MRS. DURLAND, no doubt to show her sympathetic interest in her daughters’ labors, asked innumerable questions every evening when the family gathered at the supper table. As Ethel’s experiences were much less interesting than Grace’s, the burden of these conversations fell largely upon Grace. Whenever Grace mentioned some customer her mother or Ethel knew or knew about, that person was subjected to the most searching analysis. It was incredible that they could be so interested in people of whom they knew only from reading of their social activities in the newspapers.
Ethel’s preoccupations with her church and philanthropic affairs took her away several evenings in the week, and at such times Grace played checkers or sniff with her father while Mrs. Durland read or sewed. The fact that Grace’s earnings averaged higher than Ethel’s made it necessary for Mrs. Durland to soothe any feeling the older daughter manifested as to this disparity.
Grace found no joy in Ethel. Ethel hinted constantly that her work in Gregg and Burley’s office placed her in a class much above that of a salesgirl. She had brought to perfection a kind of cloying sweetness in her attitude toward the other members of the family which Grace found hard to bear. Ethel was at pains to remind her father from time to time that it was due to his lack of foresight and initiative that she had been obliged to become a wage-earner. Her remarks expressed something of the solicitude a mother might manifest toward a slightly deficient child. The effect of this upon Grace was to deepen her affection and sympathy for her father. Several times she persuaded him to go down town with her to a big motion picture house where there was good music. He enjoyed the pictures, laughing heartily at the comics; and laughter had been the rarest of luxuries in Stephen Durland’s life. Mrs. Durland refused to accompany them; all the pictures she had ever seen had been vulgar and she was on a committee of the State Federation to go before the legislature and demand a more rigid censorship.
Grace’s announcement that, on evenings when she went to the French class she had entered with Irene, she would stay down town for supper did not pass unchallenged at the supper table, which she had begun to dread for its cheerlessness and the opportunity it afforded her mother and sister to express their dire forebodings as to the future of the human race. One evening after listening to a reiteration of their predictions of calamity Grace broke the silence in which she usually listened to these discussions.
“I don’t know where you get these ideas, Ethel. You must be unfortunate in your acquaintances if you’re talking from your own knowledge.”
Mrs. Durland rallied at once to Ethel’s support.
“Now, Grace, you know Ethel is older and views everything much more soberly than you do. You know she’s in touch with all these agencies that are trying to protect the young from the evils of a growing city.”
“Just what evils?” Grace demanded.
“There are some things,” said Ethel impressively, “that it’s better not to talk about.”
“That’s always the way!” Grace flared. “You’re always insinuating that the world’s going to the devil but you never say just how. I know perfectly well what you’re driving at. You think because I work in a department store I can’t be as good as you are! I’ll tell you right now that the girls I know in Shipley’s are just as good as any girls in town—perfectly splendid hard-working girls. And one other thing I can tell you, they don’t spend their time sneering at everybody else. I’d rather be the worst sinner in creation than so pure I couldn’t see a little good in other people.”
“Please, Grace!” Mrs. Durland pleaded. “You’re unreasonable. No one was saying anything about you or any other girl in Shipley’s.”
“Oh, Ethel doesn’t have to say it straight out! I’m not so stupid! Every time she takes that sanctified air she’s preaching at me. I don’t pretend to be an angel but I’m tired of hearing how wicked everybody is. I don’t dare ask any of the girls I work with to the house; you think they’re all rotten.”
“I don’t think they’re all bad, and I’ve never said such a thing,” Ethel declared, “But I have said that Irene Kirby is not the type of girl I’d deliberately choose to be my sister’s most intimate friend, and I say it again.”
“Now, Ethel, you girls mustn’t hurt each other’s feelings! If you must quarrel please don’t do it before your father and me.”
This consideration for her father’s feelings was so unusual that Grace laughed. Durland had been twisting uneasily in his chair. His sympathies were wholly with Grace. Ethel’s indirect method of criticizing her younger sister enraged him, and in this particular instance he was secretly pleased that Grace was striking back. He glanced about the table, cleared his throat and asked in his mild tone for a second cup of coffee.
“I hardly know Irene Kirby,” said Ethel, “but I have heard some things about her I hate to hear about any girl.”
