Part 25

But that was not Pem’s way. She came of an austere and stiff-necked family, living secluded on an exhausted little Vermont farm. They had nothing much but pride to keep them warm in winter, to feed and clothe them. Pride was the only heritage that came down to Pem, and pride would not allow her to refuse admission to Mr. Blanchard, no matter what it cost her. As for the possible cost to Arthur Caswell and to Nickie, that didn’t occur to her just then.

She opened the door herself.

“I’m afraid I’m a little late,” said a courteous, apologetic voice. “Please--”

Then, as he followed Pem inside, he caught sight of the others, and made a general bow.

“This is Mr. Blanchard, Nickie,” said Pem.

He looked altogether what Pem had called him--a gentleman through and through. He was a rather slight man in the middle forties, with a sensitive, harassed face, hair a little gray on the temples, and fine, dark eyes. He hadn’t in the least a furtive or shamefaced air. Indeed, there was a quiet sort of straightforwardness about him that favorably impressed Nickie, in spite of her prejudice against the man.

“I’ve heard a great deal about you from Miss Pembroke,” he said.

Nickie liked his smile, his voice, his well bred ease. She liked all this, and yet, when Pem presented Caswell to him, her liking was a pain. Arthur seemed so young, so awkward, such an immature and unimpressive creature, in contrast to his senior. She wanted to defend him against comparison. She wanted to force Pem to see, and Mr. Blanchard to see, the splendid qualities in the young sailor.

But she had no chance. Before she could interfere, Blanchard had mentioned that it was growing late. Pem had answered that she was ready, and off they went.

VI

“I would never have told you,” said Blanchard. “I would have gone on the best way I could, without you; but now--”

Pem looked at him across the table. By the light of the gold-shaded electric candle his thin face was almost incredibly fine. He looked, she thought, a little inhuman, with his delicate features, his dark, glowing eyes, and the silvery gleam of white on his temples. His tremendous consideration for her, his squeamishness, had made his story such a long one!

After all, she wasn’t a girl just out of school.

“I’ve seen more of life than he has,” she reflected; “and yet it has taken him two hours to tell me that his wife is going to divorce him. I suppose it’ll take another hour before he can tell me that he hopes I can marry him when he’s free. I suppose it ought to take me a week to answer him!”

She stifled a sigh. It was nonsense for him to try to shield his wife from Pem, who had two months in which to observe her savage egotism. Such a dilemma for his chivalrous soul--to make it clear to Pem that his wife had no just cause for divorcing him, and yet to protect the woman against the implication of cruel unreasonableness. All things considered, he had done very well.

“A--a mutual agreement,”, he had called it. “I think you’d better not go back,” he went on gently. “She’s very much upset. Her sister and her mother are with her.”

Silence fell between them. The orchestra was playing in a gallery behind them--a gay and delicate air. The rooms were filled with the sort of people Pem liked about her, with light, laughing voices, faint perfumes, and the smoke of cigarettes.

One of Blanchard’s hands was extended on the table--a slender hand, beautifully tended. He was so fastidious in everything, so kind, so honorable, so appealing in his masculine assumption of her ignorance and helplessness. He wanted to take care of her and shelter her. He would have been horrified at the thought of her living in a little flat on a third mate’s pay. He would have turned pale at the sight of that poor, poor little ring.

“You’re very quiet,” he said, a little anxiously. “I hope I haven’t--”

Pem looked up with a smile.

“No!” she thought, as if defying a voice that had not spoken. “It’s no use! I’m not like that. I couldn’t stand it. I shall be happy with Everett. It’s his kind of life that I want.” Aloud she said, in the ladylike, noncommittal tone he expected of her: “I’d better be going back to Nickie now.”

Blanchard took her back in a taxi, and all the way he talked of impersonal matters--not a word of love. She knew he wouldn’t mention that until he was free to do so honorably.

