Skyscraper (17 page)

“Marriage?”

She nodded her dark head unsmilingly.

He said gravely, “I'm afraid I can't approve any more than Sarah does of that. But if your mind is made up—” He gestured briefly and then smiled at her again. “And I deplore the fact that by marrying, you will give up something of a career. Mind, I don't offer you that with me. There's no future in turning amanuensis to an egotistical lawyer, you know, but perhaps it would tide you over this time of depression, and then later, when business picks up and banks begin to take on bigger stafs
there would be doubtless a place for you somewhere.”

She said brokenly, “I can't thank you—”

“Don't try. Is it a bargain?”

She nodded. “As far as I'm concerned. But I'd have to stay at the bank a while longer until one of the girls in my department could be trained to take my place,” she answered.

“I understand that perfectly.” He rose. “Come, the car's outside. Let's forget business for a time and take a drive through the park and perhaps up to the Clairmont for dinner.”

It was a pleasant drive, a pleasanter dinner. Dwight was his wittiest self, he talked incessantly, almost nervously, always entertainingly. It was still quite early when he left her at the door of the apartment. She thanked him, saying good night, and as she did so, he held her hand for a moment.

“May I be very banal?”

“You couldn't be,” she assured him.

“Thanks, that's sweet of you. I wonder if Mr. Thomas knows how infernally lucky he is?” he concluded.

Lynn drew her hand away. “I hope so,” she answered gaily. “I hope that he knows it and that he
is
.”

Dwight watched her enter the clumsy door, stood there a moment, bareheaded on the pavement, climbed back into his car and gave an address; not that of his apartment. As the car slid away through the night, he pondered on himself, ironically amazed.

Now what exactly had he done? Offered to take the girl on for work which was practically nonexistent. He'd have to make an attempt to get the scattered notes of some of his big cases together. Of course, he'd planned to do a startling book at some future date—very future. In addition he was committing himself to a new obligation, an expenditure which he couldn't afford. He was up to his ears in debt.

Yet his cursed vanity had been unable to permit him to let Lynn down. Moreover he had offered Lynn Harding a situation in order that she might be in a position to marry that awkward young cub, Shepard, who was not yet dry behind the ears! Of all the sublime idiocies! Had he not offered her the job, she probably
would have postponed the marriage indefinitely and almost anything might happen during that time. Married, she was lost to him. Yet, was she, working with him, not in the allegedly impersonal surroundings of an office, but in his home? Married, once the first glamor had passed, she was, according to his own curious code, perfectly legitimate quarry.

He wondered if Shepard would make any objection, but dismissed him from his mind as negligible. Any man in his right senses would object, but a young man in love, and ardently desiring marriage, is not in his rightsenses. Yet one person there was of whom in his heart David Dwight was a little afraid. And that was Sarah Dennet. Well, he could manage Sarah, couldn't he; hadn't he proved that?

Lynn, running upstairs, burst into her apartment and was utterly astonished to find Tom sitting there glumly and alone, crushing cigarettes into an ash tray. At least from the appearance of the ash tray that was what he had been doing for some time past.

“Tom—how did you get in? Where's Jennie? I thought you were going to be busy this evening,” she exclaimed, staring at him.

“Jennie let me in; she went out directly afterward. I did have a date—but Rawlson came down from UBC just before closing to tell me it was all off. I'd looked for you, but you'd gone,” he accused her.

“I know; I left a little early. Oh,” she said. “I'm sorry. Have you have any dinner?”

“With Rawlson,” he answered.

“Oh!”

Lynn was silent. She didn't like Rawlson, who was one of the salesmen that came to her desk daily for the little blue cards. He was a slim, smooth, rather nervous young man, who, it was rumored, had “inherited money” and “didn't really have to work.” Latterly, he and Tom had struck up some sort of friendship.

“And where have
you
been?” he shot out at her.

She didn't tell him about the engagement with Dwight. If
nothing came out of it what would have been the use? Now that something had come out of it all the laughter and excitement and satisfaction had gone. Tom's dejection was like something tangible in the room; it smothered and oppressed.

