WHEN the world was considerably younger it dressed children in
imitation of its adults--those awful headdresses and heavy stays, long
skirts to trip up tender little feet, and jewelled collars to make
tiny necks ache. Now that the world "is growing evil and the time is
waxing late" the grown-ups have turned the tables and they dress like
the children--witness thereof to be found in the costume of Aunt Belle
Todd, Mark Constantine's sister, who had shared her brother's fortunes
ever since his wife had been presented with the marble monument.
Like all women who have ceased having birthdays Aunt Belle had not
ceased struggling. She still had hopes of a financier who would carry
her off in a storm of warmed-over romance to a castle in Kansas. Her
first husband was Thomas Todd, the carpenter, chiefly distinguished
for falling off a three-story building on which he was working and
never harming a hair of his head; also for singing first bass in the
village quartet. Aunt Belle had slightly recoloured her past since she
had lived with her brother. The account of Mr. Todd's singing in the
quartet was made to resemble a brilliant debut in grand opera which
was abandoned because of Aunt Belle's dislike of stage life and its
temptations, while his rolling off the three-story building was never
alluded to except when Mark Constantine wished to tease.
She was a short, plump person with permanently jet-black hair and
twinkling eyes. Prepared to forgo all else save elegance, she had
brought up her gorgeous niece with the idea that it was never possible
to have too much luxury. Seated in the Gorgeous Girl's dressing room
she now presented excellent proof that the world was growing very old
indeed, for her plump self was squeezed into a short purple affair
made like a pinafore, her high-heeled bronze slippers causing her to
totter like a mandarin's wife; and strings of coral beads and a gold
lorgnette rose and fell with rhythmic motion as she sighed very
properly over her niece's marriage.
"It will never be the same, darling," she was saying, glancing in
a mirror to see if the light showed the rouge boundaries too
clearly--"never quite the same. You'll understand when your daughter
marries--for you have been just as dear as one."
Beatrice, who was busy inspecting some newly arrived lingerie, did not
glance up as she answered: "Don't be silly. You know it's a relief.
You can sit back and rest from now on--until I'm divorced," she added
with a smile.
"How can you even say such a thing?"
Beatrice tossed the filmy creamy silk somethings or other away and
delivered herself of her mind. "Alice Twill was divorced before she
married this specimen; so was Coralie Minter; and Harold Atwater; and
both the Deralto girls were divorced, and their mother, too. And Jill
Briggs is considering it, and I'm sure I don't blame her. Everyone
seems to think a divorce quite the proper caper when things grow dull.
You may as well have all the fun you can. Steve wants me to have
everything I fancy, and I'm sure he'd never deny me a divorce."
"You are marrying a splendid, self-made young man who adores you and
who is making money every day in the week. No girl is to be more
envied--you have had a wonderful ten years of being a 'Gorgeous Girl,'
as your dear papa calls it, and at twenty-six you are to become the
bride of a wonderful man--neither too early nor too late an age. I
cannot really grieve--when I realize how happy you are going to be,
and yet----"
"Don't work so hard, aunty," Bea said, easily. "Of course Steve's a
wonderful old dear and all that--I wish I had asked him for the moon.
I do believe he'd have gotten an option on it." She laughed and
reached over to a bonbon dish to rummage for a favourite flavour. She
selected a fat, deadly looking affair, only to bite into it and
discover her mistake. She tossed it on the floor so that Monster could
creep out of her silk-lined basket and devour the remains.
"If you call natural feelings of a mother and an aunt 'working hard' I
am at a loss----" her aunt began with attempted indignation.
"Oh, I don't call anything anything; I'm dead and almost buried." She
looked at her small self in the pier glass. "Think of all I have to go
through with before it is over and we are on our way west. Here it is
half-past twelve and I've not eaten breakfast really. I'm so tired of
presents and bored with clothes that I cannot acknowledge another
thing or decide anything. I think weddings are a frightful ordeal. Did
you know the women on my war-relief committee presented me with a
silver jewel box? Lovely of them, wasn't it? But I deserve it--after
slaving all last winter. My bronchitis was just because I sold tags
for them during that rainy weather."
"No, I haven't seen it. But I am glad you decided on a church
wedding--there is such a difference between a wedding and just a
marriage."
Beatrice shoved the box of lingerie away. "Those are all wrong, so
back they go; and I can't help it if that woman does need money, I
told her I wanted a full inch-and-a-half beading and she has put this
crochet edge all round everywhere. I shan't accept a single piece!"