He left her at the door. She turned as she entered, and saw him standing bareheaded in the street--a handsome and distinguished man, yet somehow pitiful to her, with that touch of white at the temples.

The flat was empty when she got in. Nickie, of course, had gone to her case. Arthur Caswell--she couldn’t imagine his destination.

On the kitchen table were the disorderly remains of a tea for two. The sitting room, too, was very untidy, as Nickie always left it. Pem turned on the electric light and began to set it in order. She emptied the ash tray, full of the stubs of those horrible cheap cigarettes she had seen Caswell smoking. She picked up the magazines that lay on the floor, and straightened the chairs.

The piano was open, with music on the rack. She went to close it. The lid slipped from her hand, and, falling, jarred the strings with a queer, trembling discord. She could have imagined it the faint, distant echo of a voice--a young voice.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

APRIL, 1924 Vol. LXXXI NUMBER 3

His Remarkable Future

THE STORY OF A RAPTUROUS BUT SOMEWHAT TUMULTUOUS ENGAGEMENT

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“Haven’t you any umbrella?” asked Hardy, with a frown.

“I have one,” answered Miss Patterson, “but not here.”

She was dignified, he was somewhat severe. Both were important, preoccupied, adult persons, full of business concerns; nevertheless, they did not quite know how to proceed with the conversation. They stood side by side in the lobby of the office building, looking not at all at each other, but at the steady and violent rain. Miss Patterson was reluctant to walk off in such a downpour, and Hardy was determined that she should not.

“Silly kid!” he thought. “In that flimsy suit and those fool shoes!”

Any number of other girls ran past, some with newspapers over their hats, some laughing, some gravely worried, but he was not perturbed by them. They could stand it. No other living girl was so peculiarly fragile as Miss Patterson, or beset with so many dangers.

“I think it will stop,” said she.

This annoyed him. She was trying to make light of a most serious situation.

“Why?” he demanded.

“Because it always does stop,” she said. “At least, it always has, in the past.”

He turned his head to look at her, and he grew a little dizzy. In the bleak light of that dismal day, Miss Patterson seemed to glow with a strange radiance. Her light hair was like a nimbus under her hat, her blue eyes were lambent, and she chose just that moment to make the color deepen in her cheeks. It was not fair!

“I’ll get a taxi,” he said.

“Oh, no!” she protested. “Please don’t! I live miles and miles uptown.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Hardy, and off he darted.

He stopped a cab with the air of a highwayman, and returned to Miss Patterson. As he put her into the vehicle, a curious change came over them. Hardy ceased to be masterful and severe, and Miss Patterson was no longer dignified. They looked at each other steadily, with a strange sort of despair.

“Look here!” said Hardy, in an uncertain voice. “Can’t I come with you?”

“Oh, no!” cried she. “Oh, no! Oh, you’d better not!”

But they both knew that he was going with her, that he must, that the inevitable moment had come, the moment foreseen by both of them all through the winter.

“What’s the address?” he asked.

That was the last thing needed. Now he knew where the human, unofficial Miss Patterson lived. She was disassociated from business now. She was not a typist, but a girl.

She seemed aware of all this, for, as he got into the cab beside her, she looked at him in a new way--a look so bright, so clear, so gentle!

“Look here!” he said. “I--I don’t want to be a nuisance. If you’d really rather I didn’t come--”

She only shook her head. If she had tried to speak, she would have ended in tears.

He didn’t know that he, too, had a new look--that his young face had grown pale and strained, his eyes dark with his great fear and his great hope. And this was the splendid, vainglorious Mr. Hardy from the import department, the young man of whom great things were expected, who was to be made assistant buyer when Mr. Hallock left at the end of the year.

The other girls had talked about him a good deal, for he was a figure to capture the imagination--a handsome boy, swaggering a little in the honest pride of his young manhood: only twenty-three, and going to be made assistant buyer!

“You know,” he said. “I’ve often wanted to--to have a little talk with you. I--I often noticed you.”

