“Did you fall in love with a French girl?”
“The only ones I saw were opera-singers and I’m not blind.”
“You’ll fall head over heels in love with Irene Comerford. She’s the most attractive girl I ever met.”
There seemed to be no reply to this.
“John, tell me who’s the most attractive girl you ever met.”
“I never thought about it.”
“Do you think I’m terribly unattractive?”
“No. Why should I?”
“Why, John! I believe you’re warming up.”
“A fella that’s lived in those Paris pensions four years won’t have any trouble warming up over here.”
“John, will you bring me an ashtray?”
He wasn’t listening and Miss Beasley had to get it herself. But when she sat down again, it was in a chair almost touching his and an instant later she was holding his hand.
“John, dear, I want to know all about you. I want to know your plans.”
“Well, we don’t seem to be overwhelmed with money, so my first plan is to get a job.”
“That’s just what I wanted you to say.”
“Why?”
“Because it gives me a chance to help you.”
“How?”
“Daddy wants a young man in his office and I’ll see that you’re the one.”
“Me in a broker’s office! I’d certainly go over big!”
“You could learn. Besides, the work wouldn’t be hard. It’s youth and good looks he wants more than anything else.”
“What for?”
“To attract women customers.”
“Listen, I’d drive more of them away than I’d attract. I can’t talk to women.”
“Oh, Johnny, not even to me?”
Charlotte had descended the stairs quietly and Beth, seeing her, released John’s hand.
“You caught us in the act, Charley,” said Beth, trying to be embarrassed. “But it isn’t really serious. Just a reunion of two good pals.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, I must rush! Daddy will kill me! Goodbye, Charley. Goodbye, John. You might tell your sister our scheme.”
“What’s the matter with her?” asked John.
“You know perfectly well,” said Charlotte. “But tell me, what’s the scheme?”
“She said her father wanted a young man in his office and that she could get me the job.”
“Are you going to take it?”
“No! What do I know about business?”
“John, you’ve got to take it! It doesn’t make any difference what you know. They’ll tell you what they want you to do. And they’ll pay you good money. That’s what’s important right now. Mother is flat broke and she needs special food, special nursing; she’ll worry herself to death over our financial status. You can save her, John, and you’ve got to do it! It would be criminal of you not to. Oh, Johnny, please! Say you will!”
“I’ll think about it.”
“And I know you’ll think right. Now I’ve got to run over to Butch Harper’s and get some gin. Wallie’s coming in from the lake for dinner. And Irene Comerford and Sam Drake said they might stop for cocktails. It’s a shame Irene’s engaged, though I’m afraid she wouldn’t—I mean she likes men who talk a lot and are funny. That’s what attracts her to Sam. He’s full of the devil, telling stories all the time or getting up practical jokes on somebody. If they should come before I get back, you’ll entertain them, won’t you?”
“I shouldn’t think she’d need any more entertainment than he can give her.”
“Well, don’t forget to laugh at his stories. And another thing, John. If Wallie should call up while I’m gone you take the message. And please, John, decide to accept that offer.”
John, left alone, sat and stared at the empty fireplace for five minutes. Then he went to a table, took a cigarette from the box and lighted it. A few puffs and he took another, igniting the second from the first. It surprised him to find he was smoking two at once and it embarrassed him when a young couple entered without knocking and caught him at it.
“And I thought I was a fiend!” said the man who John knew at once was Sam Drake.
“Honey,” he said to the girl, “you get sore at me lots of times for smoking one cigarette after another. What would you do if I smoked them in pairs?”
John was looking into the girl’s eyes. Beautiful! Attractive! What silly words!
She spoke: “I’m Irene Comerford and this is Mr. Sam Drake. I presume you are Mr. Knowles. Charlotte asked us in for a cocktail.”
John was dumb.
“Is Charlotte out?”
He managed to answer yes.
“Oh, then we’ll run along.”
“She told me you were to wait,” said John.
“Well, if we’re going to wait, let’s sit down and take a load off our dogs,” said Sam.
The callers seated themselves on the couch and John, after laying both his cigarettes on the tray, sat in a chair facing them. Never once did he take his eyes off Miss Comerford’s face.
“You’re just back from gay Paree, I hear,” said Sam.
“Yes.”
“How long were you over there?”
“I don’t know.”
Irene suppressed a smile at Sam’s evident discomfiture. Then she spoke again:
“I think Charlotte was right.”
She waited for John’s question, but he asked none.
“Beth and I were talking one day,” she continued, “and we were talking about men, for a change. We agreed that they were all alike. Charlotte said we would eat our words if we knew you as well as she did. Then Beth said that—Well, I won’t make you blush.”
The telephone rang, but John made no move. It continued to ring and Irene asked whether he intended to answer it. He was still silent.
“Shall I answer it, then?”
“If you like.”
It was Wallie Blair and he wanted Charlotte to be told that his boat had been stalled on the lake for two hours and he couldn’t possibly be there before half past eight. Irene sat down again and delivered the message to John, in case she and Sam would have to go before Charlotte came back. John seemed to be paying attention, but he was not.
“Well, Knowles,” said Sam, “if you’re just back in the country, maybe you haven’t heard all the new stories; I mean parlor stories; Irene won’t let me tell the other kind. Did you
