Buck read on, his tone lifeless:
"Miss Sharp. Berg Brothers, Omaha. Strictly business. Known among the trade as the human cactus. Canceled a ten-thousand-dollar order once because the grateful salesman called her "girlie." Stick to skirts."
Buck slapped the book smartly against the palm of his hand.
"Do you mean to tell me that you made this book out for me? Do you mean to say that I have to cram on this like a kid studying for exams?
That I"ll have to cater to the personality of the person I"m selling to? Why--it"s--it"s----"
Emma McChesney nodded calmly.
"I don"t know how this trip of yours is going to affect the firm"s business, T. A. But it"s going to be a liberal education for you.
You"ll find that you"ll need that little book a good many times before you"re through. And while you"re following its advice, do this: forget that your name is Buck, except for business purposes; forget that your family has always lived in a brownstone mausoleum in Seventy-second street; forget that you like your chops done just so, and your wine at such-and-such a temperature; get close to your trade. They"re an awfully human lot, those Middle Western buyers. Don"t chuck them under the chin, but smile on "em. And you"ve got a lovely smile, T. A."
Buck looked up from the little leather book. And, as he gazed at Emma McChesney, the smile appeared and justified its praise.
"I"ll have this to comfort me, anyway, Emma. I"ll know that while I"m smirking on the sprightly Miss Sweeney, your face will be undergoing various agonizing twists in the effort to make American prices understood by an Argentine who can"t speak anything but Spanish."
"Maybe I am short on Spanish, but I"m long on Featherlooms. I may not know a senora from a chili con carne, but I know Featherlooms from the waistband to the hem." She leaned forward, dimpling like fourteen instead of forty. "And you"ve noticed--haven"t you, T. A.?--that I"ve got an expressive countenance."
Buck leaned forward, too. His smile was almost gone.
"I"ve noticed a lot of things, Emma McChesney. And if you persist in deviling me for one more minute, I"m going to mention a few."
Emma McChesney surveyed her cleared desk, locked the top drawer with a snap, and stood up.
"If you do I"ll miss my boat. Just time to make Brooklyn. Suppose you write "em."
That Ed Meyers might know nothing of her sudden plans, she had kept the trip secret. Besides Buck and the office staff, her son Jock was the only one who knew. But she found her cabin stocked like a prima donna"s on a farewell tour. There were boxes of flowers, a package of books, baskets of fruit, piles of magazines, even a neat little sheaf of telegrams, one from the faithful bookkeeper, one from the workroom foreman, two from salesmen long in the firm"s employ, two from Jock in Chicago. She read them, her face glowing. He and Buck had vied with each other in supplying her with luxuries that would make pleasanter the twenty-three days of her voyage.
She looked about the snug cabin, her eyes suddenly misty. Buck poked his head in at the door.
"Come on up on deck, Emma; I"ve only a few minutes left."
She s.n.a.t.c.hed a pink rose from the box, and together they went on deck.
"Just ten minutes," said Buck. He was looking down at her. "Remember, Emma, nothing that concerns the firm"s business, however big, is half as important as the things that concern you personally, however small.
I realize what this trip will mean to us, if it pans, and if you can beat Meyers to it. But if anything should happen to you, why----"
"Nothing"s going to happen, T. A., except that I"ll probably come home with my complexion ruined. I"ll feel a great deal more at home talking pidgin-English to Senor Alvarez in Buenos Aires than you will talking Featherlooms to Miss Skirt-Buyer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But remember this, T. A.: When you get to know--really to know--the Sadie Harrises and the Sammy Blochs and the Ella Sweeneys of this world, you"ve learned just about all there is to know about human beings. Quick--the gangplank! Goodby, T. A."
The dock reached, he gazed up at her as she leaned far over the railing. He made a megaphone of his hands.
"I feel like an old maid who"s staying home with her knitting," he called.
The boat began to move. Emma McChesney pa.s.sed a quick hand over her eyes.
"Don"t drop any st.i.tches, T. A." With unerring aim she flung the big pink rose straight at him.
She went about arranging her affairs on the boat like the business woman that she was. First she made her cabin shipshape. She placed nearest at hand the books on South America, and the Spanish-American pocket interpreter. She located her deck chair, and her seat in the dining-room. Then, quietly, un.o.btrusively, and guided by those years spent in meeting men and women face to face in business, she took thorough, conscientious mental stock of those others who were to be her fellow travelers for twenty-three days.
For the most part, the first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers were men. There were American business men--salesmen, some of them, promoters others, or representatives of big syndicates shrewd, alert, well dressed, smooth shaven. Emma McChesney knew that she would gain valuable information from many of them before the trip was over. She sighed a little regretfully as she thought of those smoking-room talks--those intimate, tobacco-mellowed business talks from which she would be barred by her s.e.x.
