“Not ever,” she told him, turning away.
There was a directors’ meeting, which Steve was obliged to attend. He knew he sat about a table smoking innumerable cigars without a coherent idea in his head as to what was being said or considered. When he rushed back to the office Mary had gone home and left a note tucked in his blotter. He did not know that Beatrice had dropped in and discovered it, reading it with great satisfaction and carefully replacing it so as to have the appearance of never having been disturbed. All it said was:
“I shall go to the Meldrum Brothers on the fifteenth.––M. F.”
He tore the note up in a despairing kind of rage and wrote Mary as impetuous a love letter as the Gorgeous Girl had ever received. Five minutes after writing it he tore that up, too. Then he called himself several kinds of a fool and dashed out to order an armful of flowers sent to her apartment. He had his supper in a grill room, to give him a necessary interlude before he went home. He walked round and round a city square watching the queer, shuffling old men with their trays of needles and pins, wrinkled-faced women with fortune-telling parrots, and silly young things prancing up and down, bent on mischief. Something about human beings bored him; he regretted exceedingly that he was one himself; and at the same tune he wished he might countermand the florist’s order. He took a taxi home and wondered what apology he should make for being late. He had forgotten that there was a dinner party!
In silver gauze with an impressive square train 269 Beatrice greeted him, to say he might as well remain invisible the rest of the evening, it would look too absurd to have him appear an hour late with some clumsy excuse––and as there was an interesting Englishman who made an acceptable partner for her everything was taken care of. Papa, minus the professional reader, was lonesome. He had discovered an intricate complaint of his circulation and would welcome an audience.
With relief Steve stole away to Constantine’s room and amid medicine bottles and boxes, air cushions, hot-water bags, and detective stories, he listened with half an ear to the reasons why his blood count must be taken again and what horse thieves the best of doctors were anyhow!
CHAPTER XIX
The fifteenth of December Mary Faithful left the office of the O’Valley Leather Company, carrying the thing off as successfully as Beatrice O’Valley carried off her wildest flirtation. As Mary had often said: “When you can fool the letter man and the charwoman you have nothing to fear from the secret service.”