Trudy was keen as a brier whenever her own realm was threatened. With
the shrewdness which caused her to refrain from ever speaking ill of a
woman when talking to a man and never speaking aught but ill of women
when talking to their own kind, she foresaw in Gay's constant
attendance on the Gorgeous Girl the possibility of an unpleasant
situation.
For the Gorgeous Girl had said not only to her husband but to her
friends that she must find some other kind of a good time now the
novelty of the Villa Rosa was exhausted. Even inky people bored her,
she added; poets were no longer permitted in her drawing room, and the
circle of pet robins and angel ducks had somehow wandered out of her
safe keeping. An unusually pretty flock of sweetsome debutantes had
thinned the bachelor ranks, and Jill Briggs's youngest boy died of
some childish ailment, disturbing Beatrice more than she admitted, for
some reason, and making her own thoughts poor company.
It was while she was talking of this child's death with Trudy that the
latter glimpsed the handwriting on the wall, and with scantily
concealed enmity determined to beat Beatrice at her own game.
"Jill is going away for the winter, poor thing," Beatrice said. "I
don't blame her; it would be too horrible to have to stay and see all
his things about. And it's the second child she's lost. Goodness me,
she has spent hundreds on baby specialists and nurses! Well, you know
yourself, Trudy--you've seen how wonderful she has been. This boy's
death has so distressed her that she has decided to have two nurses
stay with the children instead of one. Mighty sweet of her, as it all
comes out of Jill's pocketbook and not her husband's. She says she
cannot think of leaving them with one person, and she must go away
because her nerves are frazzled.
"She is going to the West Indies with an artist friend, and they are
going to make a marvellous collection of water-colour paintings of
birds and flowers, a sort of memorial to the boy. Jill says she will
sell them and give the proceeds for the _creche_ charity. Well, that
is all very well for Jill to do; she has a real heartache to live
down. But when you have no earthly reason to go and paint wild birds
and flowers and you are bored to distraction with everything--" She
shrugged her shoulders.
"Meaning yourself?" asked Trudy. "Really?"--delighted that this was
so.
"Are you ever bored?"
"Only enough to be fashionable. You see I have to live Gay's life and
career and my own at the same time." Instinctively Trudy knew this
caused envy in her hostess's heart for a multitude of reasons. "Gay
never amounted to anything until we were married"--she paused for this
to take full effect--"and I enjoy playing the game. I have grown fond
of makeshifts and make-believes and hedging, bluffing, stalling,
jumping mental hurdles--it's fun--it keeps you alive and never
weighing more than a hundred and ten pounds."
Trudy rose to go. She was a _chic_ little vixen in a fantastic
costume of black velvet with a jacket of blush pink. No one but Trudy
could have worn such a thing--a semi-Dick-Whittington effect--and have
gotten away with it. Though she was physically very tired from sewing
late the night before, and mal-nourished because she was too indolent
to bother to cook, Trudy looked quite fit for a long stretch of hard
running.
"Why don't you diet seriously?" she purred. "It's only right for your
true friends to tell you. The double chin is permanent, I'm afraid."
She shook her shapely little head, to Beatrice's inward rage.
As Beatrice sat looking up at this impertinent little person she
suddenly became angered to think she had ever bothered with an
ex-office girl or permitted Gaylord to coax her into being nice to his
wife. And if this impossible person could bring Gaylord into the ranks
of prosperity in a short time, making everyone accept her, what
couldn't she, Beatrice O'Valley, do with Gay if she tried--seriously
tried? He would not linger beside Trudy if Beatrice gave him to
understand there was a place for him at her own hearth. She knew
Gaylord too well; he suddenly assumed the figurative form of a goal,
as she had once assumed to Steve--a play pastime--in the true sense. A
real man would not play off property doll in the hands of any woman,
not excepting his own wife; which Beatrice realized. Living with a
cave man had taught her many things. Yet it would be rare fun to have
a property doll all one's own, different from the impersonal, harmless
herd of boys and poets, a really innocent pastime if you considered it
in the eyes of man-written law. What a lark--to switch Gay from this
cheap, red-haired little woman, dominate his life, suddenly assert
her starved abilities, and make him become far greater than anything
Trudy had ever been able to do! It would cause such a jolly row and
excitement and pep everyone up. Pet and flatter him and show Trudy
that after all she had only been an incompetent clerk in Steve's
office!
"Perhaps I will diet," was all she said, smiling sweetly. "And tell
Gay he must come see me to-morrow. I have a plan that I want to tell
him--and no one else. Besides, there is a flaw in the last pair of
candlesticks he bought for me."
Trudy realized perfectly well that sweetness from the lips of an obese
lady, after one has assured her of the arrival of a double chin,
always augurs ill for everyone.
