The Gorgeous Girl Part 31

CHAPTER XX

Gay's course of action was exactly what his wife had prophesied. He displayed all the proper symptoms of mourning and grief as far as his clothing and stationery went. After a brief period of retirement from the world, during which he chattered with fear when he wrapped Trudy's gay little possessions in bundles and gave them away, he emerged in the satisfactory role of a young widower on the loose who feels that "Perhaps it was all for the best; an idyl of youth, y'know; someone quite out of my sphere," and was welcomed by the old set enthusiastically.

Beatrice particularly saw to it that he was petted and properly cared for regarding invitations and dainties to eat and drink. In this new role, with a well-established business and no shrewd red-haired wife to point out his meannesses and try to make him go fifty-fifty with the profits, Gay felt at peace with all the world.

He did not even miss Trudy's work after a little. The only thing that bothered him was an occasional memory of the white, thin face and those limp, red curls, the hacking cough and the way her big eyes had stared at him that last night. He hated anything connected with suffering of any kind, let alone death itself.

Before long Gay found himself back at the club and running a neat shop on a prominent corner with deaf mutes from charity inst.i.tutions ensconced in the back rooms to do the work. Memories of Trudy and of their life together became as remote as the menu of a dinner eaten twelve months past.

He had her ring set over for himself, Mary never having mentioned the matter. In fact, he avoided Mary as he avoided Steve, for it was Mary who had spent the last moments with Trudy, and whatever was said remained a most uncomfortable mystery, to Gay's way of thinking. She had remained at the apartment to help Gay through his sorrow, looking at him with brief scorn as he stammered inane thanks, scantily concealing his impatience to sample a basket of wine just sent in.

As Easter Sunday came slipping into the calendar, with Mary and Luke sightseeing in New York in plebeian fashion and not ashamed of it, there came a great though not unexpected crash in Steve O'Valley's fortunes. Steve's unreckoned-with enemies were about to have their innings; they succeeded in bringing Steve down to the level of being forced to ask his father-in-law for aid and admit that he could not handle Constantine's affairs or what remained of them.

This was exactly what the enemies desired. A number of things combined to make the crash a mighty one. Steve still speculated, secure, he fancied, in his surplus savings; his speculations all ended disastrously and his factories were no longer hustling places of commerce. It was a case of keen compet.i.tion for orders, and closing round Steve relentlessly was a circle of enemies forming a gigantic trust which played the big-fish-swallow-the-little-fish game. Knowing of Steve's disaster on the stock exchange, as well as the thin ice on which his industries were managing to survive, the trust now invited him to become one of them--at a ridiculous figure--or else be squeezed out of the game overnight.

Steve's first emotion upon receiving the offer was nonchalance and determination to appear unconcerned and weather it through--so he held out as long as he could, plunging in the stock market, with the result that he was beaten as if he had been a street vendor whose wares were confiscated by the police authorities.

It was not a time to do some new devil-may-care thing. Fortunes were not achieved as they had been from 1914 to 1919, and Steve told himself in vain that since it was luck that had made him it must be luck that should again bring him out on top of the heap. All at once luck seemed no jaunty chap with endless pockets of gold but rather a disgruntled, threadbare old chap who said: "None of you ever treats me rightly when I do smile on you; now go take care of yourselves any way you like, for you have ruined me, too."

With this pleasant state of affairs Steve came home to the Villa Rosa one April day, half of him wondering if Mary would let him come and tell his story and the other half trying to hope that the news of his failure would prove the saving grace between the Gorgeous Girl and himself, that she would accept his plea of becoming "just folks" and starting anew, her father's wealth in the background, entirely removed from Steve's new field of endeavours.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A get-rich-quick man always pays for his own speed"]

It did not take long to disillusion Steve as to this. Beatrice accepted the news of the stock failure and the new trust so easily that he saw she was incapable of changing her viewpoint.

"Why gamble so, my dear Stevuns?" she began, almost petulantly. "And do you know that every time I make engagements for you you are late?

You are nearly a half hour late to-night."

"I am losing the factory as well. I'll have to sell out for a song. I can't compete with cutthroats----"

"Are you going to hurry and dress so we can go?" She smiled her prettiest.

