She brought her a farewell gift also--a veil case which had been given to Beatrice two summers ago. A fresh ribbon had made it quite all right, so she acted the Lady Bountiful as she presented her offering and listened carefully to Mary's sensible reply.

"I can't go running off to Bermuda and Florida like you people can. I am forced to find my recreation in my work--and hides and razors are a queer combination for a woman who really likes gardens and sea bathing." She laughed so genuinely that Beatrice told herself that Trudy was an unpardonable little fool. "I have stayed at the post for some time, and now that I've the chance to change my recreation to fabrics--I'm tempted to try it. I'm sure you do understand--and it is with great regret that I leave the office."

"It will make it hard for Mr. O'Valley," Beatrice continued, blandly.

"Of course I have realized what an unusual man my husband is--his phenomenal rise and all that; and papa has always said he never met any one who was so keen as Steve. I have always tried to be diplomatic in whatever I said to Mr. O'Valley about his business; I never encourage his discussing it at home since it is not fair to ask him to drag it into his playtime. So I can't talk over actual details with you. But I know it will be hard for him and he will have quite a time getting readjusted. He says this Miss Coulson is a nice girl but temperamentally a Jersey cow."

Beatrice smiled at this; she had viewed Miss Coulson immediately upon the news concerning Mary's resignation, and had felt more than satisfied. Even Beatrice realized that Miss Coulson was a nice pink-and-white thing who undoubtedly had a cedar chest half filled with hope treasures and would at the first opportunity exchange her desk for a kitchen cabinet and be happy ever after.

When Beatrice tried discussing the matter with Steve he responded so listlessly and seemed so apathetic about either Miss Coulson or Mary that Beatrice became vastly interested in fall projects of her own, telling Aunt Belle that her theory was correct: It was easier to be disappointed in one's husband than in one's friends, and that Steve was the sort who was never going to be concerned about his wife's disappointment; in fact, he would never realize it had occurred.

The night Mary left the office for good and all, leaving clean and empty desk room for Miss Coulson and the little tea appointments as a token of good will, Luke met her at the corner and they walked home together.

"Are you sorry?" Luke asked, curiously. He had been too busy in technical high school to be office boy for some time past.

"No; only you grow accustomed to things. You remember how mother felt about the old house." Somehow the thing was harder to discuss with Luke as a questioner than with any one else.

"I guess they'll miss you a lot."

"Everyone's place can be filled, we must never forget that. And I think the change is wise. The new firm seems agreeable."

"Did Mr. O'Valley give you anything?"

Mary flushed. It had been Luke who received the armful of flowers sent anonymously.

"The firm gave me the wonderful desk set; you saw it before it was sent to be monogrammed."

"Yes, but I mean Mr. O'Valley himself." Luke was quite manly and threatening as he strode along. "Something for a keepsake because you've worked so hard for him."

They paused at a corner to wait for the traffic to abate. Mary felt faint and queer, as if she had lost her good right hand and was trying to tell herself it wasn't such a bad thing after all because she would only have to buy one glove from now on. Never to go into Steve's office, never to talk with him, listen to him, advise and influence him! She wanted to forget the sudden burst of affection, the protests of love, for she could not believe them true. What she wanted was to return to the old days of guarded control.

Beatrice's cab whirled by just then and Mary caught a glimpse of the Gorgeous Girl in a gray cloak with a wonderful jewelled collar, and Steve beside her. As the cab pa.s.sed and Mary and Luke struck out across the street Mary experienced a sense of defeat. As she talked to Luke of this and that to turn his mind from the too-fascinating question of who sent the flowers, she began to wonder if she, too, would not wish to be a Gorgeous Girl should the opportunity present itself? What would her brave plat.i.tudes count if she could wear bright gold tulle with slim shoulder straps of jet supporting it? Away with sport attire and untrimmed hats! To have absurdly frivolous little shoes of blue brocade; to wear the brown hair in puffs and curls and adorned with jade and pearls; to have a lace scarf thrown over her shoulders and a greatcoat of white fur covering the tulle frock; to go riding, riding, riding, at dusk through the crowded streets filled with envying shop-girls and clerks, hard-working men and women. To ride in an elegant little car with fresh flowers in a gold-banded vase, a tiny clock saying it was nearly half after six, outside a gray fog and a rain creeping up to make the crowds jostle wearily that they might reach shelter before the storm broke. To have Steve, handsome and adoring, beside her, laughing at her indulgently, excusing her frivolous little self, adoring the fragile, foolish soul of her. At least it would be worth while trying.