“I had an appointment with David Dwight; afterward he took me to the Clairmont for dinner,” she told him, and to her own bewilderment was unable to keep from her voice a note of pure defiance.

“Is—that—so—?” Tom asked, spacing out his words. “Isn't that
lovely
?”

“What's so wrong about it?” she wanted to know.

Tom glared at her.

“Everything. I won't have you going out with him,” he responded unamiably. “Damnit, you're engaged to be married to
me
. I don't get any pleasure going out with other girls—and I don't go out with them, what's more! And I wouldn't get a kick of smirking at a dinner table at a woman twice my age!”

“Tom!”

“Well, I wouldn't,” he said doggedly. “I don't want to be with anyone but you.
I
can't trot you around in a limousine and throw penthouse parties and take you to expensive restaurants and send you gardenias and all the rest of it. But you knew that, right from the beginning. I
won't
have you going around with Dwight,” he said again. “He's a damned-sight too interested in you.”

“He's not!” Even as she said it she had misgivings. Absurd, couldn't a man be decent to a girl, offer her friendship, without premising a personal motive? “And I'm not interested in him.”

“Then why do you make dates with him?”

“Well, if you must know,” she flung at him, “I went up there to see if he could help me find a job. So that I could work; so we could get married. I think—I think you have a rotten mind!” She ended childishly.

“Look here, Lynn.” He rose and walked over to where she was standing, her small, shallow hat perched on the back of her head, her clear dark skin flushed with anger. “Look here, I didn't mean that. But it hurts me like the devil to see you so
friendly with Dwight—and moreover, I don't think you should be, aside from me. He hasn't the best reputation in the world. He couldn't be
any
woman's friend,” said Tom.

“Well, he can be! He's mine!” she cried. “He's offered me a job as his secretary.”

“What!” Tom stood perfectly still, head lowered and thrust forward, his hair wildly disordered and his very blue eyes hot with suspicion. “Secretary! That's a good one!” He laughed, without merriment. “That's swell! He got along without a secretary all these years, I suppose, and has just decided to take one with no secretarial experience, is that it?”

Lynn said, paler now, “You needn't waste the heavy sarcasm on me, Tom. Of course he has a secretary—several of them, for all I know. This is different.”

“I'll bet it is,” Tom agreed darkly.

“It's to type notes for a book he is doing, and other personal work,” Lynn said, infuriated.

“Can't he get that done in the office?”

“He doesn't want it done in the office. He wants it done at home.”

“That's practical of him,” Tom said admiringly. “What are your working hours to be—ten p.m. to six a.m.?”

Suddenly she was transformed into a small and flaming harridan. Years of training in social repression dropped from her; she was a child of the backyard, fighting with the neighbor's brat, sick with disappointment, beside herself in anger.

“You shut up, Tom Shepard! How dare you say such a thing to me?” she raged. “You get out of here! I never want to see you again!”

Anger broke her voice and sent her whole body trembling. It had, however, a wholesome effect on Tom. Anger such as hers argued a pristine innocence—or at least, to him. He advanced upon her and took her in his arms. She fought him like a cat, left the marks of her nails on his astonished face. He dropped her quickly.

“You little devil—” was his natural response.

He nursed the scratch, applying a rather grimy handkerchief.
Lynn cast herself on the couch, reaction setting in. Sobs shook her. Standing there, handkerchief to his face, he heard her say, through the storm:

“Just because I was afraid—of losing my job—if we got married—and he was decent enough to give me one—so that we could be—”

But Tom's inclination towards reconciliation had passed. He said coolly, “You needn't accept Dwight's offer to marry me. Because if you do, I won't marry you, see?”

She sat up on the couch. “Tom, do you mean that?”

“I mean it. I didn't want you to work after we got married. Then I gave in. You know why; or if you don't you're a damned sight dumber than I thought you were,” said her lover baldly. “You know why right enough. But if you think I'm going to marry you on Dwight's charity you have another guess coming. Not me. It would be bad enough to work in the bank, but I'd be there, at least. But to have you working for him—in his house—under his eyes—within reach of his hand—You may think I'm crazy, perhaps I am—crazy about you, anyway—but I'm not as crazy as that. Or too crazy. I don't care
what
you think!”