Originally Trudy had determined to use Gaylord as a stepping-stone, a
rather satisfactory first husband. But since Beatrice's commission to
do the villa and the stream of like orders from the new-rich who were
trying to unload their war fortunes before they were caught at it,
Trudy had grown content and even keen about Gaylord in an impersonal
sense. She felt that she could not better herself if he continued to
do as well as he had the last few months, and that she would continue
to do her share of hill-climbing indefinitely. In other words, having
won Gaylord in the remnant department, Trudy decided to keep him and
make him answer the purpose of paying her board bill.
Besides, though she admitted it only to Mary, she felt anything but
well. The more money Gaylord made the more he spent on himself, and he
seemed to expect Trudy to manage out of the ozone, yet to appear as
the indulged wife of her enterprising young husband. It never
ended--the eternal searching for bargains; dyeing clothes and mending,
cleaning, and pressing; living on delicatessen food; sitting up nights
to help out with the work, often doing odds and ends of sewing, and
appearing the next afternoon in the customer's house to admire the
effect of the new drapery and tell of the bright-eyed Italian woman
who had done the work.
Trudy saw little of Mary. Her better self made her stay aloof lest she
win from her friend other details to add to her already safeguarded
secret. And she never attempted to amuse Steve. She fought shy of him
when he was about, wisely limiting herself to shy nods and smiles and
occasionally a very meek compliment, which he usually pretended not to
hear.
As she walked home from the villa--Gay had the roadster--she told
herself that she must watch out or Beatrice would attempt to spoil Gay
to the extent of making him wish to be rid of his wife. She realized
that Gay was extremely scornful and careless of her. Having married
her and satisfied his one-cylinder brain that he was a deuce of a chap
and a democratic rake in marrying this dashing nobody Gaylord turned
bully and permitted Trudy to take the cares of the family on her
shoulders. He was now enjoying the fruits of her industry with a fair
credit rating, very different from formerly, a bank account of which
Trudy knew nothing, and the congenial work of pussyfooting about
boudoirs and guzzling tea while perched on Beatrice's blue-satin
gondolas.
He no longer needed Trudy. He could see now that to be single-handed
once more, but with his new standing and profession, would be a most
satisfactory state of affairs. In fact, if Trudy would only fall in
love with a travelling man and decamp--what a chap he would soon rise
to be! For a broken heart is often a man's strongest asset and a
woman's gravest suspicion. Trudy, however, gave him no hope in this
direction. She hung about her fireplace contrary to her former plans
concerning it. She really put in an eighteen-hour day as both slavey
and sylph, and seemed filled with everlasting patience and jazz.
Coming into the Touraine apartment Trudy found Gaylord showing old
prints to some woman customers and advising as to the smartness of
having them framed and used in sun parlours or any intriguing
little nook. Trudy was _de trop_--she was prettier than the
prospective customers, but in their eyes she had only a Winter-Garden
personality--and Gay frowned his welcome.
Had Trudy not come in Gay would have served cocktails of his own
making, which would cause them to order the prints at fabulous prices;
and then sat in the dusk talking about the occult and the popularity
of Persian pussy cats and how to make pear-and-cottage-cheese salad
and serve it on cabbage leaves, which was quite the mode. It never
does for an interior decorator, particularly if specializing in
boudoirs, to have a wife, Gaylord decided as his customers patronized
Trudy and departed, Gaylord seeing them to their car and standing
bareheaded to wave his bejewelled hand as they whirled round the
corner.
He then returned to give Trudy his unbiassed opinion. "I thought you
were going to stay away until evening," he said. "You spoiled the
sale."
"Did I? What were you about to do--play soul mate if they'd take the
old things? I'm the one who found those prints in a second-hand store
and had sense enough to buy the lot. I'm the one who found the
remnants of cretonne you paste them on--and told you to charge ten
dollars each--and I'm the one who sits out in the little back room and
pastes them on, too!"
She threw her purse down with an angry gesture.
"You are the crudest thing," he said.
"I slapped you once for calling me a crude little fool--and the next
time you try it I'll do better than that!" She was unable to control
her temper. "If you think being a bachelor and languishing in this
place would keep you afloat you're mistaken. It's me--I'm the one that
buys the bargains and runs the sewing machine half the night, sends
out the bills and wheedles the salesmen into looking at you--to say
nothing of doing the housekeeping, and keeping every good-looking
woman afraid of me, yet polite. Why, if you were alone any real
business man could come in here and start a shop and put you behind
the bench overnight. You're nothing! You never were. You lived on a
dead man's reputation until you married me, and now you're living on a
redheaded girl's nerve. I'll scold as shrilly as I like. If the
neighbours hear, all the better!"
