A SOCIAL WIDOW
With the approach of the holiday season, when pretty nearly every one
comes back to town, Frances found her engagements multiplying so
rapidly that it required a good deal of tact and not a little
arithmetic to keep them from conflicting. In this emergency, when she
really needed Don, not only was he of no practical help, but he
further embarrassed her by announcing a blanket refusal of all
afternoon engagements. This placed her in the embarrassing position of
being obliged to go alone and then apologize for him.
"Poor Don is in business now," was her stock explanation.
She was irritated with Don for having placed her in this position. In
return for having surrendered to him certain privileges, she had
expected him to fulfill certain obligations. If she had promised to
allow him to serve exclusively as her social partner, then he should
have been at all times available. He had no right to leave her a
social widow--even when he could not help it. As far as the afternoons
were concerned, the poor boy could not help it--she knew that; but,
even so, why should her winter be broken up by what some one else
could not help?
She had given her consent to Don, not to a business man. As Don he had
been delightful. No girl could ask to have a more attentive and
thoughtful fiance than he had been. He allowed her to make all his
engagements for him, and he never failed her. He was the only man she
knew who could sit through a tea without appearing either silly or
bored. And he was nice--but not too nice--to all her girl friends, so
that most of them were jealous of her. Decidedly, she had had nothing
to complain of.
And she had not complained, even when he announced that he was
penniless. This did not affect her feeling toward Don himself. It was
something of a nuisance, but, after all, a matter of no great
consequence. She had no doubt he could make all the money he wanted,
just as her father had done.
But of late it had been increasingly difficult to persuade him, on
account of business, to fulfill even his evening engagements. He was
constantly reminding her of bonds and things that he must study. Well,
if it was necessary for him to study bonds and things, he should find
some way of doing it that would not interfere with her plans.
The climax came when he asked to be excused from the Moore cotillion
because he had three other dances for that week.
"You see," he explained, "Farnsworth is going to let me go out and
sell as soon as I'm fit, and so I'm putting in a lot of extra time."
"Who is Farnsworth?" she inquired.
"Why, he's the general manager. I've told you about him."
"I remember now. But, Don dear, you aren't going to _sell_ things?"
"You bet I am," he answered enthusiastically. "All I'm waiting for is
a chance."
"But what do you sell?" she inquired.
"Investment securities."
He seemed rather pleased that she was showing so much interest.
"You see, the house buys a batch of securities wholesale and then
sells them at retail--just as a grocer does."
"Don!"
"It's the same thing," he nodded.
"Then I should call it anything but an attractive occupation."
"That's because you don't understand. You see, here's a man with some
extra money to invest. Now, when you go to him, maybe he has something
else in mind to do with that money. What you have to do--"
"Please don't go into details, Don," she interrupted. "You know I
wouldn't understand."
"If you'd just let me explain once," he urged.
"It would only irritate me," she warned. "I'm sure it would only
furnish you with another reason why you shouldn't go about as much as
you do."
"It would," he agreed. "That's why I want to make it clear. Don't you
see that if I keep at this for a few years--"
"Years?" she gasped.
"Well, until I get my ten thousand."
"But I thought you were planning to have that by next fall at the
latest."
"I'm going to try," he answered. "I'm going to try hard. But, somehow,
it doesn't look as easy as it did before I started. I didn't
understand what a man has to know before he's worth all that money."
"I'm sure I don't find ten thousand to be very much," she observed.
"Perhaps it isn't much to spend," he admitted, "but it's a whole lot
to earn. I know a bunch of men who don't earn it."
"Then they must be very stupid."
"No; but somehow dollars look bigger downtown than they do uptown.
Why, I know a little restaurant down there where a dollar looks as big
as ten."
"Don, dear, you're living too much downtown," she exclaimed somewhat
petulantly. "You don't realize it, but you are. It's making you
different--and I don't want you different. I want you just as you used
to be."
She fell back upon a straight appeal--an appeal of eyes and arms and
lips.
"I miss you awfully in the afternoons," she went on, "but I'll admit
that can't be helped. I'll give up that much of you. But after dinner
I claim you. You're mine after dinner, Don."
She was very tender and beautiful in this mood. When he saw her like
this, nothing else seemed to matter. There was no downtown or uptown;
there was only she. There was nothing to do but stoop and kiss her
eager lips. Which is exactly what he did.
For a moment she allowed it, and then with an excited laugh freed
herself.
"Please to give me one of your cards, Don," she said.
He handed her a card, and she wrote upon it this:--
"_December sixteenth, Moore cotillion_."