Part 32

Olive was silent, not by any means from guilt or confusion, but because she was struggling against an unwonted anger. She thought of a good many things to say in regard to this unwarrantable interference with her affairs, but she did not say one of them. Instead, she looked down at Miss Torrance, who was working away in hot haste, and every one of her friend’s generosities and queer little kindnesses rose up before her. She crossed the room and knelt by the other woman’s side, putting an arm about her shoulders.

“Oh, my dear!” she said gently. “If I’ve done anything to--to hurt you, can’t you forgive me?”

“It’s not that,” said Miss Torrance, in a hard, cold voice. “I’ve nothing to forgive. It’s simply that I’ve--I’ve made a fool of myself.” The tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she pretended not to know it. “I’ve made the worst sort of fool of myself--and I will not face that man again! I will not!”

“But, darling,” said Olive gently, “if you feel like that, we’ll both go.”

“No!” cried Miss Torrance, with a loud sob. “I will not come between you and your precious Mr. Martin!”

“What do you mean?” said Olive. “I don’t--” She stopped. “That’s silly, darling,” she went on, in an airy sort of way. “I’ve forgotten all about Mr. Martin, and he’s gone off to sea and forgotten all about me, long ago.”

“He has not!” said Miss Torrance. “He wrote you two letters, and I tore them up. Take your arm away, please, and let me get up!”

Olive, too, had risen.

“My letters!” she said faintly. “I didn’t think you would--”

“Well, now you know,” said Miss Torrance. “Now you know what a--a beast I am!”

“Stop!” said Olive.

“I won’t!” said Miss Torrance. “I pretended to myself that I wanted to save you, but to-day, when I saw you with that man, I knew that I was nothing but a jealous, meddlesome old--”

Suddenly they were in each other’s arms, clinging to each other and weeping.

“Of course I’m going with you!” said Olive. “You might have known!”

V

It was nothing--nothing at all--for Olive to give up the hope of seeing Mr. Martin again. Twice only had her eyes rested upon his jolly, sunburned face, and it ought to have been very easy to forget that. His letters she had never seen, so they were surely nothing to think about. Altogether, he and his letters were only the briefest sort of episode in a life that might go on for thirty, forty, even fifty years longer.

She had so much to be thankful for--a good position, a comfortable home, and the immeasurable gratitude and devotion of her friend. Well, to be sure, she was as quietly good-tempered as usual, and gave no sign that she had not forgotten the whole thing; yet Miss Torrance knew that Olive hadn’t forgotten.

She could read it in the girl’s face, and she could read it in her own heart. She could understand how Olive felt about her lost Mr. Martin. She understood very well what it was to remember one face, one voice, so constantly that all others were a weariness.

“It really is like that!” she sometimes said to herself, with a sort of awe. “I didn’t believe it, but it’s true!”

She never spoke about this to Olive, nor did she think it necessary to tell her that a week after they left the boarding house she had returned there, to see Mr. Robertson, and to get from him the address of the roving Mr. Martin. Mr. Robertson had gone away, the landlady didn’t know where, so Miss Torrance was spared that humiliation, and had no inclination to mention it. She had done away with the young man so effectively that now, when she would have given her right hand to get him back for Olive, she couldn’t find him.

She tried her very best to atone. She no longer attempted to interfere in Olive’s affairs, for she no longer felt herself supremely competent to manage other people’s affairs. Indeed, the poor little woman was sometimes so subdued, so crushed by remorse, that it was all Olive could do to enliven her.

There were times when Olive found it rather a strain to enliven any one, when she would have welcomed any one who would perform that kind office for her. To-day was one of those days. The work in the office had been very heavy, and the weather was warm and sultry. She wanted to go home and rest, and yet she was reluctant to enter the new boarding house, so discouragingly like the old one.

She closed the front door behind her, and sighed. The servant had forgotten to light the gas, and the hall was inky black. There wasn’t a sound in the house, and the only sign of life was a steamy smell of rice and mutton ascending from the basement.