“Such as what? Tell me just what you’ve heard,” said Grace, sharply.
“Well, if you insist,” replied Ethel, with affected reluctance, “she’s keeping company with a married man. It’s been going on for some time. They were seen together last Sunday night, quite late, driving into town. Suppose you ask Irene where she was last Sunday.”
“What’s the man’s name?” Grace demanded.
“Oh, I needn’t mention his name! You ask Irene to tell you. A girl friend of mine who used to work in his office saw them.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Grace. “You or I or any other girl might be seen driving with a married man without there being anything wicked about it.”
“Well, you asked me and I told you,” returned Ethel complacently. “It’s not a new story. I knew it when I tried to persuade you not to go into Shipley’s, but I thought I wouldn’t tell you why I thought it best for you to keep away from Irene.”
“Irene has been fine to me,” said Grace quickly; “she’s one of the nicest and one of the most intelligent girls I ever knew. I think it poor business for a girl like you, who pretends to be a Christian, to listen to scandalous stories about some one you hardly know. I’ll say for Irene that I never heard her speak an unkind word of any one. Every day she does a lot of little kindnesses for people and she doesn’t strut around about it either.”
“I don’t question that you believe all that, Grace,” remarked Mrs. Durland as she served the rice pudding that was the regular dessert for Thursday evening. “But you know Ethel is very careful what she says about every one.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” said Grace coldly.
Durland had eaten his pudding and was stolidly slipping his napkin into its ring. The better course might be to follow his example. Silence, Grace reflected, offered the surest refuge from family bickering. She saw the years stretching on endlessly, with her work-day followed by evenings of discord in the cheerless home circle. The prospect was not heartening. It was two against two, and her father was only passively an ally. When Roy came home he would be pretty sure to align himself with his mother and Ethel, in keeping with his general policy of taking the easier and more comfortable way in everything. It flashed through her mind that she might leave home and take a room somewhere or join with two or three girls and rent an apartment. But her parents needed her help. She knew that her father was wholly unlikely to assist materially with the household expenses. Ethel had not demurred when she volunteered to contribute in ratio to her earnings, which made her share at least a third more each week than Ethel’s.
Ethel’s intimations that Irene Kirby was not as good as she ought to be so exasperated Grace that in a spirit of contrariness she hoped they were true. At least she didn’t care whether they were true or not. She knew little of Irene’s family but the bitterness engendered by her own home life made it seem a natural and pardonable thing for a girl who worked hard and was obliged to live in an atmosphere of perpetual criticism to take her pleasure where she pleased. Her curiosity as to Irene’s social contacts was greatly aroused. Irene, outwardly at least the most circumspect of young women, certainly had mastered the art of keeping her private affairs to herself. Now and then she spoke of having gone to the theatre or to a dance with some young man whose name she always mentioned; but when Grace tried to tease her about her suitors Irene dismissed them disdainfully. They were impossible, she said, in her large manner—bank clerks, traveling salesmen or young fellows just starting in small businesses. She wasn’t at all interested in marrying a young man with his way to make, cooking for him in the kitchenette of a four-room apartment, with a movie once a week as the reward for faithful service.
These views on matrimony were revealed one day early in November when they were lunching together in Shipley’s tea room. She went on to say that she would wait a few years in the hope of meeting some man of importance who could give her a position in life worth while.
“It has been done before, my dear. It may not sound romantic but it’s the only way to play safe. I want to get away from this town! It smothers and chokes me. The firm has sent me to New York twice this last year, and I think I could get along very well down there if I had money to spend. I’ve been a little afraid you’d engaged yourself to some struggling young professor at the university. No? Well, I’d hate to see you wasting yourself. You’ve got brains and good looks and I hope you won’t throw yourself away. By the way—just what do you do with yourself evenings?”
“Oh, I stay at home, mostly. I do a turn in the kitchen, play a game of checkers with father and go to bed to read.”
“Wholesome but not exciting! I’d imagined you had a few suitors who dropped in occasionally.”
“Haven’t had a caller since I came home,” said Grace. “The beaux I had last summer don’t know I’m home and I haven’t felt like stirring them up.”
