Gaylord's sudden marriage and departure for New York caused no small
comment. In the Faithful family Mary and Luke stood against Mrs.
Faithful, who declared with meaning emphasis that some girls had more
sense than others and it was better to marry and make a mistake the
first time than to remain an old maid. With Trudy's style and high
spirits she was going to carry Gaylord into the front ranks without
any effort. Luke described the event by saying that a bad pair of
disturbers had teamed for life, and relied upon Mary to take up the
burden of the proof.
"Don't mourn so, mother. I'm a happy old maid," she insisted when the
comments grew too numerous for her peace of mind. "Trudy was not the
sort to blush unseen, and it's a relief not to have to cover up her
mistakes at the office. Everything will be serene once more. As for
Gay's future--I suppose he is likely to bring home anything from a
mousetrap to a diamond tiara. I don't pretend to understand his
ways."
"Of course it isn't like Mrs. O'Valley's wedding," her mother resumed,
with a resonant sniffle. "You have been so used to hearing about her
ways that poor little Trudy seems cheap. Perhaps your mother and
brother and the little home seem so, too. But we can't all be Gorgeous
Girls, and I think Trudy was right to take Gaylord when he had the
money for a ring and a license."
"He had more than that," Mary ruminated. "People don't walk to New
York."
"Did he win it on a horse race?" Luke had an eye to the future.
"Maybe his father's friends helped him," Mrs. Faithful added.
"Can't prove anything by me." Mary shook her head.
Neither Trudy nor Gaylord knew that all Beatrice's bills were sent to
Mary to discount, and Mary, not without a certain shrewdness, had her
own ideas on the matter. But it amused more than it annoyed her. Gay
might as well have a few hundred to spend in getting a wife and
caretaker as tradesmen whose weakness it was to swell their profits
beyond all respectability.
"I wonder where they will live." Mrs. Faithful found the subject
entirely too fascinating to let alone.
"Not here," her daughter assured her. "And if you'd only say yes I
could get such a sunny, pretty flat where the work would be worlds
easier."
"Leave my home? Never! It would be like uprooting an oak forest. Time
for that when I am dead and gone." The double chin quivered with
indignation. "I don't see why Trudy and Gay won't come here and take
the two front rooms. They'd be company for me."
She approved of Trudy's views of life as much as she disapproved and
was rather afraid of this young woman who wanted to bustle her into
trim house dresses instead of the eternal wrappers.
"I kept Trudy only because she needed work--and a home," Mary said,
frankly; "and because you wanted her. But my salary does nicely for
us. Besides, it would be a bad influence for Luke to have such a
person as Gay about. We must make a man out of Luke."
"Don't go upsetting him. He eats his three good meals a day and always
acts like a little gentleman. You'll nag at him until he runs away
like my brother Amos did."
"Better run away from us than run over us," Mary argued; "but there is
no need of planning for Trudy's return. Their home will be in a good
part of the city, if it consists in merely hanging onto a lamp-post.
You don't realize that Gay is a bankrupt snob and married Trudy only
because he could play off cad behind his pretty wife's skirts. Men
will like Trudy and the women ridicule and snub her until she finds
she has a real use for her claws. Up to now she has only halfway kept
them sharpened. In a few years you will find Mr. and Mrs. Gaylord
Vondeplosshe in Hanover society with capital letters, hobnobbing with
Beatrice O'Valley and her set and somehow managing to exist in
elegance. Don't ask how they will do it--but they will. However, they
would never consider starting from our house. That would be getting
off on a sprained ankle."
Mrs. Faithful gulped the rest of her coffee. "No one has any use for
me because I haven't money. Our parlour was good enough for them to do
their courting in, and if they don't come and see me real often I'll
write Trudy a letter and tell her some good plain facts!"
"Be sure to say we all think Gay's mother must have been awful fond of
children to have raised him," Luke suggested from the offing.
Mary tossed a sofa pillow at him and disappeared. She could have
electrified her mother by telling her that Steve was to return that
morning, that the office was prepared to welcome him back, and that
Mrs. O'Valley would be anchored at the telephone to get into
communication with her dearest and best of friends.
As she walked to the street car she reproached herself for not having
told the news. It was a tiny thing to tell a woman whose horizon was
bounded by coffee pots, spotted wrappers, and inane movies.
"You're mean in spots," Mary told herself. "You know how it would have
pleased her."
She sometimes felt a maternal compassion for this helpless dear with
her double chins and self-sacrificing past, and she wondered whether
her father had not had the same attitude during the years of nagging
reproach at his lack of material prosperity. She resolved to come home
that night with a budget of news items concerning Steve's return, even
bringing a rose from the floral offering that was to be placed on his
desk.