Whereupon she sat down at her dressing table and rang for her maid.
Madame Pompadour herself had no lovelier boudoir than Beatrice. It was
replete with rose-coloured taffeta curtains, padded sky-blue silk
walls with garlands of appliqued flowers. Lace frills covered every
possible object; the ivory furniture was emphasized by smart rose
upholstery, and the dressing table itself fairly dazzled one by the
array of gold-topped bottles and gold-backed brushes.
Johanna, the maid, began brushing the sunshiny hair, the Gorgeous Girl
stamping her feet as snarls asserted themselves.
"Two more days before the wedding," she complained. "There's the Twill
luncheon to-day and a bridge and tea at Marion Kavanaugh's--I hate
her, too. She gave me the most atrocious Chinese idol. I'm going to
tell her I have no proper place for it, that it deserves to be alone
in a room in order to have it properly appreciated." She laughed at
herself. "So I'll leave it for papa. The apartment won't hold but just
so much--it's a tiny affair." She laughed again, the apartment having
only eleven rooms and a profusion of iron grille work at all the
windows. "But it's a wonderful way to start--in an apartment--it is
such a good excuse for not dragging in all the terrible wedding
presents. I can leave everything I like with papa because he never
minds anything as long as he has old slippers and plenty of mince pie.
After a year or so I'm going to have a wonderful house copied after
one I saw in Italy. By then they will all have forgotten what they
gave me and I can furnish it so we won't have to go about wearing
blinders.... The blue dress, Jody, that's right."
"And what is it to-night?" her aunt asked, meekly.
"The Farmsworth dinner; and to-morrow another luncheon and the garden
party at the club. Then the dinner here, rehearsal; and Wednesday,
thank heaven, it will be all ended!"
Johanna helped fasten the king's-blue satin with seed-pearl trimmings
and place a trig black hat atilt on the yellow hair.
"The ermine scarf, please."
The Gorgeous Girl was slipping matronly looking rings on her fingers
and adding an extra dab of powder. She took another chocolate, hugged
Monster, gave orders about sending back the lingerie, remarked that
she must send her photograph to the society editor for the next day's
edition, and she thought the one taken in her Red Cross outfit would
be the sweetest; and then kissing the tip of her aunt's right ear she
sailed downstairs and into the closed car to be whirled to Alice
Twill's house, a duplicate of the Gorgeous Girl's. There she was
enthusiastically embraced and there followed a mutual admiration as to
gowns, make-ups, and jewellery, and a mutual sympathy as to being
desperately tired and busy.
"My dear, I haven't had time to breath--it's perfectly awful! I'll
have to drop out of things next winter. Steve will never allow me to
be so overburdened. I can't sleep unless I take a powder and I can't
have any enthusiasm in the morning unless I have oodles of black
coffee. Of course one has had to do serious work--thank heavens the
war is over!--but you can't give up all the good times.... What a
lovely centre piece! And those cunning little gilt suitcases for
favours! A really truly gold veil pin in each one? You love! Oh, let's
have a cocktail before any one comes in. It does pick me up
wonderfully.... Thanks.... Yes, I had breakfast in bed--some coffee
and gluten crackers was all, and aunty had to stay in my room half the
morning trying to be pensive about my wedding! No, Markham didn't make
my travelling suit half as well as he did Peggy Brewster's. I shall
never go near him again.... And did you hear that Jill found her
diamond pendant in her cold cream jar, so it wasn't a burglar at all!
"Yes, Gaylord Vondeplosshe is going to be an usher.... Well, what else
could I do at the last moment? Wasn't it absurd for a grown man like
Fred Jennings to go have the mumps? Gay knows everyone and I'm sure he
is quite harmless.... Oh, Steve is well and terribly busy, you know.
He is giving me the most wonderful present. Papa hasn't given me his
yet and I'm dying to know what it is, he always gives me such
wonderful things, too.... There's the bell. I do hope it isn't Lois
Taylor, because she always wants people to sign petitions and appear
in court. It is Lois Taylor! Why didn't you leave word to have all
petitions checked with wraps?" Giggles. "Good heavens, what a fright
of a hat. Well, are you ready to go down?"
Five hours later Beatrice was being dressed for the evening's frolic,
dipping into the bonbon box for a stray maple cream, and complaining
of her headache. At this juncture her father tiptoed clumsily into her
room and laid a white velvet jewel case on her dressing table,
standing back to watch her open it.