He put the handkerchief in his pocket.

She said, all the anger gone, “Oh, Tom, I'm so
unhappy
.”

That reached him. He went over and dropped to his knees beside her, and put his arms around her.

“I'm sorry I said what I did, honey,” he told her. “You know I didn't mean it. I was sore, that's all.”

She touched the scratch with her fingers, put her lips to it gently.

“I'm sorry too.” She laughed shakily. “I didn't know I had such a temper. Why, if my own mother had seen me, she'd have spanked me and put me to bed—”

“I could do that,” he told her confidently.

“No, don't—but Tom, what shall we do? Oh,” she told him hopelessly, “I didn't see any other way out. I was so happy, planning; and then Sarah knocked that house of cards to smithereens. And so I figured if I could get another job—and you agreed with me. And I then thought of Dwight—no, Jennie
thought of him—”

“She would,” commented Tom grimly.

“And I went there; and he was so nice, so awfully nice; and I thought, it's the solution. I'm sure it is—

“But it wasn't,” she added, after a minute.

“I suppose you think I'm a fool?” he proffered.

“Yes, I do.”

“Thanks—a lot.”

“But a dear fool. Oh, Tom, why are you so stubborn? Why will you look at things this way?”

“Suppose I look at them another way. Suppose you're right, and there's nothing in the back of Dwight's bean except a nice friendly feeling and a desire to help us both and a real need for someone to type this book or encyclopedia or whatever it is—Well, when it's done, then what? You have always been so keen on a future. Where's a future there?” he argued, against his usual convictions.

“None. He told me that, too. But he said when business picked up I could go back into the type of work I had been doing.”

“I see. He expects you to work all your life? Well I don't.”

“But I want to.”

They were back to where they started months ago. Tom sighed heavily and kissed her. He said, after a moment, “There'll be a way out. You see. I'll make a killing, somehow. Rob the bank! Start with a hundred in Wall Street and run it up to a hundred grand—not, however, in this market. I'll help an aged man across traffic and he'll leave me a million—”

“Oh, Tom—” she was laughing again. This was the Tom she knew best, boyish, absurd, young,
darling
—

“No, but seriously, I'll find a way. Rawlson was talking to me tonight. He says there are lots of ways—”

“What did he mean?”

“Never mind now,” Tom told her solemnly. He held her close, kissed her. “You'll tell Dwight, ‘Thank you kindly, wealthy sir, I don't want your job'?”

“Yes—it doesn't make sense anymore,” she told him
mournfully.

“You bet it doesn't. Hello, here's Jennie.”

Jennie came in, scattering her outdoor garments about, and greeted them imperturbably.

“Hello, turtle doves.”

“Where have you been?” asked Lynn.

“Didn't Tom tell you? I told him to. It's Mara. She phoned here in a fit or something. Wanted you,” explained Jennie, walking around the room in search of a cigarette, “but as you weren't handy, I had to do. So I went up there, like a fool. Found the flat had been torn to pieces. It seems like her darling Bill had been feeling neglected of late. Missed his little wife. So he picked up with some synthetic blonde who runs a beauty shop in the neighborhood. Mara found out, and they had what the books call words. Words and music. Then he sprung it on her that he had known for weeks that she'd been seeing Frank Houghton, and the battle was on again. You never heard anything like it, the echoes of it, I mean. He wasn't there when I arrived. Gone to the beauty parlor for a facial, I guess. She is leaving him. He is leaving her. I don't know who's leaving who. Anyway, it's a hell of a mess. I gave her two aspirins and some spirits of ammonia before I left. She was going to sit up for Bill. No thank you, said I, and cleared out—Marriage,” reported Jennie, who had found her cigarette and was surrounding herself in smoke, “marriage is the bunk; I don't care what you two think. Marriage, unless it means a bank account and no questions asked, is a flop. I've seen plenty, and tonight was the pay-off.”