We Can't Have Everything Part 33

She began to interest herself in Kedzie, to wish to accomplish more than the mere selling of dress goods made up. She decided to create Kedzie as well as her clothes.

"Do you wear that pout all the time?" she asked.

"Do I pout?" Kedzie asked, in an amazement.

"Don't pretend that you don't know it and do it intentionally. Also why do you Americans always answer a question by asking another?"

"Do we?" said Kedzie.

Lady Powell-Carewe decided that Kedzie was as short on brains as she was long on looks. But it was the looks that Lady Powell-Carewe was going to dress, and not the brains.

She ordered Kedzie to spend a lot of money having her hair cared for expertly.

She tried various styles on Kedzie, ordering her to throw off her frock and stand in her combination while Mrs. Congdon and Mr. Charles brought up armloads of silks and velvets and draped them on Kedzie as if she were a clothes-horse.

The feel of the crisp and whispering taffetas, the elevation of the brocades, the warm nothingness of the chiffons like wisps of fog, the rich dignity of the cloths, gave Kedzie rapture on rapture. Standing there with a burden of fabrics upon her and Lady Powell-Carewe kneeling at her feet pinning them up and tucking them here and there, Kedzie was reminded of those ancient days of six months gone when her mother used to kneel about her and fit on her the home-made school-dress cut according to b.u.t.terick patterns. Now Kedzie had a genuine Lady at her feet. It was a triumph indeed. It was not hard now to believe that she would have all the world at her feet one day.

Lady Powell-Carewe used Kedzie's frame as a mere standard to fly banners from. Leaving the head and shoulders to stand out like the wax bust of a wistful doll, she started a cloud of fabric about her in the most extravagant fashion. She reined it in sharply at the waist, but again it flared to such distances on all sides that Kedzie could never have sailed through any door but that of a garage without compression.

On this vast bell of silk she hung streamers of rosettes, flowers of colors that would have been strident if they had been the eighteenth of a shade stronger. As it was, they were as delicious as cream curdled in a syrup of cherries. The whole effect would have been burlesque if it had not been the whim of a brilliant taste. Men would look it at and say, "Good Lord!" Women would murmur, enviously, "Oh, Lord!" Kedzie's soul expanded to the ultimate fringe of the farthest furbelow.

When the fantasy was a.s.sured Lady Powell-Carewe had Kedzie extracted from it. Then pondering her sapling slenderness, once more she caught from the air an inspiration. She would incase Kedzie in a sheath of soft, white kid marked with delicate lines and set off with black gloves and a hat of green leaves. And this she would call "The White Birch."

And that was all the creating she felt up to for the day. She had Kedzie's measure taken in order to have a slip made as a model for use in the hours when Kedzie should be too busy to stand for fitting.

It was well for Kedzie that there was a free ride waiting for her. Her journey to the studio was harrowed by the financial problem which has often tortured people in limousines. She did not like to ask Mr.

Ferriday for money in advance. He might think she was poor. There is nothing that bankrupts the poor so much as the effort to look unconcerned while they wait for their next penny.

Kedzie was frantic with worry and was reduced to prayer. "O Lord, send me some money somehow." The number of such prayers going up to heaven must cause some embarra.s.sment, since money can usually be given to one person only by taking it from another--and that other is doubtless praying for more at the very moment.

To Kedzie's dismay, when she arrived at the studio and asked for Mr.

Ferriday, Mr. Garfinkel appeared. He was very deferential, but he was, after all, only a Garfinkel and she needed a Ferriday. He explained that his chief was very busy and had instructed Garfinkel to teach Miss Adair the science of make-up for the camera, to take test pictures of her, and give her valuable hints in lens behavior.

Late in the afternoon Ferriday came in to see the result of the first lesson. He said, "Much obliged, Garfinkel" and Garfinkel remembered pressing duty elsewhere.

His departure left Kedzie alone with Ferriday in a cavern pitch black save for the cone of light spreading from the little hole in the wall at the back to the screen where the spray of light-dust became living pictures of Kedzie.

