"Don"t say such things! Think how it would embarra.s.s Bea. Of course I don"t remember. Neither do you."
"Oh, don"t I? What"s the harm recalling old times? I remember when you tried to make Todd a winter overcoat and he said it looked most as good as a deep-sea diver"s outfit. My Hannah nearly died a-laughing."
Fortunately Steve appeared, flourishing Beatrice"s corsage by way of a greeting.
"Aha, the conquerer comes. My dear lad, your lady love has just ousted me from her room, she"ll be down presently. Belle, Steve and I are going into the den to smoke."
"I"m trying to look as amiable as possible, but I wish fuss and feathers were not the mode." Steve smiled his sweetest at Aunt Belle and then took Constantine"s arm. "The cave-man style of clubbing one"s chosen into unconsciousness and strolling at leisure through the jungle with her wasn"t half bad. By the way, I did sell the Allandale man to-day, and the razor-factory stock is going to boom instead of flatten out--I"m sure of it."
He lit a cigarette and threw himself into an easy-chair. Constantine selected a cigar and trimmed its end, watching Steve as he did so.
"You"ve come on about as well as they ever do," he remarked, unexpectedly. "None of these rich young dogs could have matched you.
Seen the presents?"
"Scads of "em. Awful stuff. I don"t know what half of it is for. Bea is going to hand you most of it. The apartment is to be a thing of beauty and she won"t hear of taking the offerings along."
"How is the shop?"
"Splendid--Mary Faithful will manage it quite as well as I do. I shall hear from her daily, you"ll stroll over that way, and I can manage to keep my left little finger on the wheel."
"Mary"s a good sort," Constantine mused. "Sorry I ever let her go over to your shebang. What"s her family like?"
"Don"t know. Never thought about "em. Her kid brother works round the place after school. Guess Mary"s the man of the family."
"How much do you pay her?"
"Forty a week."
"Cheap enough. A man would draw down seventy and demand an a.s.sistant.
I never had any luck with women secretaries--they all wanted to marry me," he admitted, grimly.
"Mary"s not that sort. Business is her life. If she were a man I"d have a rival. I"m going to give her fifty a week from now on; she"s giving up her vacation to stay on the job."
"Don"t spoil her."
"No danger. I"ve promised Beatrice to really learn to play bridge," he changed the conversation.
"Accept my sympathy----" Constantine began and then Beatrice in a lovely Bohemian rainbow dinner gown came stealing in to stand before them and complain of her headache and admire her corsage and let Steve wrap her in her cape and half carry her to the limousine.
"I shan"t see you a moment until we"re married," he began, mournfully.
"I"ve been most awfully neglected. But as you are going to be all mine I can"t complain. You"re prettier than ever, Bea.... Love me?...
Lots?... Whole lots? You don"t say it the way I want you to," laughing at his own nonsense.
"I"ll scream it and a crowd can gather to bear witness." She dimpled prettily and nibbled at a rose leaf. "It"s all like a fairy tale--everyone says so, and lots of the girls would like to be marrying you on Wednesday."
"Tell them I belong to the Gorgeous Girl until six men are walking quietly beside me and a.s.sisting me to a permanent resting place. Even then I"ll belong to her," he added.
"Your nose is so handsome," she said, wistfully, recalling her own.
"Talking of noses! Bea, sometimes it"s terrible to realize that my ambitions have become true. To dream and work without ceasing and without much caring what you do until your dream merges into reality--it makes even a six-footer as hysterical as a schoolgirl."
"You"re intense," she said, soberly. "Jill says you"d make a wonderful actor."
Steve looked annoyed. "Those scatterbrained time wasters--don"t listen to them. Let"s find our real selves--you and I; be worth while. Now that I"ve made my fortune I want to spend it in a right fashion--I want to be interested in things, not just dollars and cents. Help me, dearest. You know about such things; you"ve never had the ugliness of poverty bruise the very soul of you."
"You mean having a good time--and parties----" she began.
"No; books, music; studying human conditions. I want to study the slow healing of industrial wounds and determine the best treatment for them. I have made the real me go "way, "way off somewheres for a long time until I won my pile of gold that helped me capture the girl I loved. Now it is done the real me wants to come back and stay."
"Oh, I see," she said, vaguely. "Of course there are tiny things to brush up on--greeting people, and you mustn"t be so in earnest at dinner parties and contradict and thump your fist. It isn"t good form."
"When whippersnappers like g.a.y.l.o.r.d Vondeplosshe----"
"Sh-h-h! Gay"s a dear. He is accepted every place."
"We"re nearly there, tough luck! One kiss, please; no one can see. Say you care, then everything else must true up."
The wedding took place at high noon in church, with the bishop and two curates to officiate. There was a vested choir singing "The Voice That Breathed O"er Eden"; a thousand dollars" worth of flowers; six bridesmaids in pastel frocks and picture hats, shepherdess" staffs, and baskets of lilies of the valley; a matron of honour, flower girls, ushers; a best man, a papa, an aunty in black satin with a large section of an ostrich farm for her hat--and a bridegroom.
