“Yes,” repeated Joyce dramatically, “for my sake!”
“Then,” said Helen slowly, “I’m sorry I came back.”
They ate their duck; but it wasn’t very good.
That night they saw The Hypotenuse. It was a rollicking comedy employing a small cast and simple materials. A young widow and her contemporary stepdaughter furtively concealed from each other, throughout the first act, that the late Judge Haskins’ junior partner was of larger interest than was demanded by his professional service as their attorney and business counsellor. Act Two developed some delicious situations, adroitly handled. The audience was delighted.
When the curtain had finally settled, after several trips in response to warm applause which brought them all back together, and then reconsidered them in relays, finishing with mamma and Polly, hand in hand, Joyce turned animatedly to offer comment and surprised an abstracted look on Helen’s face. She, apparently, had not been quite prepared for the sudden onrush of lights.
“You’re tired, aren’t you?” inquired Joyce solicitously.
“It always takes a day or two, I think, to recover from a long journey.”
“Awfully jolly show, don’t you think? Fancy such a mess! You and I—for instance! We’d be honest with each other, at least! I suppose we’d just cut the deck to see which one was to get him.”
“Stuffy in here, isn’t it?” said Helen. “Let’s go out and prowl in the foyer. Want to?”
Joyce’s incapacity for understanding the operations of her own mind was spectacularly displayed, early next morning, as she dressed to go to Brightwood, babbling about herself as a “woiking goil.”
Breakfast had been served in their rooms. Helen, exquisite in a dainty lounging robe, was lingering over her coffee and the morning papers.
“I think it’s simply marvellous,” enthused Joyce, into the mirror, “that I’ve been able to adjust so quickly to office routine, don’t you? … After all these years of indulging myself, sleeping late, pottering, lazing about! I’m happier than I ever thought I could be again. I know now I’ll never be contented, any more, without a regular job.”
“Glad you like it,” said Helen, deep in the theatre advertisements. “What do people say about this new musical comedy, Jasmine?”
“Very tuneful, I hear … Like this hat?”
“Cute! … Suppose Mrs. Ashford might like to come down town, tomorrow, and have dinner with us and see Jasmine?”
“Oh, I’m sure she would love it! I’ll ask her. And, darling—she and Bobby Merrick are such pals. Wouldn’t it be nice to ask him, too?”
“Not a bit nice! I don’t know him! I don’t want to know him!” Helen’s tone was frankly impatient.
“Well, you could get acquainted with him. I know him! Couldn’t you consider my wishes a little?” Joyce savagely flicked probable dust from her coat.
“Hand me my pocketbook … there … on the mantel. Thanks!”
Helen opened it and unfolded a letter.
“Oh—it’s the one I wrote you! … Well, what about it?”
“Read it … You will see that you asked me to travel five thousand miles to give you some good advice. Now that I’ve gone to the bother of humouring you, I hope you’ll not resent it if I say that your present state of mind in regard to Doctor Merrick is absurd! … If you want to be silly about him, don’t annoy me with it! I won’t have him thrust down my throat!”
“Well—what’s come over you? I hadn’t heard that residence in France and Italy made people so squeamish! … And it seems to me that a person with your admiration for people who do really valorous things—at a lot of cost to themselves—would take a little human interest in Bobby Merrick, slaving himself almost to death, when, if he wanted to, he might be lounging on a yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean! … I heard one of the nurses say he had come into a million dollars’ worth of Axion Motors when he was twenty-five, and is due for another million when he is thirty! I tell you he deserves some credit! … Goodbye … Don’t be peeved! … See you about five-thirty.”
Helen rose, after the door had slammed, and stood looking down upon the street … Axion Motors! … A million dollars’ worth of Axion Motors! … Axion!
XVI
Mr. T. P. Randall was extremely solicitous in his attitude toward his charming client. She had telephoned him at ten, and they had agreed on a business conference at one-thirty.
He was tall, fifty-five, well-fed; grizzled at the temples. The tailor who had made his waistcoat might have succeeded as a sculptor. He rose, as she entered his padded leather and dark mahogany sanctum, dignifiedly offered his hand, bowed to the top of her close-fitting grey hat from his considerable altitude, helped off the grey fur coat from the grey gown, drew out the throne-like chair for her, seated her, walked around the table majestically, sat down in his swivel-chair, folded his big, pink, newly manicured hands on the bare desk, and said again that he was glad to see her. He mentally doubted his assertion, however, and looked more than a little troubled.
Considering it highly important that he should lead the conversation into safe channels, he talked of Paris, where he had once spent a fortnight, and of Venice, where, he declared, he would like to live; but it was obvious, from the restlessness with which she chafed the backs of her grey gloves, that she hadn’t come to hear his impressions of Europe.
At the first semicolon, she leaned forward in her big chair.
“You had a long talk with Mr. Brent about my affairs.”
T. P.—he was known as T. P. throughout the Fourth National organization—drew an anxious smile. Now, why the devil hadn’t he been told that he was supposed to have talked with this rapscallion Brent? He had been under the impression that Brent was to be presumed as having had all his business with him by correspondence.
“Umm!” murmured T. P., deep in his throat. He gave it just that quality of indeterminateness which