"I can get a construction set for six dollars," Luke was saying. "That will make the bridge models I told you about last week. I'm going to get one."

"Yes, dear, I would," she punctuated the conversation recklessly, and then another crowd swept about them and more elegant little cabs with more Gorgeous Girls and their cavaliers whirled by. Mary hated her stupid sophistry about commercial nuns, novitiates and all, her plain gray-eyed spinster self doomed to a Persian cat and a bonus at sixty.

Empty, colourless--d.a.m.nable!

She realized that she had merely given herself an anaesthetic, just as Steve had done, one of unreality and indifference, and that no one stays dormant under its power for all time. That all so-called commercial nuns try hard to convince themselves that watching the procession pa.s.s by is quite the best way of all. Yet there is scant truth or satisfaction in the statement. At some time or other the hunger for being loved crashes through the spinster's brave little platform, the hunger for becoming necessary to someone in other ways than writing letters or adding figures--to be home, beside the hearth, keeping the fires burning, with woes and cares and monotonous incidents of such a narrowed horizon. It was for this we were created, Mary Faithful told herself--to be the dreamers and the ballast and the inspiration of the race. And if commercial nuns have managed to tell themselves otherwise--well, who shall be brutal enough to cry "I spy"

on their little secret? She understood now the abnormal restlessness that she had seen in others of her friends--the marriages with men beneath them in cla.s.s who earned but half what they did; unwise flirtations, even the sordid things that occasionally creep into the horizon. And she blamed none of them for any of it.

She knew now that should the chance come she would want to be a Gorgeous Girl. Gorgeous Girls have the faculty of being loved, even if they do not merit the emotion. Tailor-made nuns only love, and finally set their consciences to work to convince themselves that a new firm and more severe collars will be the best way to forget.

Luke was still talking about the construction set and the new invention and patent rights and heavy wool sweater with a bean cap for the summer vacation. Mary was saying: "Yes, of course," and "How interesting!" at intervals; and so they reached home, where Mary could plead a headache and go to her room to battle it out alone.

She felt, too, that the town crier could truthfully announce that milady was returning to tea gowns for an indefinite period. And she felt a pa.s.sionate hunger to be one of them. That women were going to rejoice, the majority of them, to take off their lady-major uniforms, stop driving tractors and wearing overalls, and with the precious knowledge of the experience they would evolve quite a new-old standard, as charming as lavender and lace and as old as Time--the gentlewoman! They would no longer accentuate their ugliness with that unlovely honesty of the feminist which has been quite as distressing as the impossible Victorian lack of honesty and everlasting concealment of vital things. They would no longer be feminists or ladies, but gentlewomen who sew their own seam, who neither struggle unseen nor flaunt their emotions in the face of s.e.x psychologists.

And that both commercial nuns and Gorgeous Girls must be on the wane.

Yet it was too late for Mary Faithful.

For many reasons Steve stayed away from Mary. At intervals he sent her flowers without a card, such a schoolboyish trick to do and yet so harmless that Mary sent him no word of thanks or blame. She merely dreamed her gentlewoman's dreams and did her work in the new office with the same systematic ability as she had employed for Steve's benefit, causing the new firm to beam with delight. She had an even more imposing office than formerly, spread generously with fur rugs, traps for the weak ankles of innocent callers. She was treated with great respect. One time Steve came to see about some civic banquet in which the head of Mary's new firm was concerned, and Mary made herself close her door and begin dictating so as to appear to be occupied. The next day he slipped a love letter into the bouquet of old-fashioned flowers he selected for her benefit, and Mary forced herself to write a card and forbid his continuing the attentions.

In March g.a.y.l.o.r.d Vondeplosshe telephoned Mary, about nine o'clock one evening, that Trudy was quite ill and wanted to see her. Would Mary mind coming over if he called in the roadster? There was a fearsome tone in his voice which made Mary consent despite Luke's protests.

Gay was even more pale and weaker eyed than ever when he came into the apartment, his motor coat seeming to hang on his knock-kneed, narrow-chested self.

It seemed Trudy had not been really well for some time. She was such an ambitious little girl, he explained, excusing himself in the matter at the outset. He had begged her to rest, to go away, even commanding it, but she was so ambitious, and there was so much work on hand that she stayed. It all began with a cold. Those low-cut waists and pumps in zero weather. She would not take care of herself and she dragged round, and refused medicine, and he, Gay, had done everything possible under the circ.u.mstances; he wanted Mary to be quite clear as to this point.

They finally reached the apartment house, where Gay clambered out and offered Mary his left little finger as a means of support on the icy walk. When she came into the front bedroom of the apartment--a shabby room when one looked at it closely--and looked at Trudy she saw death written in the thin white face bereft of rouge, the red curls lying in limp confusion on the silly little head.

"Oh, Mary," Trudy began, coughing and trying to sit up, "I thought you'd never come. Why, I'm not so sick----Gay, go outside and wait for the doctor and the nurse. Just think, I'm going to afford a nurse. Oh, the pain in the chest is something fierce." She had lapsed into her old-time vernacular. "Every bone of me aches and my heart thumps as if it was awful mad at me. I guess it ought to be, Mary. How good it is to have you. Take off your things. Gee, that pain is some pain! Um--I wonder if the doctor can help."

"Do you want me to stay all night?"

Mary was doing some trifle to make her more comfortable. Trudy seemed too weak to answer but she smiled like a delighted child. She pointed a finger, the one wearing the diamond ring, to a chair beside the bed. Mary drew it up closer and sat down.

"Now, my dear, you must put on a warm dressing gown and something to pad your chest--this nightgown is a farce," she said, sternly, rising.

"Where shall I find something? Oh, Trudy--don't!"

Trudy had halfway lifted herself in bed with sudden pain, moaning and laughing in terrible fashion. Mary caught her in her arms. Trudy lay back, quite contented.

"My, but I've been a bluff," she said, tears on the white, shiny cheeks. "Gee, but that doctor takes his time, too. I had to beg something great before husband would go for you. He's awful mean, but I always told you he was, and he would have a fine time if I should die, wouldn't he?" More terrible little laughs as Trudy still nestled in the warm curve of Mary's arm.

"You mustn't talk," Mary said. "That's an order."

Gay tiptoed in to say that the doctor had returned but no nurse was available. They might get one in a few days.

"I'll stay," Mary offered.

Trudy smiled again. "Rather--have--Mary," she managed to gasp.

The doctor was a preoccupied man who did not fancy late calls on foolish little creatures wearing silk nightgowns when they were nearing death. He gave some drastic orders and Gay was dispatched with a list of articles to be bought while Mary hunted high and low in the disorderly apartment, finally wrapping Trudy in thick draperies, the only sensible things she could discover.

Trudy lay very still for a few minutes. Mary thought she was dozing until she said in an animated voice: "Did you see the ring? It's a wonderful stone." Wilfully she thrust her skeleton-like fingers out from the bed covers.

Mary nodded. But Trudy was not to be discouraged.

"Gee, but that ring made a lot of trouble. Mary, come here, deary.

Will you forgive me? They say you forgive the dead anything. Listen, I was awfully discouraged and Gay was so mean and I was all wrong, anyway--you know--foolish--see? Beatrice was mean, too.... I want you to marry Steve because he loves you, and a divorce won't break her heart--you just see if it does. I always knew he was the one you liked--and he does care now. Sure, he does. You can tell. Even I can tell, Mary.... I just told her so--and my, she is wild but won't admit it. She never asked me to her house after that if she could get out of it. And now I'm sorry--and I want you to have the ring. That will help some, won't it? You tell Gay what I said. You must have it. Your fingers are thin and long and can carry it off well. And so you do forgive me, don't you? I shouldn't have told her, but I couldn't help it, she was so mean. And now he cares--and you can be happy----"

"You told Mrs. O'Valley?"

Trudy was panting. Perspiration stood on the white forehead as she managed to finish: "I said you always loved her husband and now he loves you--and I am sorry. But I was mad at them all; you can't understand because you're not my sort.... But you can be happy now.

Marry him and make him happy."

She dozed into a contented sleep. A little later it was all over.