Irene was wearing a handsome emerald ring that Grace had not noticed before. In keeping with the tone of subdued elegance she affected, Irene never wore jewelry; the ring was a departure and required an explanation for which Grace hesitated to ask. In spite of their long acquaintance Grace never overcame her feeling of humility before Irene’s large view of things, her lofty disdain for small change. Grace knew more out of books than Irene; but in her cogitations she realized that beyond question Irene knew much more of life. Aware of Grace’s frequent glances at the emerald, Irene held up her hand.
“Rather pretty, isn’t it?” she asked carelessly. “That cost some real money. A little gift from a man who is foolish enough to admire me.”
“It’s perfectly beautiful,” said Grace as Irene spread her fingers on the table. “It’s the very newest setting and a wonderful stone. I don’t believe I ever saw you wear a ring before.”
“It’s the first I’ve worn in years; but this is too good to hide.” She looked at the stone absently. “By the way, Grace, you don’t seem to be burdened with engagements. I wonder if you’d care to drive into the country tomorrow evening for dinner—a little party of four. My friend—the man who gave me this,”—she held up her hand,—“has a guest, a most interesting man you’d be sure to like. If you haven’t anything better to do it might amuse you to meet him. A party of three is a little awkward and you’d balance things beautifully.”
Grace’s heart quickened to find herself at last admitted to Irene’s confidence, a thing flattering in itself. Ethel’s charge that Irene was accepting the attentions of a married man was probably true, or the girl would have approached the matter differently. It dawned upon Grace that the word party had a meaning previously unknown to her, signifying a social event clandestine in character, in which the wives of married men were not participants. The idea was novel and it caused Grace’s wits to range over a wide field of speculation.
“I suppose men do sometimes take their wives on parties that are a little different—just a quiet little kick-up?” she ventured.
“Not so you’d exactly notice it,” Irene answered, with a shrug and a smile of indulgence at Grace’s innocence. “A wife knows her husband and all his jokes; why should she meet him socially?”
“Tomorrow night’s our French class,” said Grace, recovering herself quickly. “We’d have to cut it.”
“Oh, I hadn’t forgotten that. To be frank about it, I thought that would make it easier for you to get away. I don’t know just how your folks at home are—whether they always check you up as to where you go. As you’ve been staying down town on lesson nights that would help you put it over. I suggested Friday night to my friend instead of Saturday, hoping to make sure of you. There are plenty of girls who’ll go on parties but this is a case where just any girl won’t do. You’ll fit in perfectly and I hope you’ll go.”
“Thanks, ever so much, Irene; of course, I’m pleased to death to go,” said Grace. “But, you’ll have to tell me what to wear; my wardrobe’s rather limited.”
“Oh, the occasion doesn’t call for magnificence. Dinner’s to be in a charming old house about fourteen miles from town. I’m going to wear the simplest thing I have.”
“It’s awfully nice of you to ask me,” said Grace, her eyes dancing at the prospect. “But if I mustn’t mention the party at home, I’ll have to get in early so mother and Ethel won’t suspect anything.”
“Let them suspect, honey! My family used to try to check me up every time I went to the corner to mail a postal; but they’ve got over it. By the way, I think that sister of yours doesn’t like me. I passed her in the street yesterday and she gave me what I shouldn’t call a loving look.”
“She didn’t mean anything,” said Grace. “It’s just that Ethel takes herself a little bit too seriously. She has all the old-fashioned ideas about things.”
“She’s got the uplift idea and all that sort of stuff. I met her in the office one day looking up a girl who had dropped out of her church club or something. That’s all fine work; I’m not sneering at it; but people who go in for that kind of thing ought to remember we’re not all born with wings.”
“Oh, Ethel means well,” said Grace, her mind upon the proposed dinner for four in the country, of which she was anxious to hear more. “What time do we start?”
“Seven o’clock. You may be sure I trust you or I shouldn’t be asking you to go on this party,” said Irene. “It’s not a social event for the society columns—just an intimate little dinner to be forgotten when we all say good-night. Our host is Mr. Kemp—Thomas Ripley Kemp. You’ve seen his factory; it’s as big as all outdoors. Don’t look so scared! Tommy’s a peach! You can’t fail to like Tommy.”
