I
Two weeks later Bud Henderson sought Bruce at Freeman’s office. Bruce looked up from his desk with a frown that cleared as he recognized his friend. With his cap pushed back on his head and buttoned up in a long ulster, Henderson eyed him stolidly and demanded to know what he was doing.
“Going over some specifications; I might say I’m at work, if you knew what the word means.”
“Thanks for the compliment, but it’s time to quit,” Henderson replied, taking a cigarette from a package on Bruce’s desk. “I happen to know your boss is playing handball this moment at the Athletic and he’ll never know you’ve skipped. I haven’t liked a certain look in your eye lately. You’re sticking too close to your job. Bill is pleased to death with your work, so you haven’t a thing to worry about. Get your bonnet and we’ll go out and see what we can stir up.”
“I’m in a frame of mind to be tempted. But I ought to finish this stuff.”
“Don’t be silly,” replied Bud, who was prowling about the room viewing the framed plans and drawings on the walls, peering into cabinets, unrolling blue prints merely to fling them aside with a groan of disgust.
“My God! It doesn’t seem possible that Bill Freeman would put his name to such things!”
“Don’t forget this is a private office, Mr. Henderson. What’s agitating your bean?”
“Thought I’d run you up to the art institute to look at some Finnish work they’re showing. Perhaps it’s Hottentotish; or maybe it’s Eskimo art. We’ve got to keep in touch with the world art movement.” Henderson yawned.
“Try again; I pant for real excitement,” said Bruce, who was wondering whether his friend really had noticed signs of his recent worry. Henderson, apparently intent upon a volume of prints of English country houses, swung round as Bruce, in putting on his overcoat, knocked over a chair. He crossed the room and laid his hands on Bruce’s broad shoulders.
“I say, old top; this will never do! You’re nervous; you’re damned nervous. Knocking over chairs—and you with the finest body known in modern times! I watched you the other day eating your lunch all alone at the club—you didn’t know I was looking at you. Your expression couldn’t be accounted for even by that bum club lunch. Now if it’s money——”
“Nothing of the kind, Bud!” Bruce protested. “You’ll have me scared in a minute. There’s nothing the matter with me. I’m all right; I just have to get readjusted to a new way of living; that’s all.”
“Well, as you don’t thrill to the idea of viewing works of art, I’ll tell you what I’m really here for. I’m luring you away to sip tea with a widow!”
“A widow! Where do you get the idea that I’m a consoler of widows?”
“This one doesn’t need consoling! Helen Torrence is the name; relict of the late James B. deceased. She’s been away ever since you lit in our midst and just got home. About our age and not painful to look at. Jim Torrence was a good fifty when he met her, at White Sulphur or some such seat of opulence, and proudly brought her home for local inspection. The gossips forcibly removed most of her moral character, just on suspicion, you understand—but James B.’s money had a soothing effect and she got one foot inside our social door before he passed hence three years ago and left her the boodle he got from his first wife. Helen’s a good scout. It struck me all of a heap about an hour ago that she’s just the girl to cheer you up. I was just kidding about the art stuff. I telephoned Helen I was coming, so we’re all set.”
“Ah! I see through the whole game! You’re flirting with the woman and want me for a blind in case Maybelle finds you out.”
“Clever! The boy’s clever! But—listen—I never try to put anything over on Maybelle. A grand jury hasn’t an all-seeinger eye than Mrs. Bud Henderson. Let’s beat it!”
On the drive uptown Henderson devoted himself with his usual thoroughness to a recital of the history of Mrs. Torrence. The lady’s social status lay somewhere between the old and the new element, Bud explained. The president of the trust company that administered her affairs belonged to the old crowd—the paralytic or angina pectoris group, as Bud described it, and his wife and daughters just had to be nice to Torrence’s wife or run a chance of offending her and losing control of the estate. On the other hand her natural gaiety threw her toward the camps of the newer element who were too busy having a good time to indulge in ancestor worship.
Henderson concluded his illuminative exposition of Mrs. Torrence’s life history as they reached the house. They were admitted by a colored butler who took their coats and flung open a door that revealed a spacious living-room.
“Helen!” exclaimed Henderson dramatically.