"After all, she's mother," Mary thought, rounding the corner leading
to the office building, "and like most of us she does the best she
can!"
She tried to maintain a calm demeanour in the office as she answered
inquiries and opened the mail. But all the time she kept glancing at
her desk clock. Half-past nine--of course he would be late--surely he
must come by ten. She wished she had flung maidenly discretion to the
winds and worn the white silk sport blouse she had just bought. But
she had made herself dress in a crumpled waist of nondescript type.
The floral piece on Steve's long-deserted desk made her keep glancing
up to smile at its almost funeral magnificence.
She answered a telephone call. Yes, Mr. O'Valley was expected--undoubtedly
he would wish to reserve a plate for the Chamber of Commerce
luncheon--unless they heard to the contrary they could do so. ... Oh, it
was to include the wives and so on. Then reserve places for Mr. and
Mrs. O'Valley. She hung up the receiver abruptly and went to making
memoranda.
Even if she demanded and would receive a share of Steve's time and
attention it would be the thankless, almost bitter portion--such as
reserving plates for Mr. and Mrs. O'Valley or O.K.ing Mrs. O'Valley's
bills. Still it was hers, awarded to her because of keenness of brain
and faithfulness of action. Steve needed her as much as he needed to
come home to his miniature palace to watch the Gorgeous Girl display
her latest creation, to be able to take the Gorgeous Girl fast in his
arms and say: "You are mine--mine--mine!" very likely punctuating the
words with kisses. Yet he must return each day to Mary Faithful and
say: "You are my right-hand man; I need you."
"A penny for your thoughts." Steve O'Valley was standing beside her.
"You look as if work agreed with you. Say something nice now--that a
long holiday has improved me!"
She managed to put a shaking hand into his, wondering if she betrayed
her thoughts. Being as tall as Steve she was able to look at him, not
up at him; and there they stood--the handsome, reckless man with just
a suggestion of nervous tension in his Irish blue eyes, and the plain
young woman in a rumpled linen blouse.
"Ah--so I don't please," he bantered. "Well, tell us all about it.
I've a thousand questions--my father-in-law says you are the only
thing I have that he covets. How about that?" He led the way into his
office, Mary following.
Then he fell upon his mountain of mail and memoranda, demands for this
charity and that patriotic subscription, and Mary began a careful
explanation of affairs and they sat talking and arguing until the
general superintendent looked in to suggest that the shop might like
to have Mr. O'Valley say hello.
"It's nearly eleven," Steve exclaimed, "and we haven't begun to say a
tenth of all there is to discuss. See the funeral piece, Hodges? Why
didn't you label it 'Rest in pieces' and be done with it, eh? I shall
now appear to make a formal speech." Here he cut a rosebud from the
big wreath and handed it gravely to Mary; he cut a second one and
fastened it in his own buttonhole. "Lead me out, Hodges. I'm a bit
unsteady--been playing too long."
Mary stood in the doorway, one hand caressing the little rose. That
Beatrice should have had the flower was her first thought. Then it
occurred to her that Beatrice would have all the flowers at the formal
affairs to be given the bridal couple, besides sitting opposite Steve
at his own table. She no longer felt that she had stolen the rose or
usurped attention. There was a clapping of hands and the usual
laughter which accompanies listening to any generous proprietor's
speech, a trifle forced perhaps but very jolly sounding. Then Steve
returned to his office to become engrossed in conversation with Mary
until Mark Constantine dropped in to bowl him off to the club for
luncheon.
"She's kept things humming, hasn't she?" Constantine asked, sinking
into the nearest chair.
"A prize," Steve said, proudly. "I don't find a slip-up any place.
I'll be back at two, Miss Faithful, in case any one calls.... How is
Bea?" His voice softened noticeably.
Mary slipped away.
"Bea doesn't like one half of her things and the other half are so
much better than the apartment that she says they don't show up," her
father admitted, drolly. "She is tired to death--so you'll find her at
home, my boy, with a box of candy and the latest novel. Belle was
talking her head off when I left the house and the girls keep calling
her on the telephone for those little three-quarters-of-an-hour hello
talks. It seems to me that for rich girls, my daughter and her friends
are the busiest, most tired women I ever knew--and yet do the least."
He put on his hat and waited for Steve to open the door.
"I don't pretend to understand them," Steve answered. "Maybe that's
why I'm so happy. Bea fusses if the shade of draperies doesn't match
her gown, and if Monster has a snarl in her precious hair it is cause
for a tragedy. But I just grin and go along and presently she has
forgotten all about it."
