Polly's Business Venture Part 28

"Then I pity poor Paul from the bottom of my heart," was Polly's unexpected reply.

"Paul doesn't seem to think he is in need of any pity," smiled Eleanor, as she thought of his joy the preceding evening as he escorted her from the Latimer's apartment to the automobile.

"Well, then it is not the same sort of secret understanding. Now come out with it, Nolla, and tell me just how far you have complicated yourself with Paul in love, and with me in our business venture?"

"Not at all, Poll. That is what I wish to impress upon you--that I am no deeper in the love tangle than you are with Tom."

"All right, then, Nolla. Now I'll confess, if you promise me to do likewise. Is it a bargain?"

"If you wish. But let me say beforehand, I have no more to confess than you know of already."

"It's a pact! Shake, Nolla," exclaimed Polly, holding out her hand.

Of course Eleanor was more than amazed at such a to-do over what she considered a natural outcome of human attraction for Polly, and she shook the hand extended to seal the compact.

"There now! I'll confess first. Last night, when I found poor Tom in such dire condition and wanting to die at once, I told his mother I would comfort him, somewhat, by wishing him a merry Christmas and showing him my business card. You know, the ones we just got back from the engravers late Christmas Eve.

"Well, I found him in such a pitiable way that I was sorry the moment I handed him my card. He took it so differently from what I had expected.

When he raved about dying and nothing to live for, I was at my wit's end.

Finally, just after the basin in which he was boiling his feet slipped from under him, and sat him down unkindly upon the floor, I was moved to encourage him if he would but cheer up and think of living a little longer.

"Nolla, he took advantage of my weakness and wormed a promise from me to consider myself engaged to him, unless I found some one I liked much better within the next two years. Now tell me, Nolla, because you are educated in affairs like this--where do I stand?"

Polly's anxiety was so amusing to Eleanor and the whole situation so like a farce to her maturer love-affair, that she laughed merrily. But Polly was too concerned to take offence at the merriment.

"Oh, Polly! What a little lamb you are, to be sure! How lucky for you that I am always at hand to keep you from being led to the slaughter--not altar!" Eleanor laughed again at her clever play on the hackneyed phrase.

"That doesn't answer my question, Nolla. I am most serious in this matter and I do not wish to hear more ridicule from you."

"I'm not ridiculing you or the awful mess you have made of your life,"

retorted Eleanor with a sly grin, "but I cannot help giving vent to my risibles when you take it all so seriously. I wonder how you would take the measles, Poll."

"Oh pshaw, Nolla! What has measles to do with me, right now!" was Polly's impatient rejoinder.

"I don't know, I'm sure. I was only wondering why you take everything so dreadfully in earnest. Now as far as your love tangle appears to be, I should prognosticate--hear that word, Polly? I am trying to act the wise magistrate for you--that there will be no suit for breach of promise, although there may be a case made out against you for alienating Tom's affections from Choko's Find Mine. On the other hand, you can serve a counter suit on Tom for alienating your affections from your first love--your business venture."

While Eleanor had been explaining the law to her friend, the latter grew more and more impatient, and when the self-appointed magistrate concluded her version of law, Polly sprang up angrily.

"I declare, Nolla, you will never be serious even at death! I'm disgusted with you, so there!" and Polly made for the door.

Eleanor made after her, saying as she ran: "I'm sure I'll never want to take death seriously, Polly, for that is the time of all times when we need to be cheerful and prove to our dear ones that they have nothing to weep over--because I am of the firm belief that no one goes into oblivion. It is simply progression, you know."

The sudden change from laughter to seriousness halted Polly's exit at the door, and she turned to look at her friend with a strange expression in her eyes.

"Nolla, you should have been born in April--with the most changeable weather of the year. One moment you are too silly for words and the next you discourse on the most serious of all subjects."

Again Eleanor laughed, teasingly: "Perhaps I should not have been born at all. Then, my family and friends would have been saved many trials. But I am here, you see, and they have to make the best of me."

"That is exactly what we want to accomplish, don't you see? We want to make the best of you, but you just won't let us do it. You prefer to act like a big ninny instead of the cleverest girl in the world."

