Yet there was a distinct satisfaction in the heartache and the responsibility, even in the irony of the ten-dollar-a-week advance.

Life might be hard--but it was not empty! She was glad to be in the deserted office replete with his belongings and breathing of his personality. She was glad to be an acknowledged Miss Head of Affairs.

"You'd miss even a heartache if it was all you had," she whispered to herself from within the folds of Steve's office coat.

CHAPTER IV

During the summer the O'Valley Leather Company discovered that Mary Faithful made quite as efficient a manager as Steve O'Valley himself.

Nor did she neglect any of a mult.i.tude of petty details--such as the amount of ice needed for the water cooler, the judicious issue of office supplies; the innovation of a rest-room for girls metamorphosed out of a hitherto dingy storeroom; the eradication of friction between two ancient bookkeepers who had come to regard the universe as against them. Even the janitor's feelings were appeased by a few kind words and a crossing of his palm with silver when Mary decided to houseclean before Steve's return.

It is impossible for a business woman not to have feminine notions.

They stray into her routine existence like blades of pale gra.s.s persistently shooting up between the cracks of paving blocks. Quite frilly curtains adorned Mary's office windows, fresh flowers were kept in a fragile vase, a marble bust of Dante guarded the filing cabinet, and despite the general cleaning she used a special little silk duster for her own knicknacks. On a table was a very simple tea service with a bra.s.s samovar for days when the luncheon hour proved too stormy for an outside excursion.

Sharing Steve with the Gorgeous Girl, Mary had decided to clean his business home just as the Gorgeous Girl would have the apartment set in spick-and-span order. It was during the general upsetting with brooms, mops, paint pots, and what not, while Mary good-naturedly tried to work at a standing desk, that Mark Constantine dropped in unexpectedly.

"Gad!" he began, characteristically. "Thought I'd find you in your cool and hospitable office inviting me to have a siesta." He mopped his face with a huge silk handkerchief.

"Try it in a few days and we will be quite shipshape." Mary wheeled up a chair for him. "Anything I can do for you?"

He sank down with relief; his fast-acc.u.mulating flesh made him awkward and fond of lopping down at unexpected intervals. He glanced up at this amazing young woman, crisp and cool in her blue muslin dress, the tiny gold watch in a black silk guard being her only ornament. His brows drew into what appeared to be a forbidding frown; he really liked Mary, with her steady eyes somehow suggesting eternity and her funny freckled nose destroying any such notion.

"How are you getting on?" was all he said.

"Splendidly. We expect Mr. O'Valley a week from Monday--but of course you know that yourself."

"Gad," Constantine repeated.

"And how is Mr. Constantine?" Mary asked, almost graciously.

"In the hands of my enemy," he protested. "Bea left a hundred and one things to be seen to. My sister has sprained her ankle and is out of the running. It's the apartment that causes the trouble--Bea has sent letter after letter telling what she wants us to do. I thought everything was all set before she went away but--here!" He drew out violet notepaper and handed it over. "Sorry to bother you, but when that girl gets home and settled I hope she'll be able to tend to her own affairs and leave us in peace. I guess you understand how women are about settling a new house."

Reluctantly Mary deciphered the slanting, curlicue handwriting, which said in part:

Now, papa dear, I'm terribly worried about the painted Chinese wall panels for the little salon. They are likely to be the wrong design. Jill has written that hers were. So please get the man to give you a guarantee that he will correct any mistakes. I want you to go to Brayton's and get white-and-gold jars that will look well in the dining room--Brayton knows my tastes. Besides this, he is to have two rose pots of old Wheldon ware for me--they will contain electrically lighted flowers--like old-fashioned bouquets.

I wish you and aunty would drive out to the arts-and-crafts shop and bid on the red lacquer cabinet and the French clock that is in stock; I am sure no one has bought them. I could not decide whether I wanted them or not until now, and I must have them. They will tone in beautifully with the rugs.

Mary turned the page:

Also, Aunt Belle has not answered my letter asking her to order the monogrammed stationery--four sizes, please, ashes of roses shade and lined with gold tissue. I also told Aunt Belle to see about relining my mink cape and m.u.f.f. I shall wish to wear it very early in the season, and I want something in a smart striped effect with a pleated frill for the m.u.f.f. And the little house for Monster completely slipped my mind--Aunt Belle knows about it--with a wind-harp sort of thing at one side and funny pictures painted on the outside. I have changed my mind about the colour scheme for the breakfast nook--I am going to have light gray, almost a silver, and I would like some good pewter things.

It seems to me I shall never be rested. Steve wants to see every sunrise and explore every trail. We have met quite nice people and the dancing at the hotels is lovely. Oh, yes, if you need any help I know Miss Faithful will be glad to help, and g.a.y.l.o.r.d has ripping ideas.

Loads of love to you, dear papa. Your own

BEA.

Mary returned the letter without comment.

"Will you help me?" Constantine demanded almost piteously. "Belle's out of the running, you know."

"I'm cleaning my own house," Mary began, looking at the surrounding disorder, "but I can run up to the apartment with you and see what must be done; though it seems to me----"

"Seems to you what, young woman?"