"I tried to get that young woman helper of yours to help me fix up
Bea's things," Constantine complained. "Let's walk to the club--my
knees are going stiff on me."
"Well?"
"She looked round the apartment and plain refused to put away another
woman's pots and pans. It was just spunk. I don't know that I blame
her. So Belle got that low order of animal life----"
"Meaning Gaylord?"
"Yes; and now the husband, I understand, of one of your thinnest clad
and thinnest brained former clerks. Gay was in his element; he kept
the machine working overtime and flattered Belle until he had
everything his own way. Yet Beatrice seems quite satisfied with his
achievements."
"You must have been hanging round the house this morning."
"I couldn't get down to brass tacks," he admitted. "You've had her
all summer--but you can bet your clothes you wouldn't have had her
if I hadn't been willing." He slapped Steve on the shoulder
good-naturedly.
Steve nodded briskly. Then he suggested: "Bea has the New York idea
rather strong. Has she ever hinted it to you?"
"Don't let that flourish, Steve. Kill it at the start. She knew better
than to try to wheedle me into going. I'm smarter than most of the men
round these parts but I'd be fleeced properly by the New York band of
highbinders if I tried to go among them. And you're not as good at the
game as I am. Not----" He paused as if undecided how much would be
best to tell Steve. He evidently decided that generalities would be
the wisest arguments, so he continued: "Don't wince--it's the truth,
and there must be no secrets between us from now on. Besides, you're
in love and you can't concentrate absolutely. My best advice to you is
to stay home and tend to your knitting.
"You and Bea can go play round New York all you like. Let the New York
crowd come to see you and be entertained, they'll be glad to eat your
dinners and drink your wine if they don't have to pay for it. We can
get away with Hanover but we'd be handcuffed if we tried New York.
When I made a hundred thousand dollars I was tempted to try New York
instead of staying here--to make Bea the most gorgeous girl in the
metropolis. But horse sense made me pass it by and stay on my own home
diamond. So I've made a good many more hundreds of thousands and,
what's to the point, I've kept 'em!"
Here the conversation drifted into more technical business detail with
Steve expostulating and contradicting and Constantine frowning at his
son-in-law through his bushy eyebrows, admiring him prodigiously all
the while.
* * * * *
Beatrice had telephoned Steve's office, to be told that her husband
was at lunch and would not be in until two o'clock.
"Have him come to our apartment," she left word, "just as soon as he
can. I am just leaving Mr. Constantine's house to go there."
After which she began telling Aunt Belle good-bye.
"Dear me, Bea, what a wonderful hat!" her aunt sighed. "I never saw
anything more becoming."
It took ten minutes to admire Bea's costume of rosewood crape and the
jewelled-cap effect, somewhat like Juliet's, caught over each ear by a
pink satin rose.
"Steve doesn't appreciate anything in the way of costumes," she
complained. "He just says: 'Yes, deary, I love you, and anything you
wear suits me.' Quite discouraging and so different from the other
boys."
"I'd call it very comfortable," suggested her aunt.
"I suppose so--but comfortable things are often tiresome. It is
tiresome, too, to see too much of the same person. I was really bored
to death in the Yosemite--Steve is so primitive--he wanted to stay
there for days and days."
"Steve comes from primitive people," her aunt said, soberly, not
realizing her own humour.
"Don't mention it. Didn't he force me to go to Virginia City, the most
terrible little ghost world of tumbledown shacks and funny one-eyed,
one-suspendered men, and old women smoking pipes and wearing blue
sunbonnets! He was actually sentimental and enthusiastic about it all,
trying to hunt up old cronies of his grandfather's--I was cross as
could be until we came back to Reno. Now Reno is interesting."
She spent the better part of an hour describing the divorcees and
their adventures.
"Well, I'm off for home. I think I shall entertain the Red Cross
committee first of all. It's only right, I believe"--the dove eyes
very serious--"they've been under such terrible strains. I'm going to
send a large bundle of clothes for the Armenian Relief, too. Oh,
aunty, the whole world seems under a cloud, doesn't it? But I met the
funniest woman in Pasadena; she actually teed her golf ball on a
valuable Swiss watch her husband had given her! She said her only
thrills in life came from making her husband cross."
"Was he--when he found it out?"
"No; she was dreadfully disappointed. He called her a naughty child
and bought her another!"
When Beatrice reached the apartment she found Steve standing on the
steps looking anxiously up and down the street.
"What's happened?" he asked, half lifting her out of the car.
