During working hours, Mrs. McChesney held rigidly to business. Her handsome partner tried bravely to follow her example. If he failed occasionally, perhaps Emma McChesney was not so displeased as she pretended to be. A business discussion, deeply interesting to both, was likely to run thus:
Buck, entering her office briskly, papers in hand: "Mrs.
McChesney--ahem!--I have here a letter from Singer & French, Columbus, Ohio. They ask for an extension. They"ve had ninety days."
"That"s enough. That firm"s slow pay, and always will be until old Singer has the good taste and common sense to retire. It isn"t because the stock doesn"t move. Singer simply believes in not paying for anything until he has to. If I were you, I"d write him that this is a business house, not a charitable inst.i.tution---- No, don"t do that. It isn"t politic. But you know what I mean."
"H"m; yes." A silence. "Emma, that"s a fiendishly becoming gown."
"Now, T. A.!"
"But it is! It--it"s so kind of loose, and yet clinging, and those white collar-and-cuff things----"
"T. A. Buck, I"ve worn this thing down to the office every day for a month. It shines in the back. Besides, you promised not to----"
"Oh, darn it all, Emma, I"m human, you know! How do you suppose I can stand here and look at you and not----"
Emma McChesney (pressing the buzzer that summons Hortense): "You know, Tim, I don"t exactly hate you this morning, either. But business is business. Stop looking at me like that!" Then, to Hortense, in the doorway: "Just take this letter, Miss Stotz-Singer & French, Columbus, Ohio. Dear Sirs: Yours of the tenth at hand. Period. Regarding your request for further extension we wish to say that, in view of the fact----"
T. A. Buck, half resentful, half amused, wholly admiring, would disappear. But Hortense, eyes demurely cast down at her notebook, was not deceived.
"Say," she confided to Miss Kelly, "they think they"ve got me fooled.
But I"m wise. Don"t I know? When Henry pa.s.ses through the office here, from the shipping-room, he looks at me just as cool and indifferent. Before we announced it, we had you all guessing, didn"t we? But I can see something back of that look that the rest of you can"t get. Well, when Mr. Buck looks at her, I can see the same thing in his eyes. Say, when it comes to seeing the love-light through the fog, I"m there with the spy-gla.s.s."
If Emma McChesney held herself well in leash during the busy day, she relished her happiness none the less when she could allow herself the full savor of it. When a girl of eighteen she had married a man of the sort that must put whisky into his stomach before the machinery of his day would take up its creaking round.
Out of the degradation of that marriage she had emerged triumphantly, sweet and unsullied, and she had succeeded in bringing her son, Jock McChesney, out into the clear sunlight with her.
The evenings spent with T. A. Buck, the man of fine instincts, of breeding, of proven worth, of rare tenderness, filled her with a great peace and happiness. When doubts a.s.sailed her, it was not for herself but for him. Sometimes the fear would clutch her as they sat before the fire in the sitting-room of her comfortable little apartment. She would voice those fears for the very joy of having them stilled.
"T. A., this is too much happiness. I"m--I"m afraid. After all, you"re a young man, though you are a bit older than I in actual years.
But men of your age marry girls of eighteen. You"re handsome. And you"ve brains, family, breeding, money. Any girl in New York would be glad to marry you--those tall, slim, exquisite young girls. Young!
And well bred, and poised and fresh and sweet and lovable. You see them every day on Fifth Avenue, exquisitely dressed, entirely desirable. They make me feel--old--old and battered. I"ve sold goods on the road. I"ve fought and worked and struggled. And it has left its mark. I did it for the boy, G.o.d bless him! And I"m glad I did it.
But it put me out of the cla.s.s of that girl you see on----"
"Yes, Emma; you"re not at all in the cla.s.s with that girl you see every day on Fifth Avenue. Fifth Avenue"s full of her--hundreds of her, thousands of her. Perhaps, five years ago, before I had worked side by side with you, I might have been attracted by that girl you see every day on Fifth Avenue. You don"t see a procession of Emma McChesneys every day on Fifth Avenue--not by a long shot! Why? Because there"s only one of her. She doesn"t come in dozen lots. I know that that girl you see every day on Fifth Avenue is all that I deserve. But, by some heaven-sent miracle, I"m to have this Emma McChesney woman! I don"t know how it came to be true. I don"t deserve it. But it is true, and that"s enough for me."
Emma McChesney would look up at him, eyes wet, mouth smiling.
"T. A., you"re balm and myrrh and incense and meat and drink to me. I wish I had words to tell you what I"m thinking now. But I haven"t. So I"ll just cover it up. We both know it"s there. And I"ll tell you that you make love like a "movie" hero. Yes, you do! Better than a "movie"
hero, because, in the films, the heroine always has to turn to face the camera, which makes it necessary for him to make love down the back of her neck."
But T. A. Buck was unsmiling.
"Don"t trifle, Emma. And don"t think you can fool me that way. I haven"t finished. I want to settle this Fifth Avenue creature for all time. What I have to say is this: I think you are more attractive--finer, bigger, more rounded in character and manner, mellower, sweeter, sounder, with all your angles and corners rubbed smooth, saner, better poised than any woman I have ever known. And what I am to-day you have made me, directly and indirectly, by a.s.sociation and by actual orders, by suggestion, and by direct contact.