"You dear----" she began in stereotyped, high-pitched tones as
she pressed the spring. "You duck!" she added a trifle more
enthusiastically, viewing the bowknot of gems in the form of a
pin--a design of diamonds four inches wide with a centre stone of
pigeon's-blood ruby. "You couldn't have pleased me more"--trying it
against her dressing gown. "See, Jody, isn't this wonderful? I
must kiss you." She rustled over to her father and brushed her
lips across his cheek, rustling back again to tell Jody that she
must try the neck coil again--it was entirely too loose.
"I guess Steve can't go any better than that," her father said,
balancing himself on his toes and, in so doing, rumpling the rug.
He was a tall, heavily built man with harsh features and gray hair,
the numerous signs of a self-made man who is satisfied with his own
achievements. He had often told his sister: "Bea can be the lady of
the family. I'm willing to set back and pay for it. It'd never do for
me to start buying antiques or quoting poetry. I can wear a dress suit
without disgracing Bea, and make an after-dinner speech if they let me
talk about the stockyards. But when it comes to musicals and monocles
I ask to be counted out. I had to work too hard the first half of my
life to be able to play the last half of it. I wasn't born in cold
storage and baptized with cracked ice the way these rich men's sons
are. I've shown this city that a farmer's boy can own the best in the
layout and have his girl be the most gorgeous of the crew--barring
none!
"This is a joy," Beatrice was saying, rapidly, her small face wrinkled
with displeasure.
She wished her father would go away because she wanted to think of a
hundred details of the next forty-eight hours and her nerves were
giving warning that their limit of endurance was near at hand. This
big, awkward man who was so harsh a task-master to the world and so
abject a slave to her own useless little self annoyed her. He offended
in an even deeper sense--he did not interest her. Things which did not
interest her were met with grave displeasure. Religion did not
interest her; neither did Steve O'Valley's business--her head ached
whenever he ventured to explain it. She never had to listen to
anything to which she did not wish to listen; the only rule imposed
upon her was that of becoming the most gorgeous girl in Hanover, and
this rule she had obeyed.
"Tired?" he asked, timidly.
"Dead. It's terrible, papa. I don't know how I'll stay bucked up. I
want to burst out crying every time a bell rings or any one speaks to
me.... Oh, Jody, your fingers are all thumbs! Please try it again."
"It looks nice," her father ventured, indicating the puff of gold
hair.
Beatrice did not answer; she sighed and had Johanna proceed.
"The Harkin detectives will watch the presents," her father ventured
again. "There are some more packages downstairs."
"I'm tired of presents; I want to be through unwrapping crystal vases
and gold-lined fruit dishes and silly book ends and having to write
notes of thanks when I hate the gifts. My mind seems quivering little
wires that won't let me have a moment's rest." She took another piece
of candy.
"When I married your mother," her father remarked, softly, evidently
forgetting Johanna's presence, "we walked to a minister's house in
Gardenville about five miles south of here. Your mother was working
for a farmer's wife and she didn't say she was going to be married.
She was afraid they might try talking her out of it--you know how
women do." He looked round the elegant little room. "I was getting ten
dollars a week--that seemed big money in those days. I rented two
rooms in the rear cottage of a house on Ontario Street--it's torn down
now. And I bought some second-hand stuff to furnish it."
He paced up and down; he had a habit of so doing since he was always
whisked about in his motor car and he feared growing stiff if he did
not exercise.
"But your mother liked the rooms--and the things. I remember I bought
a combination chair and stepladder for a dollar and it didn't work."
He gave a chuckle. "It stayed in a sort of betwixt and between
position, about one third stepladder and about two thirds chair, and
that worried me a lot. A dollar meant a good deal then. But your
mother knew what to do with it, she used it for kindling wood and said
we'd charge it up to experience. Yes, sir, we walked to the
minister's--she wore a blue-print dress with a little pink sprig in
it, and a sort of a bonnet." His hand made an awkward descriptive
gesture.
"The minister was mighty nice--he took us into his garden and let
your mother pick a bunch of roses, and then he hitched up his horse
and buggy and drove us back to the farmer's house. The farmer's wife
cried a little when we told her; she liked your mother. She gave us a
crock of butter and some jam. While your mother packed her little
trunk--it wasn't any bigger than one of your hatboxes--I went out and
stood at the gate. I kept thinking, 'By jingo, I'm a married man! Mr.
and Mrs. Mark Constantine.' And I felt sort of afraid--and almost
ashamed. It frightened me because I knew it was two to feed instead of
one, and I wondered if I'd done wrong to take Hannah away from the
farmer's wife when I was only getting ten dollars a week.