Olive was about to go upstairs when the doorbell rang furiously, and she thought she would wait and see what it meant. There might be a telegram for herself. She knew of no living person to send her one, but still, who knows what may happen?

Anyhow, she lit the gas herself, and pretended to be looking at the letters on the rack. She heard the maid coming up the basement stairs. The bell rang again, louder and longer.

“Mercy on us!” said the servant. “You’d think it was a fire!” She opened the door, and in came a man, in great haste.

“Miss Torrance!” he said. “I want to see Miss Torrance at once!”

“She ain’t in,” said the maid, as if pleased.

“Look here!” said the stranger. “I made them tell me at her office where she lived, and this is the place, and I’m going to see her!”

“She ain’t--” the servant began again, when Olive stepped forward.

“Will I do?” she asked.

“You!” he cried.

Olive was not so much startled as he, because she had been looking at Mr. Martin ever since he entered. Nor did she seem pleased. Mr. Martin had apparently come here filled with rage against her Miss Torrance, and that she would not tolerate.

“What was it you wanted?” she inquired coldly.

“I came,” said Mr. Martin firmly, “about this story--in this magazine. It’s--it’s an outrage!”

“Oh!” cried Olive. “Oh! The--the story?”

He looked at her sternly, yet with a sort of compassion.

“Do you mean that you know about it?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Olive, in a faint little voice. “But--I didn’t think it was so--so bad.”

Mr. Martin looked at her with growing horror.

“Look here!” he said. “You don’t mean--you can’t mean--it was signed with a man’s name, but I felt sure Miss Torrance wrote it, because it’s based on a story I told her myself, about Robertson. I called him ‘Smith,’ but I suppose she knew all the time--”

“No!” Olive interposed. “No! Mr. Martin, I’m awfully sorry, but--I wrote that story!”

“What? You?”

“I’m awfully sorry,” Olive said again, and she looked so. “You see, Mr. Robertson told me the story himself, and he didn’t say that it wasn’t to be used.”

“Naturally he didn’t. It never entered his head that you would--”

“But, you see, I didn’t mean--I didn’t think--I only thought it was funny.”

“Funny!” cried Mr. Martin, all his indignation returning. “You thought it was funny to say--wait a minute!” He pulled a magazine out of his pocket and turned the pages. “This!” he said in a terrible voice. “You say, ‘The man went bowed under the weight of his infidelity. False to his duty, false to his inmost self, he--’”

“I didn’t!”

“Here it is in black and white. ‘Raising his glass in his shaking hand, he drank again, his bleared eyes peering--’”

“I did not!” cried Olive.

“You’ve made him out a drunken old beach comber--Robertson, the finest fellow who ever lived! You’ve got all the facts there--any one could recognize ’em. You say--”

Olive could endure no more of this nightmare. She snatched the magazine out of his hands. “Remorse,” the story was called, and the author’s name was given as “John Hunt.” She suddenly collapsed upon the bottom step of the stairs.

For a moment the young man remained the just and stern judge. Then he bent over her and said, in a voice of quite human solicitude:

“I’m--perhaps you didn’t realize. Look here--I wish I hadn’t said all that! I’m--please don’t cry!”

“I’m not crying,” replied Olive, in a stifled voice. “Please forgive me! It really isn’t funny, but--oh, oh, I just can’t help it!”

He bent nearer.

“Are you laughing?” he demanded incredulously.

“Oh, please forgive me! It’s horrible, but--I’ll stop in a moment. You see, that awful story is Miss Torrance’s, but I wrote a story, too--only mine was better, I think, and funnier. You see, we both--”

“You and Miss Torrance each wrote a story about Robertson?”

“Yes, both of us, and neither of us knew. Oh, imagine the editors, and Miss Torrance, and poor Mr. Robertson, and you, and me--”

“Personally, I don’t see anything--” he began in a frigid tone, but it was of no use.

The dull, dingy old house rang with his great, hearty laugh.