What you did for Jock, purposefully and by force, you did for me, too.
Not so directly, perhaps, but with the same result. Emma McChesney, you"ve made--actually made, molded, shaped, and turned out two men.
You"re the greatest sculptor that ever lived. You could make a scarecrow in a field get up and achieve. Everywhere one sees women over-wrought, over-stimulated, eager, tense. When there appears one who has herself in leash, balanced, tolerant, poised, sane, composed, she restores your faith in things. You lean on her, spiritually. I know I need you more than you need me, Emma. And I know you won"t love me the less for that. There--that"s about all for this evening."
"I think," breathed Emma McChesney in a choked little voice, "that that"s about--enough."
Two days before the date set for their very quiet wedding, they told the heads of office and workroom. Office and workroom, somewhat moist as to eye and flushed as to cheek and highly congratulatory, proved their knowingness by promptly presenting to their employers a very costly and unbelievably hideous set of mantel ornaments and clock, calculated to strike horror to the heart of any woman who has lovingly planned the furnishing of her drawing-room. Pop Henderson, after some preliminary wrestling with collar, necktie, spectacles, and voice, launched forth on a presentation speech that threatened to close down the works for the day. Emma McChesney heard it, tears in her eyes. T.
A. Buck gnawed his mustache. And when Pop Henderson"s cracked old voice broke altogether in the pa.s.sage that touched on his departed employer, old T. A. Buck, and the great happiness that this occasion would have brought him, Emma"s hand met young T. A."s and rested there.
Hortense and Henry, standing very close together all through the speech, had, in this respect, antic.i.p.ated their employers by several minutes.
They were to be away two weeks only. No one knew just where, except that some small part of the trip was to be spent on a flying visit to young Jock McChesney out in Chicago. He himself was to be married very soon. Emma McChesney had rather startled her very good-looking husband-to-be by whirling about at him with,
"T. A., do you realize that you"re very likely to be a step-grandfather some fine day not so far away!"
T. A. had gazed at her for a rather shocked moment, swallowed hard, smiled, and said,
"Even that doesn"t scare me, Emma."
Everything had been planned down to the last detail. Mrs. McChesney"s little apartment had been subleased, and a very smart one taken and furnished almost complete, with Annie installed in the kitchen and a demure parlor-maid engaged.
"When we come back, we"ll come home," T. A. Buck had said. "Home!"
There had been much to do, but it had all been done smoothly and expertly, under the direction of these two who had learned how to plan, direct, and carry out.
Then, on the last day, Emma McChesney, visibly perturbed, entered her partner"s office, a letter in her hand.
"This is ghastly!" she exclaimed.
Buck pulled out a chair for her.
"Klein cancel his order again?"
"No. And don"t ask me to sit down. Be thankful that I don"t blow up."
"Is it as bad as that?"
"Bad! Here--read that! No, don"t read it; I"ll tell you. It"ll relieve my feelings. You know how I"ve been angling and scheming and contriving and plotting for years to get an exclusive order from Gage & Fosd.i.c.k. Of course we"ve had a nice little order every few months, but what"s that from the biggest mail-order house in the world? And now, out of a blue sky, comes this bolt from O"Malley, who buys our stuff, saying that he"s coming on the tenth--that"s next week--that he"s planned to establish our line with their trade, and that he wants us to be prepared for a record-breaking order. I"ve fairly prayed for this.
And now--what shall we do?"
"Do?"--smoothly--"just write the gentleman and tell him you"re busy getting married this week and next, and that, by a singular coincidence, your partner is similarly engaged; that our manager will attend to him with all care and courtesy, unless he can postpone his trip until our return. Suggest that he call around a week or two later."
"T. A. Buck, I know it isn"t considered good form to rage and glare at one"s fiance on the eve of one"s wedding-day. If this were a week earlier or a week later, I"d be tempted to--shake you!"
Buck stood up, came over to her, and laid a hand very gently on her arm. With the other hand he took the letter from her fingers.
"Emma, you"re tired, and a little excited. You"ve been under an unusual physical and mental strain for the last few weeks. Give me that letter. I"ll answer it. This kind of thing"--he held up the letter--"has meant everything to you. If it had not, where would I be to-day? But to-night, Emma, it doesn"t mean a thing. Not--one thing."
Slowly Emma McChesney"s tense body relaxed. A great sigh that had in it weariness and relief and acquiescence came from her. She smiled ever so faintly.
"I"ve been a ramrod so long it"s going to be hard to learn to be a clinging vine. I"ve been my own support for so many years, I don"t use a trellis very gracefully--yet. But I think I"ll get the hang of it very soon."
She turned toward the door, crossed to her own office, looked all about at the orderly, ship-shape room that reflected her personality--as did any room she occupied.
"Just the same," she called out, over her shoulder, to Buck in the doorway, "I hate like fury to see that order slide."