The Happiest Time of Their Lives Part 40

"O Mama," she said, "I'm so sorry you're worried! I'm sorry I'm one of your worries; but don't you see I love Pete just as you do Mr. Farron?"

"G.o.d help you, then!" said Adelaide, quickly, and went to her room to put on with a haste none the less meticulous her small velvet hat, her veil, her spotless, pale gloves, her m.u.f.f, and warm coat.

She drove to Vincent's office. It was not really care for his health that drove her, but the restlessness of despair; she had reached a point where she was more wretched away from him than with him.

The office was high in a gigantic building. Every one knew her by sight, the giant at the door and the men in the elevators. Once in the office itself, a junior partner hurried to her side.

"So glad to see Vincent back again," he said, proud of the fact that he called his present partner and late employer by his first name. "You want to see him?" There was a short hesitation. "He left word not to be disturbed--"

"Who is there?" Adelaide asked.

"Dr. Parret."

"He's not been taken ill?"

He tried to rea.s.sure her, but Adelaide, without waiting or listening, moved at once to Vincent's door and opened it. As she did so she heard, him laughing and then she saw that he was laughing at the words of the handsomest woman she had ever seen. A great many people had this first impression of Lily Parret. Lily was standing on the opposite side of the table from him, leaning with both palms flat on the polished wood, telling him some continued narrative that made her blue eyes shine and her dimples deepen.

Adelaide was not temperamentally jealous. She did not, like Vincent, hate and fear any person or thing or idea that drew his attention away; on the contrary, she wanted him to give his full attention to anything that would make for his power and success. She was not jealous, but it did cross her mind that she was looking now at her successor.

They stopped laughing as she entered, and Vincent said:

"Thank you, Dr. Parret, you have given me just what I wanted."

"Marty would just as lief as not stick a knife in me if he knew," said Lily, not as if she were afraid, but as if this was one of the normal risks of her profession. She turned to Adelaide, "O Mrs. Farron, I've heard of you from Pete Wayne. Isn't he perfectly delightful? But, then, he ought to be with such a mother."

Adelaide had a very useful smile, which could maintain a long, but somewhat meaningless, brilliance. She employed it now, and it lasted until Lily had gone.

"That's a very remarkable girl," said Farron, remembrances of smiles still on his lips.

"Does she think every one perfect?"

"Almost every one; that's how she keeps going at such a rate."

"How long have you known her?"

"About ten minutes. Pete got her here. She knew something about Marty that I needed." He spoke as if he was really interested in the business before him; he did not betray by so much as a glance the recognition that they were alone, though she was calling his attention to the fact by every line of her figure and expression of her face. She saw his hand move on his desk. Was it coming to hers? He rang a bell. "Is Burke in the outer office? Send him in."

Adelaide's heart began to beat as Marty, in his working-clothes, entered. He was more suppressed and more sulky than she had yet seen him.

"I've been trying to see you, Mr. Farron," he began; but Vincent cut in:

"One moment, Burke. I have something to say to you. That bout you said you had with O'Hallohan--"

"Well, what of it?" answered Marty, suddenly raising his voice.

"He knocked you out."

"Who says so?" roared Burke.

"He knocked you out," repeated Vincent.

"Who says so?" Burke roared again, and somehow there was less confidence in the same volume of sound.

"Well, not O'Hallohan; He stayed bought. But I have it straight. No, I'm not trying to draw you out on a guess. I don't play that kind of game. If I tell you I know it for a fact, I do."

"Well, and what of it?" said Marty.

"Just this. I wouldn't dismiss a man for getting knocked out by a bigger man--"

"He ain't bigger."

"By a better fighter, then; but I doubt whether or not I want a foreman who has to resort to that kind of thing--to buying off the man who licked--"

"I didn't _buy_ him off," said Burke, as if he knew the distinction, even in his own mind, was a fine one.

"Oh, yes, you did," answered Farron. And getting up, with his hands in his pockets, he added, "I'm afraid your usefulness to me is over, Burke."

"The h.e.l.l it is!"

"My wife is here, Marty," said Farron, very pleasantly. "But this story isn't the only thing I have against you. My friend Mrs. Wayne tells me you are exerting a bad influence over a fellow whose marriage she wants to get annulled."

"Oh, let 'em get it annulled!" shouted Marty on a high and rising key.

"What do I care? I'll do anything to oblige if I'm asked right; but when Mrs. Wayne and that gang come around bullying me, I won't do a thing for them. But, if you ask me to, Mr. Farron, why, I'm glad to oblige you."

"Thank you, Marty," returned his employer, cordially. "If you arrange that for me, I must own it would make me feel differently. I tell you," he added, as one who suggests an honorable compromise, "you get that settled up, you get that marriage annulled--that is, if you think you can--"

"Sure I can," Burke replied, swaying his body about from the waist up, as if to indicate the ease with which it could be accomplished.

"Well, when that's done, come back, and we'll talk over the other matter.

Perhaps, after all--well, we'll talk it over."

Burke walked to the door with his usual conquering step, but there turned.

"Say," he said, "that story about the fight--" He looked at Adelaide.

"Ladies don't always understand these matters. Tell her, will you, that it's done in some first-cla.s.s fights?"

"I'll explain," answered Vincent.

"And there ain't any use in the story's getting about," Burke added.

"It won't," said Vincent. On which a.s.surance Marty went away and left the husband and wife alone.

Adelaide got up and went to the window and looked out toward the Palisades. Marty Burke had been a symbol that enabled her to recall some of her former att.i.tudes of mind. She remembered that dinner where she had pitted him against her husband. She felt deeply humiliated in her own sight and in Vincent's, for she was now ready to believe that he had read her mind from the beginning. It seemed to her as if she had been mad, and in that madness had thrown away the only thing in the world she would ever value. The thought of acknowledging her fault was not repugnant to her; she had no special objection to groveling, but she knew it would do no good. Vincent, though not ungenerous, saw clearly; and he had summed up the situation in that terrible phrase about choosing between loving and being loved. "I suppose I shouldn't respect him much if he did forgive me," she thought; and suddenly she felt his arms about her; he s.n.a.t.c.hed her to him, turned her face to his, calling her by strange, unpremeditated terms of endearment. Beyond these, no words at all were exchanged between them; they were undesired. Adelaide did not know whether it were servile or superb to care little about knowing his opinion and intentions in regard to her. All that she cared about was that in her eyes he was once more supreme and that his arms were about her. Words, she knew, would have been her enemies, and she did not make use of them.

When they went out, they pa.s.sed Wayne in the outer office.

"Come to dinner to-night, Pete," said Farron, and added, turning to his wife, "That's all right, isn't it, Adelaide?"