At one time Steve would have noted only that white tulle and pearls spun witchery, and her skirt possessed the charm of a Hawaiian girl's dancing costume. Even at this juncture he recalled and smiled at past blindness.

"You don't seem to understand what I am saying, and all that is happening. First I played Arizona copper until they taught me not to monkey with the band wagon; then I played Cobalt until the same thing took place." He sank impolitely into an easy-chair. "Then I got the chance to come in with the gang--an insulting proposition any way you want to figure--a paltry sum for everything I have and the statement in veiled terms that I need not expect to have that unless I did as they dictate."

"Well--sell your business to someone else before this happens!"

"I couldn't even if I wished to cheat; it is quite the talk of the town."

"Well--manage. Papa will tell you how. Why do you come running to me?

Goodness, don't stare like that. It's nothing unusual to manage! I don't know about business--you made a lot of money once and I should think you could do it again."

"It doesn't bother me as much as you think," he said, almost breathlessly, eager to know the worst. "It means I am a poor man in your estimation. I can sell out to these people, who have thrown a steel ring round their game, so to speak, and had to do it until your father was out of the running. I can never buck them--I'm not fool enough to be goaded on to try. Your father could not win out the way things are now--but he could have prevented their ever getting the upper hand--because he knows every last turn of the wheel. They could not have fooled him. I didn't know what was coming until it was too late. A get-rich-quick man always pays for his own speed!"

"Stevuns, you'll make me so nervous I can't go to-night. It's a lovely party. You stay home and tell papa all about it, but leave me in peace."

"Thank you, I will. And is this the sympathy and the understanding you give me when I say we are being ruined?"

"Don't keep saying it." She stamped her little foot. "Papa has lots of money in English and Chinese securities and I don't know what-all.

Why, that factory of his was the least of his fortune."

"That is why your father deliberately lifted three fourths of his money from the business just before he was taken ill. He was not going to risk cutthroats getting together. He overestimated my ability to keep clear of disaster. But after all, I'm not sorry--I don't want anything more than I have earned. For you always pay for it in some way. The world may not know but these snap-judgment profiteers, these get-rich-quick phenomena, always have to pay. But you don't understand," he added, gently, "do you? You must not be blamed for not understanding anything unless it comprises a good time!"

"I shall not try," she said, petulantly, "and if you love me you will hurry to change your things and tell papa briefly. To-morrow will be time enough to go into detail and have him start you into something new."

"I didn't take your father's money to marry you with, and even if I stole it in a sense it was my own efforts that brought it to pa.s.s. I took no help from him until I was established. And I shall not sneak back to let my wife's father support me now. I'm going to drop out of this game, Beatrice. It is for you to decide whether you go with me or stay at the Villa Rosa." He stood up suddenly and came close to her, looking down at her, in all her fragile loveliness, wondering, half hoping, halfway expecting that a miracle might happen even as he had hoped for the miracle of his fortune--that at this late hour she might cease to be a mere Gorgeous Girl and understand.

Beatrice frowned, playing with her fan. "You look shabby and tired,"

she complained; "not my handsome Steve. You don't mean such things, because you do love me and you know I could never be happy living any other way. I'm all papa has and he wants me to have everything I want.

Of course I want this dear house and you and all that both of you mean, so be a lamb and get dressed and papa will help you into some nice safe business that can never fail."

She stood on her tiptoes, about to kiss him. But he pushed her away.

"You mean you won't begin with me, you won't take our one chance for happiness? Just to begin together to learn and earn, be real? Do you think for one instant I will be like Gay Vondeplosshe, subsisting on a woman's bounty? No. I shall support my wife; it was never my wish that we come here to live, and you insisted upon luxuries my purse could not afford. In the main, to the outsider, I have supported you. But we both know it is not true; I have merely been a needful accessory. From now on I shall either support you or else not live with you. I ask you to stop having a good time long enough to give me your decision."

"Oh, Stevuns--you funny old brutish dear!"

"If it were a direct loan of money from your father it would be a different matter--but it is one of those intricate, involved deals that mean more than you or I choose to admit. It means that I have learned the hollow satisfaction in being a rich man and husband of a Gorgeous Girl. I want to be a plain American with a wife who is content with something else save a Villa Rosa and pound-and-a-half lap dogs. I am going to be a mediocre failure in the eyes of your set, since it is the only way in which I can start to be a true success in other than dollar standards. The two elements that collect a crowd and breed newspaper headlines are mystery and struggle; remove them and you find yourself serene and secure. That is what I propose to do. I ask if it is too late for you to come with me or are you going to linger in the Villa Rosa? Answer me--I want something real, common, definite--can't you understand?"