“Did you?” said Miss Patterson, ready to laugh through her unshed tears, for he needn’t have troubled to tell her that.

“But you see,” he went on, “I didn’t know--I couldn’t tell whether you--”

She was very glad to hear that, because sometimes she had been afraid that he could tell, could read in her face what was in her heart.

“You know, you’re so different from any one else,” he said. “Every time I saw you, I--whenever I saw you, it seemed--that is, I thought you were so different from any one else.”

He stopped, aware that he was doing very badly, and filled with horror at his own idiotic words. She would think he was a fool.

Yet how could he possibly convey to this ethereal, fragile, and unworldly creature any idea of his own tempestuous love without alarming and offending her? He had no business to love her. It was a gross impertinence. She was an angel, and he was nothing but a clumsy--

The taxi turned a corner sharply, and he was flung sidewise, so that his shoulder brushed hers.

“I’m sorry!” he cried earnestly. “I couldn’t help it!”

“But you’re soaking wet!” said Miss Patterson.

Her gloved hand rested on his shoulder, and her voice--no, impossible!

“You’re not--crying?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes, I am,” said Miss Patterson. “I am. I can’t bear to--to think of your getting so wet and catching a cold--just to get me a--a taxi!”

“But I shan’t catch cold,” said Hardy. He was trying to bear in mind that her words, her tears, were nothing but an expression of her wonderful kindness and humanity. She would be sorry for any one who got wet and caught a cold in her service. That was all that she meant--absolutely all. “I shan’t catch cold,” he went on. “I never do: but you--you see, you’re so delicate--”

“I’m not!” said she. “Not a bit! But I remember perfectly well that last February you had the most--oh, the most awful cold!”

“Edith!” cried he, astounded, overwhelmed by this confession. “You remember _that_?”

Miss Patterson suddenly drew away, and ceased weeping.

“Well, yes,” she admitted. “I--yes, I remember.”

A silence.

“Then you must--must feel a little interested in me,” said Hardy.

Silence.

“I hope you do,” added Hardy.

The worst silence of all.

“Why do you hope that?” she asked, in a blank, small voice.

“Because I--ever since the first time I saw you, I thought perhaps you’d noticed.”

“Noticed what?” inquired Miss Patterson, and he fancied that there was a shade of coldness in her voice. He was in despair. Of course she had no idea what he was driving at, he was so appallingly clumsy and stupid about it. He must do better than this! He drew a long breath.

“My prospects are pretty good,” he remarked. “They’re going to make me assistant buyer at the end of the year.”

“So I’ve heard,” said she, and this time there was no mistaking the coldness in her tone.

“I didn’t say that to boast,” he assured her anxiously. “I only wanted to tell you because--I wanted you to know that I--”

“I shouldn’t blame you for boasting,” said Miss Patterson, in a polite, formal way. “Every one says you have a remarkable future before you.”

“Not without you!” he cried. “I don’t want any future without you! Oh, Edith, I don’t know how to tell you--”

The head of the auditing department, in which Miss Patterson worked, often praised her for the quickness with which she grasped new ideas. This praise seemed justified, for she understood Hardy without further explanation.

Nevertheless, they both had an enormous amount of explaining to do. All the way uptown they were engaged in explaining to each other, with the greatest earnestness, just how they felt, why they felt so, and when they had begun to feel so. When they reached the depressing West Side street where Edith lived, they hadn’t half finished.

The taxi stopped, and the driver turned around, so that they couldn’t go on explaining, or even say good-by; but Hardy went into the dingy little vestibule with his Edith.

“Darling girl!” he said. “Shan’t I come upstairs with you and see your aunt?”

She turned away.

“I’d rather you didn’t, Joe,” she said. “Not just now, please!”

He was willing to do anything in the world she wanted, except to leave her; but that was almost impossible. She seemed to him so forlorn, so little and so young. The brightness had left her face now. She was downcast and pale.

“Edith!” he said. “Aren’t you happy at home?”

