As soon as Dick had left for the office, Gloria put on her kimono and
went downstairs. In the kitchen Maggie was singing "Mother Machree"
as she washed dishes.
"Maggie," Gloria said politely, "I'd like you to plan all the meals
while you're here, and order the food, as well. Will that be too
much extra work for you?"
Maggie considered.
"Mrs. Gregory told me I was to come here to teach you to cook and
keep house," she answered. "She always does her own marketing. And
she can cook the grandest meals!"
"I know," Gloria said, "but I'm different. I don't know a thing
about running a house. I couldn't plan a meal if my life depended on
it. And I wouldn't know a tender chicken from one as old as the
hills."
She laid her manicured hand pleadingly on Maggie's rough one.
She knew that the older woman was flattered by this offer of new
dignity and power.
"All right," Maggie said finally, "I'll do it for you."
Gloria breathed a smile of relief. She ran upstairs and started the
steaming water for her bath. There was a large bottle of rose
bath-salts on the glass shelf beside the tub.
Gloria threw in two big handfuls. The bath-water began to smell like
a Persian garden.
Out in her bedroom the French clock on the dressing-table chimed.
Twelve o'clock!
A month ago twelve o'clock would have found her out on the avenue, on
her way to lunch with hundreds of other pretty girls who worked for a
living.
Now she was Mrs. Richard Gregory, pampered and idle. She hadn't a
trouble in the world! Her greatest worry was to decide what kind of
earrings to wear with the dress she had chosen for that day.
Ah, this was the life ... this was what she was born for! She smiled
at her glowing face in the glass, as she rubbed perfume behind her
pink ears.
The telephone rang.
"Hello, sweet thing!" It was May Seymour's light voice that came
over the wire. "I heard you were home. How's married life?"
"Wonderful, of course! You should just see all the things I bought
in Montreal! Come over, can't you? I have the darlingest bottle of
perfume for you--Chinese water lily. Right from Paris it came!"
Gloria said.
"I'll be right over to get it," May laughed. And by the time Gloria
was dressed, May's smart little car was at her door.
Gloria brought treasure after treasure from the unpacked trunk ...
lip sticks that were indelible, geranium rouge, stockings the color
of sunburnt skin, a three-strand pearl necklace, and the new fur coat.
She held the coat up for May to admire.
"My dear, you remind me of the Queen of Sheba, and nobody else but!"
May exclaimed in her cheerful slangy way. "I've got to trot along
now--I have a heavy date with the hairdresser. But first I'm going
to open this wonderful perfume you've given me, and douse it all over
my coat. Mmm! Isn't that the most heavenly smell? ... Just think,
angel, you wouldn't have all this sudden wealth if it hadn't been for
me!"
It was true. For Gloria had met Dick through May and her husband.
May and Gloria had gone to business college together. Then May had
found a job in Dr. John Seymour's office and had married him. And at
one of their parties, Gloria had first seen big, quiet Dick Gregory,
and had marked him for her own.
Her eyes were dreamy as she thought of that long-ago night.... Dick
had driven her home from the party, and had roughly kissed her
good-night at the door.
She had known instantly that he meant it ... that he was not just
"petting."
"I can marry that man!" she had told her mirror that night, with the
memory of Dick's hard kiss still on her mouth. "I can marry that man
and all his money, if I want to!"
Well, she had wanted to ... and so she had married him.
After May had gone, Gloria put on her hat and the new fur coat to go
to see her mother. She hadn't telephoned her since she had come home.
"Don't bother about getting lunch for me," she told Maggie, "I ate a
big breakfast, and I'm afraid of getting fat."
"Have just a cup of tea and a bit of salad," Maggie said. She
couldn't understand these women who were afraid to eat, lest they
gain a few pounds. She thought they'd all look better if they had a
little flesh on their bones.
But Gloria shook her head.
As she walked down the street, she met Lola Hough.
She was wheeling a baby buggy with one hand and carrying a market
basket with the other. Behind her trotted the twins, Billy and Betty.
Lola's tired face was wreathed with smiles under her last year's hat.
"How nice to see you!" She kissed Gloria warmly. "Are you all
settled in your lovely new house? I walked past it the other day,
and I thought how lovely that big back yard will be for your
babies--when they come."
Gloria raised her eyebrows.
"I hope you're not going to be one of these foolish women who can't
be bothered with having children," Lola said. She had caught the
look on Gloria's face at the word "babies."
"Because they're not a bother! They're the greatest fun in the
world," Lola went on. "A woman thinks she loves her husband. But
she doesn't even guess what love is until she has a baby."
Lola raised the hood of the buggy. Inside, in a little nest of
pillows, lay Teddy Hough, who was not quite a year old. His long
lashes lay in a dark shadow on his cheeks. Little gold wisps of hair
curled from under his bonnet.
"Isn't he a love?" Lola asked.
"Nice baby," was all Gloria could find to say. She said good-by then
and walked on.
The little house of her girlhood looked shabbier than ever before
when she came down the street. The paint was scaling in places, and
the snowy lace curtains had been darned in a dozen places. A card
tacked up beside the doorbell, read: "Bell out of order. Please
knock."
Gloria knocked. Her mother opened the door. The minute she saw her
daughter she began to cry.
"Whatever in the world's the matter, Mother?" Gloria asked. She
pushed the door shut, and patted her mother's gingham shoulder with
one hand in its white kid glove.
"Oh, I don't know," her mother sobbed. "I guess I'm so happy at
seeing you married off so well to such a good man that I just have to
have a good cry."
She wiped her eyes with one corner of her white apron.
"You've always been a worry to your dad and me, Gloria," she went on.
"All your life. You were too pretty always. And you began to have
beaus when you were too young for them.... Then, last year we were
deadly afraid that you were going to run away with that
good-for-nothing actor.... What was his name?"
"Stanley Wayburn," Gloria answered promptly. "But you needn't have
worried about him. He didn't want to marry any one who didn't have a
million dollars!"
Stanley Wayburn was still a bitter memory in her heart.
He was the one man who had never lost his head over her. He had told
her frankly that he would never marry for anything but money. But he
was perfectly willing to make love to her, Gloria, in the meantime.
Only he wouldn't fall in love with her ... had finally stopped
phoning her or taking her out to supper.
And then, at the end of the season, he had left town without a word.
She remembered how she had cried all night.... What a fool she had
been to care for him!
Mrs. Gordon was enchanted with Gloria's new fur coat.
"Dick's a fine husband," she said. "So don't kill the goose that
lays the golden egg. Don't run him into debt! ... By the way, that
good-for-nothing Wayburn is back in town. I see by the papers that
he is heading a new stock company."
"Is that so?" Gloria asked innocently. But her heart leaped. Stan
Wayburn here, playing! And this was matinée day!
Gloria glanced at her wrist watch. Two o'clock.... If she hurried
she could get to the theater in fifteen minutes.
"Well, I must be going. I just stopped in on my way downtown to see
Dick," she fibbed, and kissed her mother good-by. On the way to the
theater she bought a bunch of violets and pinned them to her coat.
The house was sold out except for two chairs in an upper box. Gloria
bought one of them. Just as she entered the box the curtain went up.
The play was a western one.
When Wayburn walked out onto the stage with his spurs clanking,
Gloria leaned forward. She wanted to call out to him. "Hello there,
Stan! It's Gloria!"
For she felt sure he would never recognize shabby Gloria Gordon in
the bejeweled, befurred creature she had become....
Just then Wayburn looked up. He looked straight at her. And he
smiled.
A few minutes after the curtain had gone down on the first act an
usher came into the box. He gave Gloria a folded sheet of paper.
"You are Miss Gordon, aren't you?" he asked. Gloria nodded.
"Gloria dear. It's good to see you again. Can't you run down to my
dressing-room for a minute or two? The boy will show you the way,"
the note read. It was signed "Stan."
Gloria took her gold pencil from her bag.
"I can't come. I'm not Gloria Gordon any more. I'm married," she
wrote on the back of the note Wayburn had sent up to her.
Then she hesitated. Should she send it? Or should she run down to
see him?
After all, would it be so very wrong to see Stanley Wayburn in his
dressing-room for five minutes?
Well, and what if it was wrong? Dick would probably never hear of it
anyhow.
And Gloria longed to see Wayburn ... If only to dazzle him with her
new splendor. To show him that even if he hadn't wanted to marry
her, another man had ... a man who could afford to give her fur coats
and diamonds and Parma violets in the middle of winter.
She rose to her feet.
"Take me to Mr. Wayburn," she said to the waiting usher.
The actor was waiting for her inside his room that had a tin star
tacked on the door.
"Stan!" she breathed.
Before she knew what was happening she was in his arms. The smell of
the Turkish cigarettes that he always smoked struck her nostrils as
he kissed her again and again.
At last Gloria pushed him away. Her cheeks were scarlet.
"You shouldn't have done that!" she cried. "I'm married."
"So that's it!" Wayburn said. His eyes swept her from her $50 hat to
her shoes with their silver buckles. "When I saw you up in the box I
wondered what you were using for money this year.... Who is the
bloated millionaire you've married?"
"Richard Gregory, the lawyer," Gloria answered. "Ever hear of him?"
Wayburn nodded.
"I didn't know he was so darned rich," he said.
"Oh, we're not rich ... just comfortably well off," Gloria told him.
"We've a darling little house, and an automobile and a maid. I have
everything I want, really."
"I'll just jot that address down. I'll be out some day soon to see
you, to have a quiet talk over old times," Stan told her.
He wrote Gloria's address in a small leather book on his dressing
table.
"If you should come, make it Thursday," Gloria said.
Thursday was Maggie's afternoon out. She did not want Maggie to be
there when Stanley Wayburn came to call. She would take no chances
on having Dick or Dick's mother find out that she was having a
handsome man calling on her ... less than three weeks after her
wedding, at that!
... Not that there was anything wrong in seeing Wayburn. She would
make him behave himself when he came. But people would be sure to
misunderstand ... if they found out.