"Well, when she came out of the door she looked as pretty as you'll
look in all your stuff, and she came right up to me and said, game as
a pebble, 'Mark, we're man and wife and we'll never be sorry, will we?
And when you're rich and I'm old we will stay just as loving!' I
didn't feel sorry or frightened any more--not once. Not until you came
and they told me she had gone on. Then I felt mighty sorry--and
frightened. She looked so tired when I saw her then--so tired."
He paused, staring at his sunken gardens as seen from Beatrice's
windows. Some men lazily raked new-cut grass and a peacock preened
itself by the sundial. The glass conservatory showed signs of
activity. The florists were at work for the coming event. Then he
looked at his daughter, who waited with polite restraint until his
reverie was ended.
"I've given you all she would have had," he said, as if in debate with
himself that this was the last rebuttal against possible criticism.
Beatrice glided over beside him; she looked out of the window, too,
and then at her father. Something quite like tears was in his harsh
eyes.
"Daddy," she began with a quick indrawing of her breath, "do you think
she'd have wanted me to have all--all this?"
"Why wouldn't she?" he answered, taking her arm gently. He had always
treated her with a formality amounting almost to awe.
"I don't know--only I sometimes do almost think--would you suspect it?
When I go to the office and watch those queerly dressed women bending
over desks and earning a few dollars a week and having to live on
it--and when I see how they manage to smile in spite of it--and how I
waste and spend--and shed a great many tears--well, I wonder if it is
quite safe to start as Steve and I are starting!" Then she threw her
arms round him. "Steve won't believe that I've been serious, will he?
Now, daddy dear, please go 'way and let me dress, for I'm 'way late."
She kissed him almost patronizingly and he tiptoed out of her room,
rather glad to get into his own domain--the majestic library with its
partially arranged wedding gifts.
"We're doing ourselves proud," he remarked to his sister, who had been
rearranging them.
"What I told Beatrice this morning. Only she is all nerves. She can't
enjoy anything--it will be a relief to me, Mark, as well as a loss,
when it is over."
Her brother viewed her with a quizzical expression. Like the rest of
the world his sister never fooled him. But like all supermen there was
one human being in whom all his trust was centred, and who very often
thus brought about his defeat. In his case, as with Steve O'Valley, it
chanced to be Beatrice.
Regarding her both men--merciless with their associates and dubbed as
fish-blooded coroners by their enemies--were like gullible children
following a lovely and willful Pied Piperess. But Mark's sister with
her vanities and fibs irritated and amused him by turns. Perhaps he
resented her sharing this material triumph instead of the tired-faced
woman in the churchyard.
"Do you remember the time you did the beadwork for the head
carpenter's wife and when she paid you for it you spent the dollar for
liquid rouge? Todd was so mad he wouldn't speak for a week," he
chuckled, unkindly.
"Don't say such things! Think how it would embarrass Bea. Of course I
don't remember. Neither do you."
"Oh, don't I? What's the harm recalling old times? I remember when you
tried to make Todd a winter overcoat and he said it looked most as
good as a deep-sea diver's outfit. My Hannah nearly died a-laughing."
Fortunately Steve appeared, flourishing Beatrice's corsage by way of a
greeting.
"Aha, the conquerer comes. My dear lad, your lady love has just ousted
me from her room, she'll be down presently. Belle, Steve and I are
going into the den to smoke."
"I'm trying to look as amiable as possible, but I wish fuss and
feathers were not the mode." Steve smiled his sweetest at Aunt Belle
and then took Constantine's arm. "The cave-man style of clubbing
one's chosen into unconsciousness and strolling at leisure through the
jungle with her wasn't half bad. By the way, I did sell the Allandale
man to-day, and the razor-factory stock is going to boom instead of
flatten out--I'm sure of it."
He lit a cigarette and threw himself into an easy-chair. Constantine
selected a cigar and trimmed its end, watching Steve as he did so.
"You've come on about as well as they ever do," he remarked,
unexpectedly. "None of these rich young dogs could have matched you.
Seen the presents?"
"Scads of 'em. Awful stuff. I don't know what half of it is for. Bea
is going to hand you most of it. The apartment is to be a thing of
beauty and she won't hear of taking the offerings along."
"How is the shop?"
"Splendid--Mary Faithful will manage it quite as well as I do. I shall
hear from her daily, you'll stroll over that way, and I can manage to
keep my left little finger on the wheel."
"Mary's a good sort," Constantine mused. "Sorry I ever let her go over
to your shebang. What's her family like?"