VI

They were all having dinner together in a restaurant. In the circumstances, Miss Torrance could not well refuse, especially as it was Mr. Martin’s one night on shore; but she was not happy. Every one else was happy, but not she.

As a rule, she strong-mindedly concealed her feelings, but to-night she didn’t. She allowed Mr. Robertson to see just how miserable she was. Olive and Mr. Martin might have seen this, too, if they had looked at her.

“It looks as if there was a new story beginning there,” observed Mr. Robertson. “Might be called ‘Mr. Martin Swallows the Anchor.’”

Miss Torrance refused to smile.

“I shall miss Olive so,” she said, in a not very steady voice, “if she--”

“I’m sure you would,” agreed Mr. Robertson; “but she couldn’t find a better fellow than young Martin. I’ve known him all his life, and--”

“Yes, I know,” said Miss Torrance; “but I shall be lonely--oh, so lonely!”

It turned out, however, that she was not destined to be lonely.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

JANUARY, 1925 Vol. LXXXIII NUMBER 4

Too French

THE STORY OF A NERVOUS WRECK AND HER ATTRACTIVE YOUNG COMPANION

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Young Mandeville Ryder entered the employment bureau with extreme reluctance. Indeed, when he opened the door and saw so many women in there, and heard so many feminine voices, he would have backed out again, only that he was too young to dare to run away.

He was twenty-five--the age of pig-headed valor. He had undertaken to do this thing, and he meant to do it. Instinct warned him to flee, but he paid no heed. Hat in hand, he advanced to the desk and somewhat vaguely made known his wants.

It was a question of engaging a companion for his sister, who was a nervous wreck. His brother-in-law had implored him to do this.

“B-because,” Sheila’s husband said, “if I find any one--well, Mandy, you know what she’ll probably say.”

Mandeville did know. He had taken pity upon his luckless brother-in-law, and had agreed to go and pick out a companion for Sheila; so here he was.

The young woman in charge of the bureau listened to him with courteous inattention. She had long ago ceased to trouble with any one’s detailed requirements. She knew that both employers and employees wanted and demanded things that never existed in this world, and that in the end they would take what they could get and be more or less satisfied.

She was, however, rather favorably impressed by this client. Not only was he more than six feet tall, extraordinarily good-looking, and extremely well dressed, but he had an air about him--a superb sort of nonchalance, which she saw through at once, and which she recognized as merely a disguise for an honest, candid, and endearingly youthful spirit; so she decided not to inflict Miss Mullins upon him. Miss Mullins had been registered for six weeks, and, considering her temperament and personal appearance, she needed every possible chance.

“No!” thought the young woman in charge. “I’ll let him see Miss Twill.”

Smiling pleasantly, she led Mandeville into a room where four women were already established, talking, two in each corner, in low tones, and eying each other with quick, terribly penetrating glances. A prominent clubwoman was interviewing a poor little secretary, and a mild, home-keeping lady was being interviewed by a stern and handsome English governess.

Young Mandeville had to sit either on a very low wicker rocking-chair, or on a settee. He tried the rocking-chair first, but it brought his knees up to his chin, so he had to take the settee, and this caused him considerable anxiety; for suppose--

Well, it happened. Miss Twill, brought in and presented to him, did sit down on the settee beside him. She was a cheery soul. All her unimpeachable references mentioned her “cheerful disposition.” She really had no perceptible faults at all, but she wouldn’t do.

Young Mandeville was absolutely incapable of telling her this to her cheerful face, and their conversation had trailed into an awful succession of one “well” after another, when the intelligent manageress of the bureau saved him. She sent him another prospective companion to be interviewed, another and yet another, and none of them would do.

Mandeville suffered exceedingly. He wished that he could give the discouraged, pinched little old one a present--a dozen pairs of gloves, for instance. He wished that he could invite the pert, pretty young one out to lunch. He was sorry for all of them, and he felt like a brute; but he knew what he wanted, and these would not do. There he sat, like a caliph in his divan, pronouncing judgment upon these poor, anxious creatures, and waiting, without much hope, for the right one.