"Always excepting you, dear!" and Eleanor bowed low.

"There you go again! Now I _am_ mad!" and Polly tried to get through the open doorway, but her friend clung to her arm and refused to let her go.

"Wait a moment! I'll let you go as soon as I have a word with you. This is going to be a real serious word, too," promised Eleanor.

Polly turned back. Eleanor stood pondering for a moment, then said, "About Tom's affair, I would advise this: treat him brotherly--that is be sisterly to him; if you are not madly in love with him, so madly that you will jump into the Hudson or throw yourself upon the subway track unless you know he loves you the same way, then let Cupid manage the whole affair. Believe me, child, Cupid can do it far better than you or I!

"Concerning Paul and myself: I told the darling that I had a contract with you which had to be fulfilled before I could sign up with another one--even though that other one _seemed_ to be offering me easier work and better wages. So I'm in for the business venture for all it is worth for the next two, perhaps more, years. I refused to place any time limit on a promise to sign up with Paul. Satisfied?"

"Most a.s.suredly! That is the first practical speech I've ever heard you make, Nolla!" was Polly's emphatic reply.

"I trust you have sense enough to make the same speech to Tom Latimer.

Then he will follow Paul's example: be filled with ambition to go back to Pebbly Pit and straighten out that caved-in mine."

But both the girls were to learn that it is much easier to talk how events should follow in sequence, than it is to compel fate to do as she is expected to with such events.

That evening, despite his parents' advice to remain in bed, Tom drove up in a taxi and stopped before the Fabians' house. He paid the driver, rushed up the steps and pulled at the doorbell.

Polly had just finished dinner and was slowly walking out of the dining-room when the maid opened the door. Tom fairly leaped in when he saw Polly stopping suddenly under the hall-light.

"Oh, my little--" he began, but Polly held up a warning hand and frowned him to silence; then she hurried him to the library across the hall from the dining-room.

"What's the matter? Didn't you tell them we were engaged?" asked Tom, impetuously.

"I didn't know we were what one calls engaged, Tom. You are misunderstanding me. Of course, I did not tell them about what never happened." Polly was annoyed.

"But," began Tom, arguing for himself, "I felt sure you meant it the way I said: that you would wear my ring and consider I had a prior right to your love or affections."

"You're all wrong! Because that is exactly what I wish to retain for myself--prior right to follow my own life-line. I did say that I liked you more than any other friend I know, and that I might consider you as my future fiance if, in two years' time, I came to the conclusion that I would give up a business career. That's all; and that holds no ground for your giving me an engagement ring, nor for me to take one and wear it. I simply refuse to be bound in any way. Better understand this, once for all, Tom!"

The other members of the family now came in and welcomed Tom and also insisted upon having him tell them how much better he felt. The ring-box which Tom had so eagerly pulled from his vest pocket as he sat upon the divan with Polly, he now managed to slip back again without having been discovered in the act. Even Eleanor failed to see the action.

Before Tom had had time to conclude his polite answers as to the state of his health, the bell rang a second time and the maid admitted Paul Stewart. Nor did the evening advance far before Jim and Ken dropped in, then came Dodo and Mr. Dalken, and last but not least the Ashbys stopped in to inquire how everyone was. Such "stoppings" usually ended, as on this evening, by their remaining until midnight.

Mr. Ashby had news for his two new a.s.sistants in business. "Late in the afternoon before Christmas, I had a 'phone call from Mrs. Courtney, girls. She asked me to make an appointment with you to meet her at my shop, tomorrow morning at eleven. I promised to let you know."

"Oh, that's the lady we met at the Parsippany sale," exclaimed Eleanor.

"I wondered what had become of her since then."

"Maybe she wants us to find her a few antiques," suggested Polly, eagerly.

"I believe she plans to redecorate her boudoir, and wants you two beginners to take the commission. She seems to place a great deal of confidence in your ability to please her," said Mr. Ashby.

Eleanor smiled at her superior in business. "Feeling any jealousy at our popularity?"

"Not a whit!" laughed Mr. Ashby. "It only adds more glory to my brilliant fame, because I was astute enough to secure such talent!"