Kedzie did not know that the operator behind the wall could peek and peer while his picture-wheel rolled out the cataract of photographs.

Ferriday was careful of her--or of himself. He held her hand, of course, and murmured to her how stunning she was, but he made no effort to make love, to her great comfort and regret.

At length he invited her to ride home in his limousine, but he did not invite her to dinner. She told herself that she would have had to decline. But she would have liked to be asked.

While he rhapsodized once more about her future she was thinking of her immediate penury. As she approached the street of her residence she realized that she must either starve till pay-day or borrow. It was a bad beginning, but better than a hopeless ending. After several gasps of hesitation she finally made her plea:

"I'm awfully sorry to have to trouble you, Mr. Ferriday, but I'm--Well, could you lend me twenty-five dollars?"

"My dear child, take fifty," he cried.

She shook her head, but it hurt her to see the roll of bills he dived for and brought up, and the careless grace with which he peeled two leaves from the cabbage. Easy money is always attended with resentment that more did not come along. Kedzie pouted at her folly in not accepting the fifty. If she had said, "Lend me fifty," he would have offered her a hundred. But the twenty-five was salvation, and it would buy her food enough to keep her and her useless husband alive, and to buy her a pair of shoes and some gloves.

As the car drew near her corner she cried that she had some shopping to do and escaped again at the drug-store.

She found her husband at home. There was an unwonted authority about his greeting:

"Well, young woman, you may approach and kiss my hand. I am a gentleman with a job. I am a Chicago gentleman with a job."

"You don't mean it!" Kedzie gasped; and kissed him from habit with more respect than her recent habit had shown.

"I mean it," said Gilfoyle. "I am now on the staff of the Deshler Advertising Agency. I was afraid when Mr. D. offered me an unsolicited position (he could say it to-day) that it was the red wine and not the real money that was talking, but he was painfully sober this noon, took me out to lunch, and told me that he would be proud to avail himself of my services."

"Splendid!" said Kedzie, with sincere enthusiasm. It is always pleasant to learn that money is setting toward the family.

But something told Kedzie that her late acquisition of twenty-five dollars would not be with her long. Easy come, easy go. "How much is the fare to Chicago?" she asked, in a hollow voice.

"Twenty-two dollars is the fare," said Gilfoyle, "with about eight dollars extra. I couldn't borrow a cent. I've got only five dollars."

"I thought so," said Kedzie.

"Thought what so?" said Gilfoyle.

"Nothing," said Kedzie. "Well, I happen to have twenty-five dollars."

"That's funny," said Gilfoyle. "Where did you get it?"

"Oh, I saved it up."

"From what?"

"Well, do you want the twenty-five, or don't you?"

Gilfoyle pondered. If he questioned the source of the money he might find it out, and be unable to accept it. He wanted the money more than the hazardous information; so he said:

"Of course I want the twenty-five, darling, but I hate to rob you. Of course I'll send for you as soon as I can make a nest out there, but how will you get along?"

"Oh, I'll get along," said Kedzie; "there'll be some movie-money coming to me Sat.u.r.day."

"Well, that's fine," Gilfoyle said, feeling a weight of horrible guilt mingled with superior wings of relief. He hesitated, hemmed, hawed, perspired, and finally looked to that old source of so many escapes, his watch. "There's a train at eight-two; I could just about make it if I scoot now."

"You'd better scoot," said Kedzie. And she gave him the money.

"I'd like to have dinner with you," Gilfoyle faltered, "but--"

"Yes, I'd like to have you, but--"

They looked at each other wretchedly. Their love was so lukewarm already that they bothered each other. There was no impulse to the delicious bitter-sweet of a pa.s.sionate farewell. She was as eager to have him gone as he to go, and each blamed the other for that.

"I'll write you every day," he said, "and I'll send the fare to you as soon as I can get it."

"Yes, of course," Kedzie mumbled. "Well, good-by--don't miss your train, darling."