He had a clear idea of the right one. He had met her--in novels and in the theater--a tall, grave, lovely young woman, exquisitely well bred, dignified, and yet subtly pathetic; the sort of companion who can stand about and converse with diplomats. Not that his sister ever entertained diplomats, but that was the type.

The manageress was becoming a little severe. It was dawning upon her that this client was not so manageable as he looked. After he had seen and--with great mental suffering--rejected six companions, she decided to make an end of him.

The room was temporarily empty of all but Mandeville when she returned with the seventh applicant.

“Miss La Chêne!” said she, and, saying, vanished.

Miss La Chêne did not sit beside Mandeville on the settee--not she! She took the low rocking-chair opposite him, crossed her feet modestly, clasped her little white-gloved hands in her lap, and raised her eyes to his face. Enormous, soft black eyes they were, set in a dark, lovely, pointed face. She was dressed with an innocent sort of elegance, in a dark suit and a small, close-fitting hat. She had about her such an air of propriety, something so decorous and demure and delightful, that Mandeville couldn’t repress a smile. She smiled, too, and dropped her eyes.

He didn’t know how to begin. This charming little thing was nothing but a child, a kid.

“Er--” he said, in his vague, grand manner. “Er--I don’t imagine you’ve had much experience as a--er--a companion.”

“None!” said she, almost with vehemence. “None at all; but I speak French just as I do English, I can sew, I can read aloud, I can play the piano. I have good personal references from people in Quebec, and I have a diploma from the convent.”

In hot haste she opened her hand bag, brought out some letters, and handed them to the young man. Somehow he didn’t care to read them. Somehow this interview lacked a businesslike tone. No--he couldn’t read the poor little thing’s letters!

She was watching him anxiously.

“I’ll try very hard, if some one will only give me a chance!” said she.

Poor little thing! Such a sweet, well bred little voice!

“I know,” said Mandeville earnestly; “but--you see, my sister wants--”

For instinct warned him that this delightful creature would not do.

“You see--” he went on, but stopped short, because the poor little thing’s black eyes filled with tears.

“I’m only eighteen,” she said, “and all alone in the world.”

This was more than he could endure. He was silent for a moment, trying honestly to weigh the merits of the case. She was obviously well bred, she spoke French, she could sew, she could read aloud, she could play the piano; but all these qualifications became confused in his mind with the quite irrelevant facts that she was only eighteen and all alone in the world, and that she had those extraordinary, those marvelous eyes.

“I’ll take you to see my sister,” he said, at last, for he thought that his sister could not fail to be touched by so much youth, beauty, and innocence.

II

Sheila Robinson, the nervous wreck, lay on a couch in her boudoir, and from time to time she wept. She was a handsome woman, a fine woman, tall, regally formed, with long, languid blue eyes and a superb crown of red hair. She was not unaware of her natural advantages, yet compliments almost always made her weep.

“If you could have seen me before I married Lucian Robinson!” was what she usually said.

She had just said this now, to Miss La Chêne, and Miss La Chêne had answered instantly:

“Oh, any one could _see_ how much you’ve suffered!”

Considering the age and inexperience of the girl, this reply showed talent; but what had the poor little thing, only eighteen and all alone in the world, to depend upon except her own native wit? She had made a determined effort to please Sheila Robinson, and she had succeeded at the very first interview. Mrs. Robinson had been much gratified by her wide-eyed interest and fervent sympathy.

For a whole week Miss La Chêne had not failed once. She had been earnestly attentive, obliging, polite, and amusing. She had been, without complaint, a servant in the morning, a dear and intimate friend in the afternoon, and completely forgotten in the evening. Everything had gone very nicely indeed.

But a week of calm was about as much as Mrs. Robinson’s nerves could endure. Her husband was away on a business trip, and his daily letters upset her horribly. She could, she assured Miss La Chêne, read between the lines. She was wonderfully clever about this, though she modestly said that it was all intuition.

