lode, dying penniless but with a prospector's
optimism that had he been permitted to live _manana_ surely would have
seen the turning of the tide. Old O'Valley's only son and his son's
wife survived him until their ability to borrow was at an end and work
would have been their only alternative. So they left a small,
black-haired, blue-eyed young man named Stephen O'Valley to battle
single-handed with the world and bring honour to his name.
The first twelve years of the battle were spent in an orphanage in the
Grass Valley, the next four as a chore boy on a ranch, after which the
young man decided with naive determination that in order to obtain
anything at all worth while he must be fully prepared to pay its
price, and that he desired above all else to become a rich man--a
truly rich man, and marry a fairy-princess sort of person. And as far
as education was concerned he felt that if he was not quite so
brushed up on his A B C's as he was on minding his P's and Q's the
result would not be half bad. Unconsciously his attitude toward the
world was a composite of the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, the
cynical wisdom of Omar Khayyam, and plain and not to be duplicated
Yankee pep.
As Steve planned it he was to leave his mark on the world and not
endure the world's mark upon himself. This straight-limbed and
altogether too handsome youngster--his grandmother had been a
Basque--possessed the same quality of the fortune hunter as his
grandfather, only he did not propose to do his prospecting in the
mines of Nevada. Following the general tactics of a Stone Age man--a
belief in muscle and great initiative--Steve found himself at
twenty-four in the city of Hanover and in the employ of Mark
Constantine, a hide-and-leather magnate who was said to be like all
hard-boiled eggs--impossible to beat. After Steve advanced to the top
notch of his ability he discovered that the only reason he was not
considered as a junior member of the firm was because he could not buy
stock. At this same time Beatrice Constantine had become interested in
him.
To her mind Steve was different in other ways than merely being
handsome and possessed of physical strength. And she considered that
if he had a fortune he would be far more wonderful than any of the
young gentlemen of her set who wondered which would be the lucky chap
to lead Constantine's Gorgeous Girl to the wedding-license bureau.
In the seventeen-year-old patronizing fashion of a Gorgeous Girl she
permitted Steve to see that she was interested, and Steve with the
romance of his Basque grandmother and the audacity of his Irish
grandfather immediately thought of what a strange and wonderful thing
it would be if he could by hook or crook become a rich man all in the
twinkling of an eye, and marry this superior, elegant little person.
The Gorgeous Girl had never known anything but the most gorgeous side
of life. Her father, self-made from a boyhood as poor as Steve's,
carved his way to the top without delay or remorse for any one he may
have halted or harmed in the so doing. He had wisely married a working
girl whom he loved in undemonstrative fashion, and when at the turning
point of his career she bore him a daughter and then died he erected
an expensive monument to her memory and took his oath that their
daughter should be the most gorgeous girl in Hanover and that her life
should be spent in having as good a time as her father's fortune
allowed. He then invited his widowed sister to live with him and take
charge of his child.
After this interlude he returned to his business grimmer of face and
harsher of heart, and the world was none the wiser regarding his grief
for the plain-faced woman in the churchyard. As his fortune multiplied
almost ironically he would often take time to think of his wife
Hannah, who was so tired of pots and pans and making dollars squeal so
that he might succeed and who was now at rest with an imposing marble
column to call attention to the fact.
So the Gorgeous Girl, as Hanover called her, half in ridicule and half
in envy, developed into a gorgeous young woman, as might be expected
with her father to pay her bills and her Aunt Belle to toddle meekly
after her. Aunt Belle, once married to a carpenter who had
conveniently died, never ceased to rejoice in her good fortune. She
was never really quite used to the luxury that had come to her instead
of to the woman in the churchyard. She revelled in Beatrice's clothes,
her own elaborate costumes, ordered the servants about, went to
Florida and the Bermudas whenever the Gorgeous Girl saw fit, rolled
about the country in limousines, and secretly admired the hideous
mansion Constantine had built--an ornate, overbearing brick affair
with curlicue trimmings and a tower with a handful of minor turrets.
It was furnished according to the dictates of a New York decorator,
though Constantine added several large pieces of village colour after
the decorator had pronounced his work as ended.
Hannah had always planned for a red-velvet cozy corner, and
Constantine didn't give a dozen damns if they were out of date--a red
velvet cozy corner was going to be installed in the blue drawing room.
A Swiss music box was another thing Hannah had hankered after--spoken
of just before she died--so the Swiss music box was given a place of
honour beside the residence pipe organ, and likewise some draperies
with plush tassels. The decorator, having his check, did not attempt
to argue, since his clientele were not apt to stop off at Hanover and
discover the crime.
Aunt Belle saw that Beatrice had a governess, a dancing teacher, more
party frocks than any other little girl in Hanover, and later on a
French maid and other accessories necessary to being a Gorgeous Girl.
In reality a parasitical little snob, hopelessly self-indulged, though
originally kind-hearted and rather clever; and utterly useless but
unconscious of the fact. She was sent to a finishing school, after
which she thought it would be more fun to go abroad to another
finishing school and study music and art, travelling summers instead
of having a formal debut. Most of her chums were doing this and so she
went with them. The red velvet cozy corner and the music box and so on
disappeared immediately upon her first return visit. Likewise Beatrice
succeeded finally in dissuading Aunt Belle from wearing her jewellery
while travelling, though that outspoken lady never could refrain from
vivid descriptions of it to her fellow passengers.