"If you ever dare treat me like this again----" she began, whimpering.

Steve brushed by her and up the stairs. He went into Constantine's room, where the old man lay in helpless discontent, his dulling eyes looking at the sunken gardens and the chattering peac.o.c.ks and his heart longing for Hannah and the early days together.

"Why, Steve," he said in a pleased tone, "you look as if they were after you. Thought you'd forgotten me. That nurse Bea engaged has a voice like a scissors grinder in action."

Briefly Steve told him what had taken place, not mentioning Beatrice's name. It had an astonishing effect; as a mental tonic it was not to be surpa.s.sed, for the fallen oak of a man throbbed anew with life, as much as was possible, his hands twitching with rage, his teeth grinding, and the dulled eyes bright with interest.

"The dogs! I knew it! Why didn't you tell me long before? Blocked 'em off--snuffed 'em out. Meddling with wildcat stocks--asinine any way you figure it! Well, I don't know that I blame you. The first success was too sweet to leave untried again, eh?" He chuckled as if something amused him. "We'll close out to 'em. We'll start again----"

"I don't want another fortune handed me," Steve interrupted. "I want to earn it, if you please. I'm not a pauper in the true sense of the word; I am merely trained down to the proper financial weight for a man of my age and experience to carry, and I can now enter the ring with good chances. The other way was as absurd as the four-year-old prodigy who typewrites and is rather fond of Greek. But I loved your daughter and I thought it quite the right thing to do. I asked your daughter just now if she was willing to live with a poor man, according to her standards, as your wife lived with you--to give me her help and her faith in me.

"Do you know what she answered? She told me to come to you and truckle for another big loan, which I am not capable of handling, to cheat legally and never hint to the world the truth of the affair. She hadn't the most remote idea that I was in earnest when I told her I was going to be a failure in the eyes of the world--but I was not going to have my wife's father support me. I'm not sorry this has happened--feel as if the Old Man of the Sea had dropped off me. But this is the thing: either my wife and I will live in a home of our own, and such a home as I can provide, being an independent and proper family and keeping our problems and responsibilities within our gates; or else your daughter is going to stay with you and lose her one chance of freedom while I leave town."

The Basque grandmother and the Celtic grandfather lent Steve all their pa.s.sionate determination and keenness of insight, as they once lent him chivalry, humour, and charm. He stood before the old man taut with excitement and flushed with sudden fury.

"It is you I blame," he added before Constantine could make answer.

"You kept her as useless as a china shepherdess; it is not her fault if she fails to rise to the occasion now."

Constantine's face quivered; what the emotion was none but himself knew.

"You poor fool boy!" he said, thickly. "Don't you know I made you a rich man all along the line? You never did anything at all. It wasn't luck on the stock exchange--it was Mark Constantine back of you. Gad, to have made what you did in the time you did you'd have had to do worse than dabble your hands in the mud. You'd have had to roll in it--like I did." He gave a coa.r.s.e laugh. "That was what I figured out when you said you wanted Beatrice and what you were going to do to try to get her. I liked you, I wanted you for her husband. I hated the other puppies. So I wasn't going to have Beatrice's husband a cutthroat and a highbinder as he would have to be if he had turned the whole trick.

"You young fool, don't you suppose I made the stock exchange yield you the sugarplums? Gad, I knew every cent you spent and made. It was for my girl, my Gorgeous Girl, so why wouldn't I do it? I saved your ideals and kept your hands white so that you would be good enough for her; that was what I figured out the hour after you had told me your intentions. I followed you like the fairy books tell of; I brought you your fortune and your factory and scotched all the enemies about you--and gave you the girl. And you thought you killed the seven-headed dragon yourself.... I don't blame you for the foozle, Steve; I cotton-woolled you all along--it was bound to come. But, damme, you'll come down to bra.s.s tacks and take more of my money now and keep her from being unhappy and stop this snivel about earning what you get and needing responsibilities--or you'll find you've put your foot into h.e.l.l and you can't pull it out!"