For instance, if a letter was dated the 12th, this remarkable woman knew at once that it had really been written on the 5th, and given to some complaisant friend to mail. If Lucian said that business was bad, it was because he wished to lavish his money elsewhere. If he said that business was good, it was because he was disgracefully happy.

Altogether Mrs. Robinson was so barbarously ill-used and deceived by her husband that she no longer cared what happened to her. The hotel suite which she occupied became the scene of a lamentable martyrdom. She trifled with her life. When she lay in bed, she observed to Miss La Chêne that the doctor had positively ordered her to go out and divert her mind. When she passed a hectic day away from home, she would frequently remind Miss La Chêne, with a brave, scornful smile, that the doctor had forbidden any excitement. Every meal, every cup of coffee, every cigarette, was a reckless defiance of the doctor’s orders; but, as she said, what did it all matter? Perhaps it would be better if she were dead, and the heartless Lucian free to marry again.

“If I should _not be here_ when he comes back,” she said to Miss La Chêne, in a low, thrilling voice, “tell him that I forgive--everything!”

Nevertheless, it seemed that she wished to know definitely what there was to be forgiven, for on this particular morning she said she had a “strange, psychic feeling that something was wrong,” and she desired to verify the suspicion. She read her husband’s letter over and over.

“My dear!” she said, with dangerous calmness. “He says he is at a hotel in Washington, but I do not believe him! Something tells me he is not in Washington at all!”

Miss La Chêne looked appalled.

“Please,” Mrs. Robinson went on, “get the hotel on the long distance for me, my dear. I must know!”

This the willing companion did. Mrs. Robinson took up the receiver and requested to speak to Mr. Robinson. There was a pause. Then a pleasant feminine voice answered her:

“Mr. Robinson is out, but this is Mrs. Robinson speaking. May I--”

It was terrible! In vain did Miss La Chêne point out that Robinson was not a very unusual name, and that there might well be a Mrs. Robinson in that hotel totally unknown to Mr. Lucian Robinson.

“Don’t go on!” cried Mrs. Robinson. “I knew it--I knew it all the time! My heart told me!”

She began at once to prepare for her departure. In every crisis she was wont to fly to some one who could “understand,” and it was now the turn of her sister, Mrs. Milner, to perform this office for her. She was going away. She cared not where she went, in her anguish, but she thought that Miss La Chêne might as well buy her a ticket for Greenwich and look up a train and order a taxi.

“I must go at once,” she said, “while I have the strength. My dear, do I look too terrible?”

“Well,” replied Miss La Chêne, “of course, any one could see how much you were suffering.”

Mrs. Robinson cast a glance at the mirror. With her handsome face pale with grief and Rachel powder, her eyes somber with pain and mascara, her regal form dressed all in black, she did indeed look tragic.

“What does it all matter?” she demanded. “You’ll stay here and look after the packing, won’t you, my dear? And my jewels--” This was too much for her. “My jewels!” she said wildly. “Almost all of them were given to me by him, in those days when he still loved me. Take them away! Never let me see them again--never! But be sure to get a receipt from the safe-deposit, my dearest child, and remember that the bank closes at three o’clock.”

She gave the jewel case to Miss La Chêne and turned with a shudder, covering her eyes with her hand.

“Take the five o’clock train, my dear,” she said. “I’ll see that you’re met at the station. Good-by! Good-by!”

“_Au revoir!_” said Miss La Chêne, with fervor.

Directly she was left alone, Miss La Chêne, with remarkable skill and energy, set about the business of packing. She did the job well--as, indeed, she did almost everything she undertook.

In a way she enjoyed the task, but in another way it was unspeakably painful. She adored handling these satin, silk, lace, chiffon, batiste, and georgette garments of Mrs. Robinson’s, these perfumes, powders, rouges, creams, and lotions, these hats, shoes, slippers, gloves, and scarfs. She could thoroughly appreciate the somewhat flamboyant tastes of the unhappy lady; but oh, how she coveted! Actually tears came into her eyes--tears of fearful envy.