"It"s the only sensible thing," she a.s.sured him.
"It would give a man a chance to settle down and attend to business."
"And give his wife a chance to help him."
"By Jove, I"m going to propose that to Frances the day she lands!" he exclaimed.
He was finishing his last doughnut. Miss Winthrop rose. Once outside, she could breathe freely. She said:--
"Her--her name is Frances?"
"Frances Stuyvesant," he nodded.
"When do you expect her home?"
"The first of September."
"Then you"d better put in a bid to have your vacation the first two weeks in September," she advised. "Business will begin to pick up right after that, and Farnsworth will need you."
CHAPTER XXIII
LOOKING AHEAD
It was now the first week in August. If she could sustain his interest in the project for three weeks and get him married in the fourth, then she could settle back into the routine of her life. It was the only possible way of straightening out the tangle. Once he was safely married, that was the end. Their relations would cease automatically.
The conventions would attend to that. As a married man he, of course, could not lunch with her or spend Sat.u.r.day afternoons in the park with her, or Sunday in the country with her, or mid-week evenings anywhere with her. He would be exiled from her life as effectively as if he himself should go to Europe. In fact, the separation would be even more effective, because there would not be any possible hope of his coming back. For her it would be almost as if he died.
Back in her room that night, Miss Winthrop saw all these things quite clearly. And she saw that this was the only way. In no other way could she remain in the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves. If he did not marry in September,--she had applied that afternoon for her own vacation to parallel his,--then she must resign. Unmarried, he would be as irresponsible this coming winter as he was last, and if she remained would be thrown back upon her. She could not allow that--she could not endure it.
She had lost so many things all at once. She did not realize until now how much dreaming she had done in these last few months. Dreams of which at the time she had scarcely been conscious returned to-night to mock her with startling vividness. It was not so much that she wished to be loved as that she wished to love. That was where she had deceived herself. Had Don made love to her, she would have recognized the situation and guarded herself. But this matter of loving him was an attack from a quarter she had not antic.i.p.ated.
In the next three weeks she left him little chance to think of anything but of his work and of Frances. She talked of nothing else at lunch; she talked of nothing else on Sat.u.r.day afternoons and on Sundays and whenever they met on other days. This had its effect. It accustomed him to a.s.sociate together the two chief objectives in his life until in his thoughts they became synonymous. For the first time since their engagement, he began to think of Frances as an essential feature of his everyday affairs.
He began to think about what changes in the house would be necessary before she came. He talked this over with Miss Winthrop.
"I wish you could come up and look the place over before Frances gets here," he said to her one day.
If the color left her face for a second, it came back the next with plenty to spare. The idea was preposterous, and yet it appealed to her strangely.
"I wish I could," she answered sincerely.
"Well, why can"t you?" he asked.
"It"s impossible--of course," she said.
"I could arrange a little dinner and ask some one to chaperon," he suggested.
"It"s out of the question," she answered firmly. "You can tell me all about it."
"But telling you about it isn"t like letting you see it," he said.
"It is almost as good, and--almost as good is something, isn"t it?"
There was a suppressed note in her voice that made him look up. He had caught many such notes of late. Sometimes, as now, he half expected to find her eyes moist when he looked up. He never did; he always found her smiling.
"I"d have Nora give everything a thorough cleaning before September,"
she advised.
"I"ll do that," he nodded.
He wrote it down in his notebook, and that night spoke to Nora about it. She appeared decidedly interested.
"It"s possible that in the fall you may have some one else besides me to look after," he confided to her in explanation.
"It"s to be soon, sir?" she asked eagerly.
"In September, perhaps," he admitted.
"It would please your father, sir," she answered excitedly. "It"s lonesome it"s been for you, sir."
He did not answer, but he thought about that a little. No, it had not been exactly lonesome for him--not lately. That was because he was looking ahead. That was it.
"It hasn"t seemed quite natural for you to be living on here alone, sir," she ventured.
"Dad lived here alone," he reminded her.
"Not at your age, sir," answered Nora.
From that moment there was much ado in the house. Don came home at night to find certain rooms draped in dusting clothes, later to appear as fresh and immaculate as if newly furnished. This gave him a great sense of responsibility. He felt married already. He came downtown in the morning a little more serious, and took hold of his work with greater vigor.
The next few weeks pa.s.sed rapidly. Frances had finished her trip to Scotland and was on her way back to London. She was to sail in a few days now. He cabled her to let him know when she started, and three days later she answered. He showed her reply to Miss Winthrop.
Sail Monday on the Mauretania, but Dolly wants me to spend next two weeks after arrival in the Adirondacks with her.
Miss Winthrop returned the cable with a none too steady hand.
"She mustn"t do that," she said firmly.
"Of course she mustn"t," he agreed. "You see, she doesn"t know she is to be married right away. Do you think I ought to cable her that?"
"I don"t think I would," Miss Winthrop replied. "But I would let her know I didn"t approve of her arrangement."
"Supposing I just say, "Have other plans for you"?"
"That would do," she nodded.