"Don't know. Never thought about 'em. Her kid brother works round the
place after school. Guess Mary's the man of the family."
"How much do you pay her?"
"Forty a week."
"Cheap enough. A man would draw down seventy and demand an assistant.
I never had any luck with women secretaries--they all wanted to marry
me," he admitted, grimly.
"Mary's not that sort. Business is her life. If she were a man I'd
have a rival. I'm going to give her fifty a week from now on; she's
giving up her vacation to stay on the job."
"Don't spoil her."
"No danger. I've promised Beatrice to really learn to play bridge," he
changed the conversation.
"Accept my sympathy----" Constantine began and then Beatrice in a
lovely Bohemian rainbow dinner gown came stealing in to stand before
them and complain of her headache and admire her corsage and let Steve
wrap her in her cape and half carry her to the limousine.
"I shan't see you a moment until we're married," he began, mournfully.
"I've been most awfully neglected. But as you are going to be all mine
I can't complain. You're prettier than ever, Bea.... Love me?...
Lots?... Whole lots? You don't say it the way I want you to," laughing
at his own nonsense.
"I'll scream it and a crowd can gather to bear witness." She dimpled
prettily and nibbled at a rose leaf. "It's all like a fairy
tale--everyone says so, and lots of the girls would like to be
marrying you on Wednesday."
"Tell them I belong to the Gorgeous Girl until six men are walking
quietly beside me and assisting me to a permanent resting place. Even
then I'll belong to her," he added.
"Your nose is so handsome," she said, wistfully, recalling her own.
"Talking of noses! Bea, sometimes it's terrible to realize that my
ambitions have become true. To dream and work without ceasing and
without much caring what you do until your dream merges into
reality--it makes even a six-footer as hysterical as a schoolgirl."
"You're intense," she said, soberly. "Jill says you'd make a wonderful
actor."
Steve looked annoyed. "Those scatterbrained time wasters--don't listen
to them. Let's find our real selves--you and I; be worth while. Now
that I've made my fortune I want to spend it in a right fashion--I
want to be interested in things, not just dollars and cents. Help me,
dearest. You know about such things; you've never had the ugliness of
poverty bruise the very soul of you."
"You mean having a good time--and parties----" she began.
"No; books, music; studying human conditions. I want to study the slow
healing of industrial wounds and determine the best treatment for
them. I have made the real me go 'way, 'way off somewheres for a long
time until I won my pile of gold that helped me capture the girl I
loved. Now it is done the real me wants to come back and stay."
"Oh, I see," she said, vaguely. "Of course there are tiny things to
brush up on--greeting people, and you mustn't be so in earnest at
dinner parties and contradict and thump your fist. It isn't good
form."
"When whippersnappers like Gaylord Vondeplosshe----"
"Sh-h-h! Gay's a dear. He is accepted every place."
"We're nearly there, tough luck! One kiss, please; no one can see. Say
you care, then everything else must true up."
The wedding took place at high noon in church, with the bishop and two
curates to officiate. There was a vested choir singing "The Voice That
Breathed O'er Eden"; a thousand dollars' worth of flowers; six
bridesmaids in pastel frocks and picture hats, shepherdess' staffs,
and baskets of lilies of the valley; a matron of honour, flower girls,
ushers; a best man, a papa, an aunty in black satin with a large
section of an ostrich farm for her hat--and a bridegroom.
After the wedding came the breakfast at the Constantine house.
Though certain guests murmured that it was a trifle too ultra like
the house itself, which was half a medieval castle and half the
makings of a village fire department, it was generally considered a
success. Nothing was left undone. The bride left the church amid the
ringing of chimes; her health was drunk, and she slipped up to the
rose-taffeta-adorned boudoir to exchange her ivory satin for a
trim suit of emerald green. Everyone wished on the platinum circlet
of diamonds and there was the conventional throwing of the bouquet,
the rush through the back of the grounds to the hired taxi, the
screams of disappointment at the escape--and Mr. and Mrs. O'Valley
were en route on their honeymoon.
It remained for the detectives to guard the presents, the society
reporters to discover new adjectives of superlative praise, and the
guests to drink up the champagne and say: "Wonderful." "Must have cost
thousands." "Handsome couple. Couldn't have happened in any other
country but America." "War fortune." "Oh, yes, no doubt of it--hides
and razors turned the trick." "Well, how long do you think it is going
to last?"