“No, Joe, I’m not,” she answered. “I’m wretched!”

When she saw what that did to him, how much it hurt him, she was overcome with remorse.

“Oh, but it doesn’t matter--now!” she said. “Not now--when I have you. Really and truly, Joe, I don’t care a bit!”

Her anxiety to reassure him, to send him away happy, touched Hardy almost beyond endurance. He had always been aware of something wistful, something a little sorrowful about her, like a shadow over her clear beauty. She had been the dearer to him for that. She was a thousand times dearer to him now because she was sad, and must look to him for her happiness. He meant to make her happy--at any cost!

II

Those words, “at any cost,” did not come consciously into Hardy’s mind. He didn’t really believe that happiness cost anything--or love, either. You found them, suddenly, on your way through life, and of course you had a right to keep what you found.

He did see difficulties, though. His prospects were good, but in his immediate present there were many things that troubled him.

His chief trouble was one which young fellows of twenty-three who want to get married have encountered before. It was money. His salary of twenty-five hundred a year was more than he needed for his own wants, and he had done a very sensible thing--he had begun buying stock in the company that employed him, turning in ten dollars of his salary every week for this purpose. He had four hundred dollars saved in that way, but no one ever repented a folly more heartily than young Hardy now regretted his prudence.

He couldn’t touch that money. He knew very well that one of Mr. Plummer’s strongest reasons for promoting him was that infernal stock he was buying. If he were to sell it, or to stop his payments, Mr. Plummer would want to know why, and Hardy’s prospects would be in jeopardy. He couldn’t marry without those prospects, nor could he very well get married without the money.

Well, any wise and experienced person could solve that difficulty for him. He must wait. Even Edith, who was neither wise nor experienced, told him that. They were having lunch together a few days after their great discovery of happiness, and Hardy had been explaining the situation in detail.

“We’ll have to wait,” said Edith. “Anyhow--”

“No,” said he. “I can’t stand seeing you so miserable!”

“But I’d be a hundred times more miserable if I thought I was doing you any harm!” said Edith.

As soon as the words were spoken, she realized that she had made a serious mistake, and tried hastily to remedy it.

“I’m really not miserable, Joe!” she cried. “Not a bit!”

He knew better, though. Without even having seen her, he was becoming acquainted with Edith’s aunt, and learning to appreciate her talent for making people miserable. Edith never told him about it. It wasn’t her habit to complain, but to any one who watched her as Hardy did, the thing was obvious.

One evening, when he was walking to the Subway with her, she had to stop in the drug store to buy a bottle of “nerve tonic” at two dollars a bottle.

“You don’t take that stuff, do you, Edith?” he had asked anxiously.

“Oh, no!” she replied. “It’s for Aunt Bessie. She’s in very poor health, you know.”

“What’s the matter with her?” Hardy bluntly inquired.

He did not fail to notice Edith’s troubled, face and rising color; and the answer that Aunt Bessie was “terribly nervous” seemed to him to explain a good deal.

Then he learned that Aunt Bessie was upset if Edith was a few minutes late in getting home, and that she would be still more painfully upset if Edith should even suggest going out in the evening.

“She’s alone all day, you see,” the girl explained, “and it does seem selfish to go out again.”

“Oh, _very_ selfish!” Hardy interrupted. “And what about Saturday afternoon and Sunday?”

“Well, you see, Joe, she’s alone all week, and--and she hasn’t any one but me. Anyhow, Joe, we see each other every day in the office, and we can have lunch together, can’t we?”

He said nothing more just then, for he could see that Edith was unhappy and anxious. For those first few days even having lunch with her was almost too good to be true; but the day when Edith said they must wait, and Hardy said he wouldn’t, was Monday, after he had spent a horrible Sunday without a glimpse of her.

“No,” he said again. “We can’t go on like this. I can’t, anyhow.”

Again she pointed out that they saw each other every day in the office, and could have lunch together. She added that they had only been engaged five days.