After the wedding came the breakfast at the Constantine house.
Though certain guests murmured that it was a trifle too ultra like the house itself, which was half a medieval castle and half the makings of a village fire department, it was generally considered a success. Nothing was left undone. The bride left the church amid the ringing of chimes; her health was drunk, and she slipped up to the rose-taffeta-adorned boudoir to exchange her ivory satin for a trim suit of emerald green. Everyone wished on the platinum circlet of diamonds and there was the conventional throwing of the bouquet, the rush through the back of the grounds to the hired taxi, the screams of disappointment at the escape--and Mr. and Mrs. O"Valley were en route on their honeymoon.
It remained for the detectives to guard the presents, the society reporters to discover new adjectives of superlative praise, and the guests to drink up the champagne and say: "Wonderful." "Must have cost thousands." "Handsome couple. Couldn"t have happened in any other country but America." "War fortune." "Oh, yes, no doubt of it--hides and razors turned the trick." "Well, how long do you think it is going to last?"
The office forces of the O"Valley and Constantine companies had been excused so as to be present at the ceremony. But Mary Faithful and Trudy Burrows had not availed themselves of the opportunity. Womanly rebellion and heartache suddenly blotted out Mary"s emotionless scheme of action. Besides, there was a valid excuse of waiting to catch an important long-distance call. With Trudy it was mere envy causing her to say over and over: "See Gay, the ragged little beggar, walk up the aisle with one of those rich girls and never glance at me--just because he"s a Vondeplosshe? And me have to sit beside Nellie Lunk, who"ll cry when the organ plays and wear that ridiculous bathtub of a hat? Never! I won"t go unless I can walk up the aisle with Gay. Wait until I see him to-night; I"ll make it very pleasant."
Life seemed rather empty for Trudy as she sat in the deserted offices pretending to add figures and trying to hum gayly. Even the box of wedding cake laid on her desk--it was laid on everyone"s desk--brought forth no smile or intention of dreaming over it. Was she to spend her days earning fifteen dollars a week in this feudal baron"s employ?
Tears marred the intensive cultivation on her rouged cheeks as she looked out the window to see the office force being brought back from the church in trucks.
"Like cattle--peasants--all because of money. A war profiteer, that"s what he was. And she isn"t anything at all except that she has her father"s money." She glanced toward Mary"s closed door. "Poor Mary,"
she thought; "she cares! I don"t--that makes it easier. Well, he could have done worse than to take Mary," tossing her head as she tried to create the impression of indifference now that the employees were coming back to their desks.
For there was a forked road for Trudy as well as for Mary Faithful.
Women are no longer compelled to accept the one unending pathway of domesticity. Trudy"s forked road resolved itself into either marriage with Gay as a stepping stone to marriage with someone else, or a smart shop with society women and actresses as patrons, being able to live at a hotel and do as she wished, inventing a neat little past of escaping from a Turkish harem or being the widow of an English officer who died serving his country. Trudy was not without resources, in her own estimation, and whether she married Gay or achieved the shop was a toss-up. Like the rest of the world she considered herself capable of doing both!
Hearing the scuffle of feet Mary opened the door and forced herself to ask about the wedding. Presently the excitement died down and the round of mechanical drudgery took its place. An hour later someone knocked at an inner door which led to steep side stairs connecting with a side street entrance. Wondering who it was Mary opened it, to find Steve, very flushed and handsome, a flower in his b.u.t.tonhole yet no hint of rice about him.
"Sh-h-h! Not a word out loud! I want to escape. Mrs. O"Valley is waiting round the corner in a cab. I forgot the long-distance call--the one we expected yesterday."
"It came while everyone was at the church. I stayed here in case it did. They will pay your price, so I closed the deal."
"Hurrah for Mary Faithful! But I wish you could have been there. It was like a picture. I never saw her look so lovely. Well, that"s settled. Wire me at Chicago. I think that"s everything. Oh, you"re to have fifty a week from now on. What man isn"t generous on his wedding day? Good-bye, Miss Head of Affairs." A moment later he was climbing down the rickety flight of stairs.
For a long time Mary sat watching the hands of her desk clock slowly proceed round the dial. Someone knocked at the door and she said to come in, but her voice sounded faint and far away.
Fifty dollars a week--generous on his wedding day! She ought to be very glad; it meant she could save more and have an occasional treat for Luke. It was good to think that women had forked roads these days.
How terrible if she were left in the shelter of a home to mourn unchecked. Besides, she was guarding his business; that was a great comfort. The Gorgeous Girl was sharing him with Mary Faithful--would always share him. That was a comfort, too.
After the errand boy left, Mary tried to write a letter but she found herself going into the washroom off Steve"s office and without warning weakly burying her face in an old working coat he had left behind. She had just made a great many dollars for him which he would spend on the Gorgeous Girl; she would make many more during the long summer while she stayed at the post and was Miss Head of Affairs. She had laid her woman"s hopes on the altar of commerce because of Steve O"Valley, and he rewarded her with a ten-dollar-a-week raise since a man was always generous on his wedding day.