There were two engineers, one British, one American, both very intelligent-looking, both inclined to taciturnity, as is often the case in men of their profession. They walked a good deal, and smoked nut-brown, evil-smelling pipes, and stared unblinkingly across the water.
There were Argentines--whole families of them--Brazilians, too. The fat, bejeweled Brazilian men eyed Emma McChesney with open approval, even talked to her, leering objectionably. Emma McChesney refused to be annoyed. Her ten years on the road served her in good stead now.
But most absorbing of all to Emma McChesney, watching quietly over her book or magazine, was a tall, erect, white-bearded Argentine who, with his family, occupied chairs near hers. His name had struck her with the sound of familiarity when she read it on the pa.s.senger list. She had asked the deck-steward to point out the name"s owner. "Pages," she repeated to herself, worriedly, "Pages? P----" Suddenly she knew.
Pages y Hernandez, the owner of the great Buenos Aires shop--a shop finer than those of Paris. And this was Pages! All the Featherloom instinct in Emma McChesney came to the surface and stayed there, seething.
That was the morning of the second day out. By afternoon, she had bribed and maneuvered so that her deck chair was next that of the Pages-family flock of chairs. Senor Pages reminded her of one of those dashing, white-haired, distinguished-looking men whose likeness graces the cover of a box of your favorite cigars.
General Something-or-other-ending-in-z he should have been, with a revolutionary background. He dressed somberly in black, like most of the other Argentine men on board. There was Senora Pages, very fat, very indolent, very blank, much given to pink satin and diamonds at dinner. Senorita Pages, over-powdered, overfrizzed, marvelously gowned, with overplumpness just a few years away, sat quietly by Senora Pages" side, but her darting, flashing, restless eyes were never still.
The son (Emma heard them call him Pepe) was barely eighteen, she thought, but quite a man of the world, with his cigarettes, his drinks, his bold eyes. She looked at his sallow, pimpled skin, his lean, brown hands, his lack-l.u.s.ter eyes, and she thought of Jock and was happy.
Mrs. McChesney knew that she might visit the magnificent Buenos Aires shop of Pages y Hernandez day after day for months without ever obtaining a glimpse of either Pages or Hernandez. And here was Senor Pages, so near that she could reach out and touch him from her deck chair. Here was opportunity! A caller who had never been obliged to knock twice at Emma McChesney"s door.
Her methods were so simple that she herself smiled at them. She donned her choicest suit of white serge that she had been saving for sh.o.r.e wear. Its skirt had been cut by the very newest trick. Its coat was the kind to make you go home and get out your own white serge and gaze at it with loathing. Senorita Pages" eyes leaped to that suit as iron leaps to the magnet. Emma McChesney, pa.s.sing her deck chair, detached the eyes with a neat smile. Why hadn"t she spent six months neglecting Skirts for Spanish? she asked herself, groaning. As she approached her own deck chair again she risked a bright, "Good morning." Her heart bounded, stood still, bounded again, as from the lips of the a.s.sembled Pages there issued a combined, courteous, perfectly good American, "Good morning!"
"You speak English!" Emma McChesney"s tone expressed flattery and surprise.
Pages pere made answer.
"Ah, yes, it is necessary. There are many English in Argentina."
A sigh--a fluttering, tremulous sigh of perfect peace and happiness--welled up from Emma McChesney"s heart and escaped through her smiling lips.
By noon, Senorita Pages had tried on the fascinating coat and secured the address of its builder. By afternoon, Emma McChesney was showing the newest embroidery st.i.tch to the slow but docile Senora Pages. Next morning she was playing shuffleboard with the elegant, indolent Pepe, and talking North American football and baseball to him. She had not been Jock McChesney"s mother all those years for nothing. She could discuss sports with the best of them. Young Pages was avidly interested. Outdoor sports had become the recent fashion among the rich young Argentines.
The problem of papa Pages was not so easy. Emma McChesney approached her subject warily, skirting the bypaths of politics, war, climate, customs--to business. Business!
"But a lady as charming as you can understand nothing of business,"
said Senor Pages. "Business is for your militant sisters."
"But we American women do understand business. Many--many charming American women are in business."
Senor Pages turned his fine eyes upon her. She had talked most interestingly, this pretty American woman.
"Perhaps--but pardon me if I think not. A woman cannot be really charming and also capable in business."
Emma McChesney dimpled becomingly.
"But I know a woman who is as--well, as charming as you say I am.
Still, she is known as a capable, successful business woman. She"ll be in Buenos Aires when I am."
Senor Pages shook an unbelieving head. Emma McChesney leaned forward.