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JOAN & CO.
=Books by Frederick Orin Bartlett=
PUBLISHED BY
A HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
JOAN & CO.
ONE YEAR OF PIERROT. Illustrated.
THE TRIFLERS. Illustrated.
THE WALL STREET GIRL. Illustrated.
JOAN OF THE ALLEY. Illustrated.
JOAN & CO.
_By_
FREDERICK ORIN BARTLETT
[Illustration: Company logo]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
_The Riverside Press Cambridge_
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY FREDERICK ORIN BARTLETT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TO
R. S. B.
CONTENTS
I. DICKY IS SERIOUS 1
II. JOAN IS BORED 12
III. CHANCE 22
IV. THE DRIVER AND FATE 35
V. BANDAGED 42
VI. WHOSE FAULT? 51
VII. A LETTER 64
VIII. DICKY CALLS 71
IX. THE FIGHTING THINGS 82
X. AT HOME 93
XI. THE SILENT PARTNER 104
XII. JOAN & CO. 118
XIII. A CHALLENGE 134
XIV. PUMPKIN PIE 142
XV. LIKE NAPOLEON 146
XVI. THE DEVONS MANUFACTURING COMPANY 152
XVII. UPTOWN AND DOWNTOWN 161
XVIII. BEEF TEA 173
XIX. PRINCESSES 183
XX. THE FASTER GAME 198
XXI. A CONFESSION 206
XXII. A SALE 212
XXIII. NO TIME TO WASTE 222
XXIV. A VACATION 228
XXV. DANGER 235
XXVI. A NEW STENOGRAPHER 245
XXVII. REAL NEWS 257
XXVIII. THE BIG HOUR 270
XXIX. A STRAIGHT TIP 281
XXX. BANKRUPT 295
XXXI. DISCHARGED 305
XXXII. GOLF 311
XXXIII. THE BIG CHANCE 317
XXXIV. A BUSY MAN 333
XXXV. LOVE 344
XXXVI. THE DAY COMES 351
XXXVII. BACK HOME 364
XXXVIII. THE LAST ACT 373
JOAN & CO.
Joan & Co.
CHAPTER I
DICKY IS SERIOUS
The New York social season in which Miss Joan Fairburne made her début
was not more than half finished before the quizzical smile in the dark
eyes, half closed above a slightly upturned, dainty nose, which gave
her an air of amused boredom at first so fascinating to Dicky Burnett,
became, instead of an occasional expression, rather more frequent than
befitted a young woman of twenty. Also it was rather too inclusive to
be complimentary. As long as it was directed merely in a general way
at the assembled company at _thé dansant_ or box party or cards or
dance, Dicky fell in with it, and, his long legs crossed before him and
his arms folded over his chest, he assumed an air of weary submission
which he was sure established between him and Miss Fairburne a bond of
common lack of interest. But when those same dark eyes with their long
lashes began to turn also in his direction, as he made his gay comments
intended to cause her to nod sympathetically, but which did nothing of
the sort, he grew uncomfortable. It was as if she brushed him into the
pile with the others.
It was the more humiliating because he realized that the girl was
sincere. She was startlingly and delightfully sincere. He had known
her now for two years; first as one of twenty girls at Wellesley when
he was a junior at Harvard; then, when he was a senior, as one of a
half-dozen; then, in these last few months after graduation, when he
was not anything in particular, as one of two or three girls; and
finally, within a week, as _the_ girl.
She did not know this yet, and every time he made up his mind to
tell her he hesitated. This was not because he lacked courage or
experience. He had never actually asked any one to marry him, but he
had come so near it once or twice on especial occasions—such as certain
moonlight nights on that yachting trip he had taken two summers before
with Haywood, and again on a week-end with Benton when he met the
fascinating widow—that he realized that only abstention from the easily
spoken words had saved him. And always by the next morning he was
congratulating himself.
This time, however, it was different; the next morning he was blaming
himself. Reviewing the evening before in the luxurious quiet of the
suite of rooms which ever since he was seventeen had been set apart for
him in his father’s home, he thought of all the things he might have
said to her and had not said, and damned himself for one who had not
made the most of a rare opportunity.
Last night the Devereaux ballroom had been close with the crush
that filled it—it was like a room overcrowded with flowers—and she
had begged for a breath of fresh air. It was January, but Burnett
remembered the way to the little courtyard, and, finding her wrap and
overshoes, had led her to the tiny snow-dusted inclosure beneath the
white stars. He had taken her arm, and they walked back and forth in
the frosty night with the music coming to them muffled. It was a pretty
scene—a niche from another world, bounded by a high wall, with the
subdued light from the big windows cutting yellow across the snow, and
above them the illimitable purple. He had seen her lift her face—her
earnest, eager face, her beautiful half girl, half woman face; her
tender yet haughty face with its keen black eyes and its fine mouth.