“Mr. Kemp is—married?” Grace ventured a little timorously.
“Oh, Tommy’s been married for centuries! His wife’s one of Shipley’s best customers. She’s awfully nice; I tell Tommy he ought to be ashamed of himself! Tommy’s not stingy with his family, and he’s terribly proud of them. He has a daughter in an Eastern college—a stunning girl. Elaine is just about my age,—isn’t it weird!”
“I think I never saw Mr. Kemp, but of course I’ve heard of him,” remarked Grace, bewildered by the familiar tone in which Irene spoke of Kemp and his family. “The other man—what’s he like?” she asked with feigned carelessness.
“Oh, his name’s Ward Trenton and he lives in Pittsburgh and is a consulting engineer and a way-upper all right. Tommy thinks the sun rises and sets in Ward. Ward drops in here every month or two and Tommy always throws him a party, sometimes at home or at one of the clubs; and when that’s the ticket he naturally forgets to invite me! Screaming, isn’t it? Ward isn’t really a sport like Tommy, but he’ll go on a party and keep amused in his own peculiar way. He does a lot of thinking, that man. You’ll understand when you meet him. I’m never sure whether Ward approves of me, but he’s always nice.”
“He may not like me at all,” said Grace.
“Don’t be foolish! You’re just the kind of girl men of that sort like. They’re bored to death by girls—you know the kind—who begin every sentence with ‘say’ or ‘listen,’ and would drop dead if they ever had an idea. Tommy’s the higher type of business man,” Irene went on. “College education, fond of music and pictures and that sort of thing. By the way, Tommy has no particular love for that Cummings your father was in business with so long. Make the same line of stuff, don’t they? The Cummingses are going strong since they moved up among the swells and it annoys Tommy a good deal. You know his folks landed here in 1820 and he’s full of old family pride. He’s perfectly screaming about it!”
“And Mr. Trenton—” Grace ventured, “is he married too?”
“All the nice men are more or less married, my dear! Ward is and he isn’t. Tommy’s never seen Mrs. Trenton, but there is such a person. Ward speaks of his wife in the friendliest sort of way, but they don’t meet often, I imagine.”
When Grace recurred to the matter of changing her clothes for the party, Irene’s resourcefulness promptly asserted itself.
“There’s a very chic suit in stock, marked down from eighty-seven to forty-two on account of an imperfection in the embroidery on the cuffs. It will do wonderfully and if you haven’t the money handy I’ll take care of it till you strike a fat week. We’ll try it on you this afternoon and if you like it we’ll send it up to Minnie Lawton’s apartment and you can change there. I’ll be doing the same—fact is, I keep a few duds at Minnie’s for just such emergencies. Minnie’s a good scout and attends strictly to her own business.”
The Minnie Lawton Irene referred to held a responsible position with a jobbing house. Grace had met her at lunch with Irene several times and had found her a diverting person.
“Minnie’s a broad-minded woman,” Irene remarked. “I usually meet Tommy at Minnie’s when we’re going on a party, and that’s the schedule for tomorrow evening. I’ll call Tommy now and tell him everything’s set.”
The suit proved to be all that Irene had promised. Grace was not unaware that the attendants were observing her with frankly approving eyes.
“It certainly sets you off, Eighteen. That shade of Oriental blue is just right for you,” said one girl.
“An inch off the sleeve will help; the collar pinches the least bit—or does it?” remarked Irene to the hovering fitter. “All right then; thank you.”
Grace asked for an extra hour at noon the next day for a hair-washing, marcelling and manicuring, saying to Miss Boardman that she had an engagement with the dentist. Irene had suggested this, explaining that it wasn’t lying as all the girls gave the same reason when asking extra time for any purpose, and Miss Boardman wasn’t deceived by it.
Beyond a few experiments in her youth for which she was promptly punished, Grace had rarely resorted to deception; but manifestly she would be obliged to harden herself to the practice if she yielded to the temptation to broaden her experiences beyond the knowledge of the home circle. She tried to think of all the calamities that might befall her. Her father or mother might become ill suddenly; an attempt might be made to reach her at the rooms of the French instructor; but instead of being dismayed by the possibility Grace decided that it would be easy enough to explain that she had gone unexpectedly to the house of some friends of Irene who lived in the country. She was sure she could make a plausible story of this; and besides, if any one became so ill as to cause search to be made for her the fact that she hadn’t gone to the French lesson would be overlooked. There might be an automobile accident; the thought was disturbing but it troubled Grace only passingly.