After the European sojourn the Gorgeous Girl went in for Hanover
society and proved herself a valuable asset. She was nearly
twenty-four, almost as slight of figure as a child, as dainty as
Watteau's most delicate imaginings, with tiny, nondescript features,
lovely sunshine hair, and big dove-coloured eyes with pale-gold
lashes. Meantime, the question of a husband for this lovely young
person was before the household. She had had a dozen offers of
marriage but accepted none of them because she had plenty of time and
loads of money and she wanted to make the best of her unencumbered
youth as long as possible. Besides, it was now considered great fun to
go in for charities, she was ever so busy serving on committees, she
never had a moment for herself, and it would take months to plan a
trousseau and a wedding and decide about her house. Most important of
all was the fact that when she was about to go to the French finishing
school she had told Steve O'Valley that if he did not come to her
farewell party she would be quite hurt. She felt he did not appreciate
the honour in having been asked.
Steve, who would have lain down and let her walk over him roughshod,
said simply: "But I'm poor. I'm not in a position to meet your
friends."
"Then be rich--and I'll ask you again," she challenged.
"If I were a rich man--would you let me try?"
"See if I wouldn't." And she disappeared before he realized she had
practically said yes.
Characteristically Steve lost no time. He went to her father the day
after she had sailed, having sent her a veritable washtub of flowers
for bon voyage--and said briefly: "I have loved your daughter ever
since I first saw her. I'm as poor as you were once, but if I see my
way to making a fortune and can give her everything she ought to have
will you oppose my efforts to make her marry me?"
The daring of the thing pleased Constantine to the point of saying:
"Do you want a loan, O'Valley? I think you'll make good. Then it's up
to my daughter; she knows whom she wants to marry better than I do.
You're a decent sort--her mother would have liked you."
"I don't want a loan just yet. I want to make her marry me because I
have made my own money and can take care of my own wife. I'm just
asking you not to interfere if I do win out. I've saved a little--I'm
going to take a plunge in stocks and draw out before it's too late.
Then I'm going into business if I can; but I'll have to try my luck
gambling before I do. When I hang out my shingle I may ask you to
help--a little. Self-made men of to-day are made on paper--not by
splitting logs or teaching school in the backwoods in order to buy a
dictionary and law books--we haven't the time for that. So I'll take
my chances and you'll hear from me later."
While Beatrice was skimming through school and taking walking trips
through Norway punctuated by fleeting visits home, remaining as
childish and unconcerned as to vital things as her mother had been at
fourteen, Steve left the Constantine factory and took the plunge.
Good luck favoured him, and for five golden years he continued to rise
in the financial world, causing his rivals to say: "A fool's luck
first then the war made him--the government contracts, you know. He's
only succeeded because of luck and the fact of it's being the
psychological moment. Worked in the ordnance game--didn't see active
service--money just kept rolling in. Well, who wants a war fortune?
Some folks in 1860 bought government mules for limousine prices and
sold them for the same. Besides, it's only so he can marry the
Gorgeous Girl. I guess he'll find out it was cheap at half the
price!"
While talk ran riot Steve's fortune multiplied with almost sinister
speed. He learned that flattery and ridicule were the best weapons
known to man. And while the Gorgeous Girl flew home at the first war
cloud to bury herself in serious war activities Steve climbed the
upward path and never once glanced backward lest he grow dizzy.
At thirty-two, in the year 1919, he was able to say to Mark
Constantine, in the fashion of a fairy-story hero: "I still love your
daughter, sir, and I've made my fortune. We want to be married. Your
blessing, please." And to himself: "I'll show the worst side of me to
the world so wolves won't come and steal my precious gold that I had
to have in order to win her; and I'll show my best side to the woman I
love, and that's fair enough!"
With surprising accuracy Mary Faithful's keen mind, aided by a tender
heart, had pieced this mosaic business and love story together, and as
she finished the panorama she glanced at the Gorgeous Girl in her mink
dolman and bright red straw hat, the useless knitting bag on her arm,
and Steve's engagement ring blazing away on her finger, and she sighed
unconsciously.
"Don't tell Miss Faithful any more," Beatrice protested. "I'm sure she
knows about everything, and it's late--I'm tired."
"All right, lady fair. That's all, Miss Faithful. Good-night," Steve
dismissed her abruptly.
As Mary left the room he was saying tenderly: "What did you do at
cooking school?"
And the Gorgeous Girl was answering: "We made pistachio fondant; and
next week it will be Scotch broth. It takes an hour to assemble the
vegetables and I dread it. Only half the class were there, the rest
were at Miss Harper's classical-dancing lesson. That's fun, too. I
think I'll take it up next year. I was just thinking how glad I am
papa built the big apartment house five years ago; it's so much nicer
to begin housekeeping there instead of a big place of one's own. It's
such work to have a house on your hands. Are you ready?"
"Hold on. Don't I deserve a single kiss?... Thank you, Mrs. O'Valley."
Then the door closed.
Mary Faithful picked up her notations. She tried to comfort herself
with the thought that no one should ever have reason to guess her
secret. If all honest men steal umbrellas and kisses, so do all honest
women fib as to the size of their shoes and the person they love best
of all the world!