She had stood so for a moment very erect like a princess challenging
the stars themselves, and breathing deep of some clearer air above. He
should have seized her then in his arms. He should have made her listen
to his words of love. He should have told her how, with everything
else in the world a man could crave, not having her he had nothing. He
should have told her how now she stood out among all the women in the
world as _the_ woman. And yet he had said nothing. He had watched her
in awe and said nothing. His heart beating in his throat, he had been
as tongue-tied as any freshman. Ass that he was!
Dicky Burnett continued, with variations, to libel himself in this
fashion all the while he dressed. To tell the truth, however, he
by no means looked the part he assigned to himself. He was rather
good-looking from either a man’s or a woman’s point of view. Tall,
lean, clean-cut, with an intelligent and good-humored face suggesting
in the nose and mouth elements of real strength, he was distinguished
in appearance above the average of his fellows. Offhand one would have
said he would make a good soldier. Men would not hesitate to follow him
because he would not hesitate to lead, given a goal he considered worth
reaching. Well, he had one now. Then why the devil—
Burnett was shaving himself with a safety razor and yet he managed to
cut himself slightly just below the left temple. He touched the scratch
with a bit of caustic and enjoyed the smart of it.
At half-past eight he went downstairs to breakfast, which he took
alone because his mother always joined his father, who left promptly
at eight for the offices of the Burnett Manufacturing Company. There
was no need of this early departure, as Dicky regularly informed him;
but the latter only affected to scorn this evident truth. He made a
sort of hobby of keeping to the old habits that had made his business
to-day what it was—the leader in the manufacture of a certain type of
patent-leather finish. His idea since he was forty had been, as he
informed his traveling men at the end of each fiscal year, “to make the
next twelve months the greatest in the history of the company.”
“That’s all very well,” his son observed whenever he found the
opportunity; “but when are you going to get off?”
“About the time I begin to smoke cigarettes,” Burnett senior answered
once, as he lighted a stogie.
Dicky waved responsibility aside with a motion of the hand containing a
fresh cigarette.
“Of course, if you’re going to be stubborn and not take advice—”
“Advice from who?” the elder demanded, utterly disregarding the rule
governing prepositions.
“From me. Hang it, you _are_ putting on weight.”
“What of it?”
“Mullen used to say—”
“Who’s Mullen?”
“Mullen is the ’varsity trainer,” Dicky replied imperturbably. “As I
was observing, when interrupted, Mullen said that any man who took on
weight after forty was running a chance.”
“All right; I’ll take the chance,” Burnett answered grimly.
It was a fact, however, that Dicky really was worried about his
father. He had a genuine love for him and an honest respect for his
opinion on every other subject except work and health. On the latter
subject Dicky actually was qualified to speak with some authority; for
although he had never distinguished himself in athletics he had been
under Mullen for three years as a member of the second baseball team.
After finishing a breakfast of eggs and toast, Burnett enjoyed his
usual walk from his home on Sixty-first Street to the Harvard Club.
Here he dropped in to glance at the morning papers, and then took a
taxi for the factory, reaching there at about half-past ten.
As second vice-president of the company, he had a desk in an office
with Forsythe, the actual vice-president. The latter, an aggressive
man of forty, with hair brushed back in a fashion that gave one the
weird impression that he was facing a strong wind, always glanced
up with an abrupt “Good-morning, Mr. Burnett,” and planned to find
business elsewhere the hour or so that Dicky remained. As a matter of
fact, there was not much for the latter to do. The smoothly running
organization had been built up of men who had learned the business from
factory, to road, to office. It was so that Burnett had wished his son
to learn it; but, as the latter observed, with some point:
“What’s the use, Dad?”
“The use?” snorted Burnett. “How else will you learn it?”
“I don’t want to learn it.”
“Eh?”
“I’d rather let George do it.”
“George?”
“He being any one who is obliged to do it for the sake of earning
a living,” explained Dicky. “I _could_ do it, I could go into the
factory and wallow around in sticky black stuff, if it were necessary.
I could go out on the road and sell and sit round between times in
hotel offices. But thank the Lord it isn’t necessary. So what’s the
use? You did all those things yourself, I know. But that is just the
reason why no one else in the family should have to do them all over
again. Besides, there are plenty of men looking for that chance. Like
Forsythe; he ate up that kind of work for years, and enjoyed it. Now
he eats up all this office, and enjoys it. And you—you ought to be out
playing golf—that’s all.”