“You’ll soon learn to be ready with an alibi if you get caught,” said Irene. “But the more independence you show the less you’ll be bothered.”
Lively expectations of a novel experience that promised amusement outweighed Grace’s scruples before the closing hour of the appointed day. She and Irene left the store together and found a taxi to carry them to Minnie Lawton’s apartment.
“We’ll escape the trolley crowd,” said Irene placidly, “and save time. Minnie’s not going home for supper but I’ve got a key to her flat and we’ll have the place to ourselves.”
They were dressed and waiting when Kemp and his friend Trenton arrived. Assailed at the last moment by misgivings as to the whole adventure, Grace was relieved by her first glimpse of the two men. Kemp was less than her own height, of slender build and with white hair that belied the youthful color in his cheeks. The gray in his neatly trimmed mustache was almost imperceptible. Grace had pictured him of a size commensurate with his importance as the head of one of the largest industries in the city, but he was almost ridiculously small and didn’t even remotely suggest the big masterful type she had imagined. His face lighted pleasantly as Irene introduced him. His power was denoted in his firm mouth and more particularly in his clear steady hazel eyes.
“It’s so nice that you could come,” he said. “I’ve known of your family a long time, of course, and Irene brags about you a great deal.”
In marked contrast to Kemp, Trenton was tall and of athletic build, with gray-blue eyes, and a smile that came a little slowly and had in it something wistful and baffling that piqued curiosity and invited a second glance. Grace appraised his age at about forty. She instantly decided that she preferred him to Kemp; he was less finished with nothing of Kemp’s dapperness. His careless way of thrusting his hands into the pockets of his coat pleased her; he was not thinking of himself, not concerned as to the impression he made; slightly bored perhaps by the whole proceeding.
Trenton had greeted Irene cordially as an old acquaintance and it was evident that the three had met at other parties.
“I’m starving,” said Irene; “let’s be moving, Tommy.”
“Certainly,” replied Kemp. “I’m beginning to feel a pang myself.”
A chauffeur opened the door of a big limousine that was waiting at the curb. They were quickly speeding countryward with Irene and Grace on the back seat with Trenton between them. Kemp, on one of the adjustable chairs, crossed his legs with the easy nonchalance characteristic of him.
“How’s business, Irene?” he asked. “Are the dollars rolling into the Shipley till?”
“My department is running ahead of last year’s business,” said Irene, “but there’s less call for the best grades.”
“So? Same reports all over the country. We must charge it up to the war. Well, we can’t change business conditions tonight. We’ll all die bankrupt if things don’t take a brace and we may as well eat and be merry while we can. Am I right, Ward?”
“Certain, Tommy.”
“Don’t always agree with me!” cried Kemp with feigned asperity. “You have a most disagreeable way of pretending to agree with me when you don’t.”
“You’re too good a client for me to quarrel with. And besides you’re always right, Tommy.”
“Do stop spoiling him!” cried Irene. “Everybody spoils Tommy.”
“Not you!” returned Kemp. “Your business in life seems to be to keep me humble.”
“It doesn’t show on you! You don’t see any signs of it, do you, Ward?”
“I think he’s aging fast,” replied Trenton. “He’s breaking down under the weight of his own humility.”
“Find the man who’s giving the party! It’s going to be a beautiful evening for me. Just one knock after another! Grace, don’t let these birds prejudice you against me!”
Kemp addressed her by her first name quite as though they were old acquaintances. They were skimming rapidly over the Meridian street bridge and her diffidence began to pass.
“I’ll be your friend, Mr. Kemp,” she said. “You needn’t mind what the others say.”
“That will be all right; he needs friends; but don’t mister him. He’s Tommy to one and all.”
“‘O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play’,”—
Kemp quoted. “It’s the same old story!” he finished in mock dejection.