It was possible that Mrs. Torrence had prepared for their entrance by posing in the middle of the room with a view to a first effect, an effect to which her quick little step as she came forward to meet them contributed. Her blue tea gown, parted a little above the ankles, invited inspection of her remarkably small feet adorned with brilliant buckles. She was short with a figure rounded to plumpness and with fluffy brown hair, caught up high as though to create an illusion as to her stature. Her complexion was a clear brilliant pink; her alert small eyes were a greenish blue. Her odd little staccato walk was in keeping with her general air of vivacity. She was all alive, amusingly abrupt, spontaneous, decisive.
“Hello! Bud, the old reliable! Mr. Storrs! Yes; I had been hoping for this!”
She gave a hand to each and looked up at Bruce, who towered above her, and nodded as though approving of him.
“This is delightful! A new man! Marvelous!”
As she explained that she had been away since June and was only just home, Bruce became aware that Henderson had passed on and was standing by a tea table indulging in his usual style of raillery with a young woman whose voice even before he looked at her identified her as Constance Mills.
“You know Mrs. Mills? Of course! If you’d only arrived this morning you’d know Connie. Not to know Connie is indeed to be unknown.”
Constance extended her hand from the divan on which she was seated behind the tea table—thrust it out lazily with a minimum of effort.
“Oh—the difficult Mr. Storrs! I’m terribly mortified to be meeting you in a friend’s house and not in my own!”
“To meet you anywhere——” began Bruce, but she interrupted him, holding him with her eyes.
“——would be a pleasure! Of course! I know the formula, but I’m not a debutante. You didn’t like me that night we met at Dale Freeman’s, and I was foolish enough to think I’d made an impression!”
“Let’s tell him the truth,” said Henderson, helping himself to a slice of cinnamon toast. “Bruce, I bet a hundred cigarettes with Connie I could deliver you here and I win!”
“Not a word of truth in that!” declared Constance. “Bud’s such a liar!”
Mrs. Torrence said they must have tea, and Henderson protested that tea was not to be thought of. Tea, he declared, was extremely distasteful to him; and Bruce always became ill at the sight of it.
“But when I told Connie you were bringing Mr. Storrs she said he was terribly proper and for me not to dare mention cocktails.”
“Now, Helen, I didn’t say just that! What I meant, of course, was that I hoped that Mr. Storrs wasn’t too proper,” said Constance.
“Proper!” Bruce caught her up. “This is an enemy’s work. Bud, I suspect you of this dastardly assault on my character!”
“Not guilty!” Bud retorted. “The main thing right now is that we’re all peevish and need martinis. What’s the Volstead signal, Helen?”
“Three rings, Bud, with a pause between the first and second.”
The tea tray was removed and reappeared adorned with all the essentials for the concoction of cocktails. When the glasses were filled and all had expressed their satisfaction at the result, Henderson detained the negro butler for a conference on dice throwing. He seated himself on the floor the better to receive the man’s instructions. The others taunted him for his inaptitude. The butler retired finally with five dollars of Bud’s money, a result attained only after the spectators were limp with laughter.
“You’re a scream, Bud! A perfect scream!” and Mrs. Torrence refilled the glasses.
She took Bud to the dining-room to exhibit a rare Japanese screen acquired in her travels, and Bruce found himself alone with Constance. She pointed to her glass, still brimming, and remarked:
“Please admire my abstemiousness! One is my limit.”
“Let me see; did I really have three?” asked Bruce as he sat down beside her.
“I want to forget everything this afternoon,” she began. “I feel that I’d like to climb the hills of the unattainable, be someone else for a while.”
“Oh, we all have those spells,” he replied. “That’s why Prohibition’s a failure.”
“But life is a bore at times,” she insisted. “Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who never go clear down. A man has his work—there’s always that——”
“Hasn’t woman got herself everything—politics, business, philanthropy? You don’t mean to tell me the new woman is already pining for her old slavery! I supposed you led a complete and satisfactory existence!”
“A pretty delusion! I just pretend, that’s all. There are days when nothing seems of the slightest use. I thought there might be something in politics, but after I’d gone to a few meetings and served on a committee or two it didn’t amuse me any more. I played at being a radical for a while, but after you’ve scared all your friends a few times with your violence it ceases to be funny. The only real joy I got out of flirting with socialism was in annoying my father-in-law. And I had to give that up for fear he’d think I was infecting Shep with my ideas.”