"Don't! People will see us. I was telling aunty about Reno. Oh, it's
so good to be here!" as she came inside her own door. "I hope people
will let me alone the rest of the day. I'm just a wreck." She found a
box of chocolates and began to eat them.
"A charming-looking wreck, I'll say." He stooped to kiss her.
The rose-coloured glasses were still attached to Steve's naturally
keen eyes. Like many persons he knew a multitude of facts but was
quite ignorant concerning vital issues. He had spent his honeymoon in
rapt and unreal fashion. He had realized his boyhood dream of
returning to Nevada a rich and respected man with a fairy-princess
sort of wife. The deadly anaesthesia of unreality which these
get-rich-quick candidates of to-day indulge in at the outset of their
struggle still had Steve in its clutch. He had not even stirred from
out its influence. He had accomplished what he had set out to
accomplish--and he was now about to realize that there is a distinct
melancholy in the fact that everyone needs an Aladdin's window to
finish. But under the influence of the anaesthesia he had proposed to
have an everlasting good time the rest of his life, like the closing
words of a fairy tale: "And then the beautiful young princess and the
brave young prince, having slain the seven-headed monster, lived
happily ever, ever after!"
With this viewpoint, emphasized by the natural conceit of youth, Steve
had passed his holiday with the Gorgeous Girl.
"What did you want, darling?" he urged.
"To talk to you--I want you to listen to my plan. You are to come with
me to New York for the fall opera and all the theatres--oh, along in
November. It's terribly dull here. Jill Briggs and her husband and
some of the others are going, and we can take rooms at the Astor and
all be together and have a wonderful time!"
"I'd rather stay in our own home," he pleaded. "It's such fun to have
a real home. We can entertain, you know. Besides, I'm the worker and
you are the player, and I don't understand your sort of life any more
than you can understand mine. So you must play and let me look on--and
love me, that's all I'll ever ask."
"You're a dear," was his reward; "but we'll go to New York?"
"I'll have to take you down and leave you--I'm needed at the office."
"But I'd be the odd one--I'd have to have a partner. Steve, dear, you
don't have to grub. When we were engaged you always had time for me."
"Because you had so little for me! And so I always shall have time for
you," the anaesthesia causing his decision. "Besides, those were
courtship days--and I wasn't quite so sure of you, which is the way of
all men." He kissed her hair gently.
She drew away and rearranged a lock. "I don't want a husband who won't
play with me."
"We'll fix it all right, don't worry. Now was that all you wanted?"
"I want you to stay home and go driving with me. I want you to call on
some people--and look at a new cellaret I'd like to buy. It is
expensive, but no one else would have one anywhere near as charming.
I need you this afternoon--you're so calm and strong, and my head
aches. I'm always tired."
"Yet you never work," he said, almost unconsciously.
"My dear boy, society is the hardest work in the world. I'm simply
dragged to a frazzle by the end of the season. Besides, there is all
my war work and my clubs and my charities. And I've just promised to
take an advanced course in domestic science."
"I see," Steve said, meekly.
"I think it is the duty of rich women to know all about frying things
as well as eating them," she said, as she took a third caramel.
"Quite true. Having money isn't always keeping it"
"Oh, papa has loads of money--enough for all of us," she remarked,
easily. "It isn't that. I'd never cook if I were poor, anyway; that
would be the last thing I'd ever dream of doing. It's fun to go to the
domestic-science class as long as all my set go. Well--will you be a
nice angel-man and stay home to amuse your fractious wife?"
"I'll call Miss Faithful on the phone and say I'm going to play
hooky," he consented. "By the way, you must come down to the office
and say hello to her when you get the time."
Beatrice kissed him. "Must I? I hate offices. Besides, Gaylord has
married your prettiest clerk, and there will be no one to play with me
except my husband."
"Funny thing--that marriage," Steve commented. "If it was any one but
Gay I'd send condolences for loading the office nuisance onto him."
"Wasn't she any use at all?" she asked, curiously.
"None--always having a headache and being excused for the day. That
was the only thing I ever questioned in Mary Faithful--why she engaged
Trudy and took her into her own home as a boarder."
"Oh, so Mary isn't perfection? Don't be too hard on the other girl.
I'd be quite as useless if I ever had to work. I'd do just the
same--have as many headaches as the firm would stand for, and marry
the first man who asked me."
"But think of marrying Gay!"
"Poor old Gay--his father was a dear, and he is terribly well behaved.
Besides, see how obliging he is. Your Miss Faithful refused to help me
out, and Gay ran his legs off to get everything I wanted. I'll never
be rude to Gay as long as he amuses me."
"That's the thing that leads them all, isn't it, princess?"