“I know,” said he. “It would be all right if I could see you, but you won’t let me come to your house, and you won’t go out with me.”

“But we see each other--”

“Yes, and we can have lunch together, for the next ten years, I suppose!” Hardy interrupted.

“It won’t be anything like ten years, you silly boy! At the end of the year, when you--”

“Yes, and do you know what’s going to happen then? They’re going to send me to Europe, with Preble, for two months.”

“Oh!” cried Edith.

For a moment she was silent, overcome by this news. Then she made a gallant attempt at a reasonable, calm, businesslike manner.

“But, after all--two months!” she said.

Her smile was a very poor one, and her voice betrayed her. Instead of helping her, Hardy became unmanageable.

“Look here!” he said. “September, October, November--that’s three months that we can have lunch together. Then I’ll be away for December and January: so perhaps after five months I may have a chance to--kiss you once more, if your aunt doesn’t mind. Five whole months, and you won’t let me see you alone for five minutes!”

“Oh, Joe, darling! Do be reasonable!”

“You’re a little too reasonable,” said he. “If you really cared for me--”

There is no better way to begin a quarrel than with those classic words. Edith grew angry, but her anger was such a mild little thing compared to Hardy’s that she took refuge in flight, and left him sitting alone in the restaurant. All was over!

That afternoon they had four hours to think over their words. When Edith came downstairs, Hardy was waiting for her in the lobby.

“Edith!” he said. “Edith! I don’t know how I could have been such a brute! Edith, I can’t--”

“Oh, Joe, you weren’t! I know it must seem heartless to you for me to talk that way: but you don’t understand, Joe!”

As they walked toward the Subway, she tried to tell him. It was the hottest hour of that sultry September day, and she looked so jaded, so pale, that he was frightened. He held her arm, his tall head bent, to catch every word, his eyes fixed on her face.

“You see,” she said, “I owe so much to Aunt Bessie. She took me when I was a tiny girl, after mother died, and she gave up everything for me--everything, Joe! She used the little bit of money she had to send me to a good school, and when that was gone she went to work. That’s what ruined her health--working in an office; and she did it for me, Joe. If she’s a little--a little trying now, I--you do see, don’t you, Joe?”

“Yes, my darling girl, I see,” he answered, more gently than she had ever heard him speak before. “I think--see here, Edith! Could you spare time for a soda?”

She thought she could. They went into a shop near by, and sat down at a little table in a dark corner. He stretched out his hand toward hers, which lay on the table, but he drew it back again. He wasn’t going to do anything that might bother her, never again. He would be patient, he would do anything in the world she wanted. He was sick with remorse and alarm at her pallor and fatigue.

“I’ll do whatever you want, Edith,” he said. “Only--I love you so! If you would just tell me more about yourself! It’s hard not to know.”

It was her hand that grasped his.

“As if I didn’t understand! Oh, Joe, I worried so awfully about you that time you got wet! If you had been sick, I couldn’t have been with you. I didn’t even know who there’d be to take care of you.”

“Don’t!” he said suddenly. “Please don’t, little Edith! I don’t need much taking care of. It’s you! Do you mind telling me what--how you--how it is with you financially?”

She did tell him, readily and frankly, and he was appalled. She was supporting herself and her aunt on her meager salary. Two persons entirely dependent on this slip of a girl!

“Edith!” he said. “Won’t you marry me now? My salary’s enough for us to scrape along on.”

Both her hands clasped his now.

“Joe, my own dearest, I can’t!”

“We can take your aunt to live with us for a while, until I’ve got my raise.”

“Joe, we can’t!”

“I don’t care how bad she is. If you can stand her, I can.”

“You couldn’t! Don’t you see, Joe, that that would spoil everything? We couldn’t start like that. But if you’d--”

“If I’d what?”

“Nothing!” she said hastily. “I’ll tell you another time.”

But instead of telling him, she left a note on his desk the next morning.

DEAR JOE: