After an eternity the bell rang. Gloria opened the front door. May
and Jim stood there.
"Well, look at you, all dressed up like a broken arm!" cried May as
she danced into the house. "Isn't she grand, Jim? And me in my old
sport rags!"
May pulled down the belt of her white sweater, and ran a comb through
her short black hair.
"There! I'm all fussed up, too!" she said in her lively way. "I
don't see your little boy friend, anywhere. Where is he ... hiding?"
Gloria laughed.
"He hasn't come," she said. "It's not quite three o'clock, and he
has manners, he has! He wouldn't come ahead of time. He must be
fashionably late!"
"I suppose Jim and I are guilty of a social error by arriving on
time!" observed May, "Well, we brought the life of the party along
with us. So forgive us, dearie!"
She showed Gloria what was inside the crown of the sport hat she was
carrying ... a large silver flask!
Gloria's heart sank. She didn't want a "wild" party. She had looked
forward to this quiet afternoon with Stan. She was sorry that she
had told May that Stan was coming.
"Here comes Wayburn up the street now," said Jim, as he started for
the kitchen, flask in hand. And a minute afterward the bell rang.
May and Jim disappeared into the kitchen to make highballs while
Gloria opened the door for Stan.
Wayburn threw off his topcoat as he entered. Then without warning he
turned and took her in his arms. Gloria pushed him away.
"May Seymour and Jim Carewe are here," she whispered, shaking her
head. "They're out in the kitchen ... mixing drinks."
"What's the idea?" asked Stan. "I wanted to see you alone ... to
talk to you.... What did you ask them here for? Afraid of me?"
Gloria shook her head, again.
"I didn't ask them, silly," she said. "They asked themselves, as
soon as they heard that Dick was out of town."
"Dick out of town..." Wayburn groaned. "And we could have had the
whole afternoon to ourselves..."
"You weren't so wild for my companionship a year ago when you could
have had it, you know," Gloria said sharply.
"You'll never forgive me for that, will you, infant?" the actor
asked. He put one finger under her soft chin and raised her face to
his.
Just then Gloria heard the swinging door of the pantry creak on its
hinges.
"Look out!" she whispered. "They're coming!"
The curtains of the living-room parted in. And in marched May with
the platter of Ranghild's sandwiches, followed by Jim, carrying four
tall glasses of ginger ale. Under his arm was tucked the silver
flask.
Stan sat down in Dick's favorite armchair.
"This," he said when he had greeted May and Jim, "begins to look like
a regular party. I'm glad I came!"
Jim measured liquor from his flask into each of the tall glasses.
Gloria looked doubtfully at her highball as she stirred it.
At last she set it down on the red lacquer smoking-stand that had
been her Christmas present to Dick.
... Oh, why were Jim and May there, with their drinks that she didn't
want to take?
Why weren't she and Stan there alone, as they had been alone
yesterday afternoon? ... There were a thousand torturing questions
that she wanted to ask him.
And there was one thing she yearned to hear him say to her...
"I love you." For he never had.
Jim stared at Gloria and her untasted highball.
"What's the matter, old girl?" he asked. "Got cold feet?"
Gloria nodded.
"I'm afraid to drink since I passed out the other night after those
cocktails," she said.
"Oh, where do you get that sweet girl graduate stuff, Gloria?" May
asked bluntly. "Go on, take a drink. You can't be a crêpe-hanger at
your own party!"
"I should say not!" Stan nodded vigorously.
Gloria lifted her glass.
"Well, here's to crime then!" she cried and sipped the pale amber
fluid slowly.
Stan leaned over and touched his glass to hers.
"I drink to business trips ... and to husbands who are away on them!"
he said in a tone so low that May and Jim couldn't hear his words.
"The chaperons are going into the sunroom, so you won't have to
whisper to each other. 'S not polite," Jim remarked in his loud,
good-natured voice.
He picked up the plate of sandwiches and followed May out of the
living-room.
Stan looked at Gloria with a question in his eyes.
"Chaperons?" he asked. "Explain yourself. Did you ask those two
birds over here to-day to chaperon us?"
Gloria shook her head gravely.
"No, not exactly," she said. "I mentioned to May that you were
coming to see me this afternoon, and she invited herself and Jim
over. Why ... do you wish they weren't here?"
"I do," Stan replied shortly. He gazed thoughtfully into the fire.
Gloria watched him. She had an almost unbearable desire to cross the
room to him, and put her arm around him ... to hold his dark head in
the crook of it ... to tell him how very much he meant to her.
Nervously she struck a match to a cigarette.
"Hmm, I had a letter this morning that I certainly wasn't looking
for," Stan said suddenly.
"From Sonya Chotek, I'll bet a dime," Gloria answered.
Stan laughed.
"By Jove, you guessed right!" he said. "You're a fortune teller."
"I wish I really were. Then I'd know how you feel toward all these
women who send you letters," Gloria said bitterly. "How do you feel
about Sonya Chotek, for instance? ... Do you think she's as nice as I
am?"
"Oh, gosh, you have it all over her like a tent," Stan promptly
answered. And, for the moment, Gloria's jealousy was appeased.
"By the way, did you find out for sure that your mother-in-law saw us
yesterday in the car?" Stan asked presently.
"Did I find out? I'll tell the street I found out," Gloria answered.
"The minute I came home Ranghild told me she wanted to talk to me ...
so I went over to see her, and she 'panned' me for half an hour about
being a bad wife.
"I should worry about anything she says!" she added. "I don't care
what anybody says ... or who sees us when we're together ... Stan, I
don't care about anything in the world except you!"
Gloria knelt down on the floor beside Wayburn's chair. She looked up
at him, breathlessly waiting for him to speak. But he said nothing.
"Stan, do you care for me at all? ... I've just got to know!" Gloria
asked at last. Her face was hot with shame. She hid it in her hands.
Wayburn stood, and lifted her to her feet.
"That drink's going to your head a little, isn't it, Russet?" he
asked. He pushed her gently back into her chair, and stood looking
at her.
"Do you know you're the prettiest thing I ever saw in that blue-green
dress you're wearing?" he asked. "You look like the Lorelei.
Remember the Lorelei in the old song? ... Her hair was golden, like
yours."
Wayburn walked over to the piano and lifted the lid of it. He sat
down and struck a few chords.
Then he began to sing the Lorelei song between puffs at the cigarette
that clung to his lower lip.
When he had finished May and Jim applauded loudly from the sunroom.
Wayburn came and sat on the arm of Gloria's chair. There was a smile
in his eyes as he looked at her.
"Little tiger-cat!" he said, "aren't you ashamed of yourself for
being jealous of Sonya Chotek, or any other woman I happen to meet?
... Don't think of the other women. Think of just you and me ...
to-day!"
He leaned closer. Gloria shook her head.
"That's just the trouble. I think of to-morrow ... and to-morrow,"
she said dismally. "I think of your going away soon, out on the
road, where I won't be able to see you..."
Gloria's voice dropped to a long sigh.
Stan put a piece of ice into his half-emptied glass.
"Oh, I'm not leaving town so soon as all that!" he remarked. "If
that's what's worrying you! ... There aren't very many new shows at
this time of the year, you know. I may be out of a job for months.
And in the meantime, I'll probably stay right here, where I can see
little Russet every once in a while...."
His hand stroked her hair.
"Gloria!" May called. "Put on a record so we can dance, will you?
... Something peppy, please!"
Gloria put a new jazz record on the phonograph. Stan swept her into
his arms and they danced around the firelit room.
The music beat in the uneven rhythm of a jungle drum.
"Makes you think of tropic forests, and savages dancing around fires
... that music, doesn't it?" Stan asked, his lips pressed to Gloria's
forehead. "Do you like jazz?"
Gloria's eyes were starry as she smiled up at him.
"I like any old kind of music when I'm dancing with you!" she said
truthfully. And hated herself for saying it.
... Stan should be the one to say nice things! And he wouldn't tell
her that he loved her ... even when she asked him to!
Gloria wondered if he ever had really cared deeply for any woman.
She doubted it.
Stan was the handsome, happy-go-lucky type of man that almost all
women adore. There probably had never been any need for him to court
women. They courted him ... matinée idol that he was!
The walls of his dressing-room at the theater had been covered with
photographs of women. Pretty women, too! ... Gloria had seen them
the day Stan had sent for her to come to him.
How she wished now that she had not gone to the theater that day!
For the very sight of Stan, and the sound of his voice, had brought
back to her all the longing for him that she had known in her old
days of friendship with him ... before she met Dick.
"Tell me about your friend May and this Carewe," Stan was saying in
an undertone. "Isn't she married to the doctor who was at your party
the other night?"
Gloria nodded.
"She is ... but he's awfully busy, so Jim beaus May around," she
explained. "It's quite all right. They're just friends."
Wayburn smiled skeptically.
"'Friend-of-the-family' stuff, eh?" he asked.
Gloria didn't answer. She didn't like any one to criticize May ...
not even Stan! ... They danced on.
"There's an automobile stopping outside your house," Stan said after
a moment. "Are you expecting callers?"
"Heavens, no!" Gloria cried. "Stop the music.... It's probably
Mother Gregory coming to find out what I'm doing while Dick's away!
Somebody take the highball glasses out in the kitchen so she can't
see them--quick!"