The office forces of the O'Valley and Constantine companies had been
excused so as to be present at the ceremony. But Mary Faithful and
Trudy Burrows had not availed themselves of the opportunity. Womanly
rebellion and heartache suddenly blotted out Mary's emotionless scheme
of action. Besides, there was a valid excuse of waiting to catch an
important long-distance call. With Trudy it was mere envy causing her
to say over and over: "See Gay, the ragged little beggar, walk up the
aisle with one of those rich girls and never glance at me--just
because he's a Vondeplosshe? And me have to sit beside Nellie Lunk,
who'll cry when the organ plays and wear that ridiculous bathtub of a
hat? Never! I won't go unless I can walk up the aisle with Gay. Wait
until I see him to-night; I'll make it very pleasant."
Life seemed rather empty for Trudy as she sat in the deserted offices
pretending to add figures and trying to hum gayly. Even the box of
wedding cake laid on her desk--it was laid on everyone's desk--brought
forth no smile or intention of dreaming over it. Was she to spend her
days earning fifteen dollars a week in this feudal baron's employ?
Tears marred the intensive cultivation on her rouged cheeks as she
looked out the window to see the office force being brought back from
the church in trucks.
"Like cattle--peasants--all because of money. A war profiteer, that's
what he was. And she isn't anything at all except that she has her
father's money." She glanced toward Mary's closed door. "Poor Mary,"
she thought; "she cares! I don't--that makes it easier. Well, he could
have done worse than to take Mary," tossing her head as she tried to
create the impression of indifference now that the employees were
coming back to their desks.
For there was a forked road for Trudy as well as for Mary Faithful.
Women are no longer compelled to accept the one unending pathway of
domesticity. Trudy's forked road resolved itself into either marriage
with Gay as a stepping stone to marriage with someone else, or a smart
shop with society women and actresses as patrons, being able to live
at a hotel and do as she wished, inventing a neat little past of
escaping from a Turkish harem or being the widow of an English officer
who died serving his country. Trudy was not without resources, in her
own estimation, and whether she married Gay or achieved the shop was a
toss-up. Like the rest of the world she considered herself capable of
doing both!
Hearing the scuffle of feet Mary opened the door and forced herself to
ask about the wedding. Presently the excitement died down and the
round of mechanical drudgery took its place. An hour later someone
knocked at an inner door which led to steep side stairs connecting
with a side street entrance. Wondering who it was Mary opened it, to
find Steve, very flushed and handsome, a flower in his buttonhole yet
no hint of rice about him.
"Sh-h-h! Not a word out loud! I want to escape. Mrs. O'Valley is
waiting round the corner in a cab. I forgot the long-distance
call--the one we expected yesterday."
"It came while everyone was at the church. I stayed here in case it
did. They will pay your price, so I closed the deal."
"Hurrah for Mary Faithful! But I wish you could have been there. It
was like a picture. I never saw her look so lovely. Well, that's
settled. Wire me at Chicago. I think that's everything. Oh, you're to
have fifty a week from now on. What man isn't generous on his wedding
day? Good-bye, Miss Head of Affairs." A moment later he was climbing
down the rickety flight of stairs.
For a long time Mary sat watching the hands of her desk clock slowly
proceed round the dial. Someone knocked at the door and she said to
come in, but her voice sounded faint and far away.
Fifty dollars a week--generous on his wedding day! She ought to be
very glad; it meant she could save more and have an occasional treat
for Luke. It was good to think that women had forked roads these days.
How terrible if she were left in the shelter of a home to mourn
unchecked. Besides, she was guarding his business; that was a great
comfort. The Gorgeous Girl was sharing him with Mary Faithful--would
always share him. That was a comfort, too.
After the errand boy left, Mary tried to write a letter but she found
herself going into the washroom off Steve's office and without warning
weakly burying her face in an old working coat he had left behind. She
had just made a great many dollars for him which he would spend on the
Gorgeous Girl; she would make many more during the long summer while
she stayed at the post and was Miss Head of Affairs. She had laid her
woman's hopes on the altar of commerce because of Steve O'Valley, and
he rewarded her with a ten-dollar-a-week raise since a man was always
generous on his wedding day.
Yet there was a distinct satisfaction in the heartache and the
responsibility, even in the irony of the ten-dollar-a-week advance.
Life might be hard--but it was not empty! She was glad to be in the
deserted office replete with his belongings and breathing of his
personality. She was glad to be an acknowledged Miss Head of Affairs.
"You'd miss even a heartache if it was all you had," she whispered to
herself from within the folds of Steve's office coat.