“Speaking of music, did you bring some new records, Tommy?” Irene inquired. “The ones you have at the farm date from Rameses.”
“Yes; there’s a package of ’em up in front, the very latest jazz, and a few classic pieces for my own private consolation.”
“That’s just like him,” said Irene. “Tommy thinks no one appreciates good music but himself.”
Kemp and Irene continued to do most of the talking, occasionally appealing to Grace or Trenton to support them in their good-natured contentions. For a time Kemp and Trenton discussed business as frankly as though they were alone. Grace began to understand what Irene meant when she spoke of knowing men of attainment and enjoying their confidence. Kemp was saying that he was prepared to enlarge his plant the moment business took an upward turn. He meant to strike out more boldly into the South American markets than he had ever done before. His competitors didn’t know it, and he didn’t want them to know it, but he already had men down there preparing for an aggressive campaign. His tone was optimistic and confident. It was evident that he paid great deference to Trenton’s opinions and was anxious for his approval of his plans. Once after Trenton had answered at length and with the care that seemed to be habitual with him a technical question as to the production by a new method of castings of a certain kind, Kemp turned and remarked to the young women:
“That answer’s worth money! It’s a joy to talk to a man who knows his stuff.”
“Even I could understand it!” said Grace, “or I thought I did.”
Her father sometimes had explained to her problems in mechanics and Trenton had employed terms with which she was familiar.
“I’d rather expect you to know something about such things, Grace,” said Kemp. “Your father was a pioneer in certain fields. Stephen Durland, you know, Ward,—used to be in the Cummings concern.”
“I know the name of course. I’ve run across it frequently in the patent office reports. Your father’s been a prolific inventor.”
“Yes; he’s always inventing something, but I’m afraid many of his things don’t work!”
“That’s true of hundreds,” said Kemp, “but certain of Stephen Durland’s inventions are still standard. I know because I’ve tried to cut under ’em with things of my own! It was a scoundrelly trick for Cummings to put him out of the company—that’s what I understand happened. You know I believe every mean thing I hear about Cummings.”
“Oh, I suppose it was strictly a business matter,” said Grace.
“Beastly ingratitude, I’d call it,” exclaimed Kemp. “I’ve been told that your father waived all rights to royalty on all the patents he put into the company and Cummings only gave him a fifth of the stock in the original corporation to cover everything. Do pardon me! But that whole business made me hot when I heard about it.”
“It was pretty hard to bear,” Grace murmured.
“I’m no angel,” said Kemp, “but in the long run I think we get it in the neck if we don’t play the game straight. Cummings is riding for a fall. It tickles me to see two or three places right now where he’s likely to come a cropper. His narrowness and lack of vision are going to have the usual result.”
“But you, the great Kemp, are going to push right ahead!” laughed Trenton, laying his hand on his friend’s knee.
“Oh, nothing can keep Tommy down,” exclaimed Irene in mock admiration. “Tommy’s brain isn’t just cottage cheese.”
Kemp enjoyed their chaffing and encouraged it. They were still discussing Grace’s suggestion that Mars and other planets might become littered with Kemp machinery as new markets were sought for it when they reached the farm.
A winding road led from the highway through a strip of woodland that bore upward to a ridge where the lights of the house suddenly burst upon them. The river, Kemp explained, lay just below.
A Japanese boy in white duck flung open the door and smilingly bowed them in.
Kemp called his place The Shack, but in reality it was a dignified old homestead that had been enlarged and only slightly modernized. The parlor and sitting room of the old part had been thrown into one room with the broad fireplace preserved. The floors were painted and covered with rag rugs; the furniture was of a type that graced the homes of well-to-do Middle Westerners in about the period of the Mexican war. The rooms were lighted by a variety of glass table-lamps with frosted shades adorned with crystal pendants. These survivals of the days of “coal-oil” lighting were now cleverly arranged to conceal the electrical source of their illumination.
“Isn’t it a peach of a house?” demanded Irene as she convoyed Grace through the lower rooms with a careless air of proprietorship. She led the way up the steep stairway, that had been retained as built by the original owner, to the rooms above. The extensions, following strictly the original simple architecture, made a commodious place of the house, which rambled on in an inadvertent fashion bewildering