Trudy had lost control of herself. Besides, she was very tired. "Who
told you to wear gray-velvet smocks in your drawing-room shop and to
have soft ties poured down softer collars? You look a hundred per
cent, better than when you hopped round in a check suit that gave you
a gameboard appearance. I did that. If I'd ever worked for O'Valley as
I have for you, thinking I'd get a good time out of it somehow, I'd
have had Mary Faithful on the run."
She did not add the rest of her ideas--that Beatrice O'Valley, not
contented with her store of possessions and avenues of interests,
contemplated playing property doll with this half-portion little snob
who stood before her in his ridiculous smock costume, half afraid and
half sneering.
The interview concluded with Trudy's going to the kitchen for some
kind of a supper and Gay's driving off post haste to see Beatrice.
* * * * *
When Steve returned from his hurried two-day trip he asked Beatrice if
she realized the amount of money she was spending.
"Why should I?" she answered, aggrievedly. Steve looked unusually
handsome this afternoon, and seemed to fit into the antique chair;
and, in contrast to her contemplated property doll, Beatrice felt
amiable and willing to play for favour. "I haven't asked you for one
quarter of it."
"That's the trouble--your father has gone on paying your bills, and
you don't seem to realize I am not an enormously rich man--and never
will be, abnormal business conditions having ceased. We are back where
we started, so to speak, and I don't look for a time of unheralded
prosperity for some days to come. I was figuring up while I was away,
in detail; and here are the results." He handed her a memorandum. "You
see? I earn a splendid living and I have a neat nest egg not to be
despised. But I have no Italian-villa income. Your father has, so you
came back to your father to take his money and I am merely a necessary
accessory to the entire ensemble." His voice was bitter.
"Oh, no, Stevuns!" She was quite the romantic parasite as she came and
knelt beside him in coaxing attitude. "Why, papa wishes me to have
everything I want. He would be terribly worried if he thought I had to
do without a single shoe button!"
"But must all the shoe buttons be of gold?" Steve interpolated.
She paid no attention to him. "I'm papa's only heir--the money is all
mine, anyway, and it always has been. You know how simple papa's
tastes are."
"Like my own--like those of all busy people who are doing things. We
haven't time to pamper ourselves."
"Someone has to buy up the trash! And you ought to thank us rich
darlings of the gods for existing at all--we make you look so
respectable by contrast." She waited for his answer.
He rose and went over to the carved mantel, standing so he could look
down the long room crowded with luxuries.
"But this place isn't the home of an American man and his wife. It's a
show place--bought with your father's money! And I've failed. I'm not
supporting my wife. Good heavens, if I were I'd have to be cracking
safes every week-end to do it. I can't make any more money than I am
making--and stay at large--and you cannot go on living off your father
and being my wife. I won't have it! I won't be that kind of a
failure!"
"What shall I do with the money, throw it to the birds?" Her head
began to ache, as it always did when a serious conversation was at
hand.
"Wait until it is yours and then spend it on something for the
good--not the delight--of someone else, or of a great many other
people. Be my wife--let me take care of you," he begged, earnestly.
Beatrice hesitated. "I couldn't," was her final answer. "I couldn't
manage with the allowance you give me--don't worry, dearest, there's
no reason at all that we shouldn't have as good a time as there is.
Papa wants us to."
"Don't you see what I'm trying to get at?" he insisted. "Won't you try
to see? Just try--put yourself in my place, make yourself think with
my viewpoint as a starting place. Suppose you had been a dreamer of a
boy with a pirate's daring and a poet's unreal delusions, and you
combined the two to produce a fortune, a fortune everyone marvelled
at, the lucky turn of the wheel. Suppose you used that fortune with
the same daring and fancy, loving someone with all your heart, to make
money in a regular business and under the guidance of a well-trained
merchant like your father--and then you married the person you loved
and saw her deliberately belittle your manhood by going to her
father's house to live, spending her father's money, and leaving you
quite alone and without the joyous and needed responsibility of
supporting your wife. Now what would you do?"
"I'd start right in spending my own money for things I wanted," she
decided, glibly.
"But suppose you did not want things--cluttery, everlasting
things, glaring, upholstered, painted, carved, what not--lugged
from the four corners of the earth, not harmonizing with your own
aims or interests? Suppose you wanted to create an individual and
representative home and take care of it and the guardian angel who
presided therein--then what would you do?"
"Oh--you mean you want another style of house? Then let's buy a
country tract--and I promise to let you build and furnish just as you
wish. That's a bully idea, dear, to have an abrupt contrast to this
house--old-English manor type would be wonderful!"
The dinner gong brought a merciful release. Beatrice danced through
the archway throwing him a kiss as the rest of her decision.
It was at this identical moment that Steve concluded it was too late
for his wife ever to develop anything more than a double chin or so.