"--that your daughter would prefer to do these at her leisure--they are so personal."

Constantine moved uneasily in his chair. "I guess women don't like to do things these days"--rather disgruntled in general--"but she might as well have asked an African medicine man as to ask me. What do I know about red lacquered cabinets and relining fur capes? I just pay for them."

Mary smiled. Something about his gruff, merciless personality had always attracted her. She had sometimes suspected that the day would come when she would be sorry for him--just why she did not know. She had watched him from afar during the period of being his a.s.sistant bookkeeper, and now, having risen with the fortunes of Steve O'Valley, she faced him on an almost equal footing--another queer quirk of American commerce.

She realized that his tense race after wealth had been in a sense his strange manner of grieving for his wife. But his absolute concentration along one line resulted in a lack of wisdom concerning all other lines. Though he could figure to the fraction of a dollar how to beat the game, play big-fish-swallow-little-fish and get away with it, he had no more judgment as to his daughter's absurd self than Monster, who had gone on the honeymoon wrapped in a new silken blanket. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too, as Mary had decided during her early days of running errands for nervous modistes who boxed her ears one moment and gave her a silk remnant the next. Neither can a man put all his powers of action into one channel, blinding himself to all else in the world, and expect to emerge well balanced and normal in his judgments.

As Mary agreed to help Constantine out of his debris of French clocks and pewter for the breakfast room she began to feel sorry for him even if he was a business pirate--for he had paid an extremely high price for the privilege of being made a fool of by his own child.

He escorted her to the limousine and they whirled up to the apartment house, where in all the gray stone, iron grille work, hall-boy elegance there now resided three couples of the Gorgeous Girl type, and where Bea's apartment awaited her coming, the former tenants having been forced to vacate in time to have the place completely redone.

"I wouldn't ask g.a.y.l.o.r.d if I had to do it myself," Constantine said, brushing by the maid who opened the door. "There is a young man we could easily spare. If he ever gets as good a job as painting spots on rocking-horses I'll eat my hat."

Mary was surveying the room. "Where--where do we go to from here?" she faltered.

Constantine sank into a large chair, shaking his head. "d.a.m.ned if I know," he panted. "Look at that truck!"--pointing to piles of wedding gifts.

Mary walked the length of the drawing room. It had black velvet panels and a tan carpet with angora rugs spread at perilous intervals; there was a flowered-silk chaise-longue, bright yellow damask furniture, and an Italian-Renaissance screen before the marble fireplace.

Opening out of this was a salon--this was where the Chinese panels were to find a haven--and already cream-and-gold furniture had been placed at artistic angles with blue velvet hangings for an abrupt contrast. There was a mult.i.tude of books bound in dove-coloured ooze; cut gla.s.s, crystal, silver candelabra sprinkled throughout. Men were working on fluted white satin window drapes, and Mary glanced toward the dining room to view the antique mahogany and sparkle of plate.

Someone was fitting more hangings in the den, and a woman was disputing with her co-worker as to the best place for the goldfish globe and the co-worker was telling her that Monster's house was to occupy the room--yes, Monster, the O'Valley dog--a pound and a half, he weighed, and was subject to pneumonia. Here they began to laugh, and someone else, knowing of Constantine's presence, discreetly closed the door.

Flushing, Mary returned to the drawing room and standing before Constantine's chair she said swiftly: "I'm afraid I cannot help you, sir. I'm not this sort. I shouldn't be able to please. Besides, it is robbing your daughter of a great joy--and a wonderful duty, if you don't mind my saying it--this arranging of her own home. We have no right to do it for her."

"She's asked us to do it," spluttered the big man.

"Then you will have to ask her to excuse me."

Mary was almost stern. It seemed quite enough to have to stay at her post all summer, run the business and houseclean the office for his return, without being expected to come into the Gorgeous Girl's realm and do likewise. In this new atmosphere she began to feel old and plain, quite impossible! The yellow damask furniture, the rugs, the silver and gold and lovely extravagances seemed laughing at her and suggesting: "Go back to your filing cabinet and your old-maid silk dusting cloths, to your rest-rooms for girls, and to your arguments with city salesmen. You have no more right here than she will ever have in your office."

When Constantine would have argued further she threw back her head defiantly, saying: "Someone explains the difference between men and women by the fact that men swear and women scream, which is true as far as it goes. But in these days you often find a screaming gentleman and a profane lady--and there's a howdy-do! You can't ask the profane lady--no matter if she is a right-hand business man--to come fix pretties. You better write your daughter what I've said, and if you don't mind I'd like to get back to the office."

Constantine rose, frowning down at her with an expression that would have frightened a good many women stauncher than Mary Faithful. For she had mentioned to him what no one, not even his sluggish conscience, had ever hinted at--his daughter's duty.

But all he said was: "Profane ladies and screaming gentlemen. Well, I've put a screaming-gentleman tag on g.a.y.l.o.r.d Vondeplosshe--but what about yourself? Where are you attempting to cla.s.sify?"

"Me? I'll be d.a.m.ned if I help you out," she laughed up at him as she moved toward the door.

Chuckling, yet defeated, Constantine admitted her triumph and sent her back to the office in the limousine.