It was a matter of family pride that led Burnett, in spite of this
attitude, to elect the boy a second vice-president; and it was merely
the obligation the boy felt he owed his father that made him accept
it. And Dicky let it go at that. He came down nearly every morning,
and sat around until lunch-time mostly for the sake of seeing that his
father did not duck into an alley somewhere and bolt a cup of coffee
and a doughnut. At twelve o’clock he broke in upon the sanctity of
Burnett’s private office, removed his hat and coat from the hat-rack,
and stood by the roll-top desk until his father rose with a scowl and
put his arms through the sleeves. Then Dicky led him round the block to
a decent hotel, where he made him eat slowly and deliberately a plate
of soup, an omelet, and whole wheat bread without butter. With equal
insistence he refused to allow him to eat apple pie, squash pie, mince
pie, cream pie, or crullers. Dicky generally postponed his own lunch
until later.
“Then you’ll go and eat what you please,” his father hinted darkly as
he finished.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Why in thunder, then, can’t you let me alone?”
“You aren’t as young as I am. Besides, if you’re going to work as hard
as you do, you must look after yourself.”
Burnett senior bit off the end of his stogie with a vicious snap and,
lighting it, sat back. He was shorter and stockier than his son.
His features were less finely moulded. It was as though he had been
chiseled out of oak with coarse tools, while the boy had been carefully
carved with keen-bladed instruments. That was what the mother had done
for him. She was a Cleaves of Portland—a fine, gentle soul who in her
day had been considered a beauty. She had her days, even now.
Burnett could not help being proud of the boy. When he came into a
place like this, he saw people glance at him approvingly. And nothing
gave him more satisfaction than to introduce him to some old friend or
new business acquaintance with a dignified:
“My son.”
But in the end he generally paid for this by being forced to listen to
some such remark as:
“Ah, in business with you?”
As a rule, Dicky himself furnished the reply:
“I have the honor of being a vice-president of the company.”
And the boy did not know a vici dressing from ordinary shoe blacking!
“Look here,” his father said to him on this the 10th day of January,
“you’ve been out of college some six months now.”
“Right.”
“It seems as though you ought to be doing something more than just
hanging round.”
“I’m thinking of doing something,” Dicky informed him.
Burnett sat up straighter in his chair.
“Now, that sounds better.”
“I’m thinking of getting married,” went on Dicky.
“Married?” exclaimed Burnett.
“Married,” Dicky nodded seriously.
Burnett frowned.
“You haven’t got mixed up with—”
“Nothing of that sort,” Dicky cut in. “You ought to know me better.”
Burnett flushed. He did. He spoke more carefully:
“Who is it, boy?”
“I can’t tell you yet, Dad, because I haven’t asked her. I’m going to
ask her to-day.”
“Any one I know?”
“Some one you’d like.”
Dicky leaned across the table and, with his arms folded, talked
straight into his father’s gray eyes.
“She’s very beautiful, Dad, with a sort of beauty that—that makes
you hold your breath. She’s slight and not very tall; but sometimes
she looks so tall that I feel like a kid beside her. And she has
dead-honest black eyes that think a good deal. And she makes you feel
as though you ought to be a prince or a caliph to be worthy of her.
That’s the trouble.”
Burnett had been studying his son. What he saw there now warmed his own
eyes.
“What’s the trouble?” he demanded.
“She’s one of the choice things of the world, and ought to be
surrounded by nothing but choice things.”
Burnett’s face hardened a trifle.
“You mean you want to buy her some jewels?”
“I wasn’t thinking of that—though she could wear jewels. I don’t
remember, though, that I’ve ever seen her with many. You wouldn’t
notice them, anyway, if she had them on. I don’t know what you _would_
get her that she hasn’t already.”
Burnett threw away his stogie. He had never seen the boy so much in
earnest. It put something into the lad’s eyes and mouth that he was
glad to find there. He glanced around. There was no one near to observe
his weakness, so he reached over and placed his big hand on his son’s.
“Dick,” he said slowly, “you know that what’s mine is yours.”
Dicky Burnett felt something squeezing his Adam’s apple.
“I wasn’t telling you this for—that,” he choked.
“I know,” Burnett put in quickly. “I know. But go after her. Get her.
If she’s all you say she is, by God, I’ll make a prince of you, if
that’s what she wants.”
Dicky smiled mistily.
“If you were thirty years younger you’d get her yourself,” he said.