Skyscraper (24 page)

“Does she?” His eyes were unpleasant. “If she does, then why worry? She won't be hurt. No one willo be hurt, except, perhaps, myself.”

A tactit enough acknowledgment. She felt with the most
curious warning agony of compassion and protection that she did not want him to be hurt, she couldn't endure it, she would sacrifice anything, herself, Tom, Lynn, even Lynn.

But that was madness. With the balanced cells of her brain she knew that David Dwight would not be hurt; not really; or thought she knew it. She said, “You do love her then? But you won't be hurt, David; you—you've cared for women before.”

“Yes. And had them for the most part,” he agreed cheerfully, brutally, “and then lost them, somehow; and been hurt, for a time. But—”

“Don't say it!”

It was on his lips to say it—but this is different. She had heard that before. For a moment they stared at each other, across miles, across years.

She said bitterly, “I've been a fool. All my fault. I never thought, never dreamed—”

“Why not? You knew me, Sarah, you have known me for a long time,” he reminded her.

“Yes—but Lynn? My friend—my”—she stumbled, she said it bravely—“my almost daughter, the daughter I might have had.”

“Sarah, do you realize you're talking like a very bad play?”

“Oh, perhaps. Life,” she said uneasily, “is like a play—a very bad play, I expect. But to use me as a
convenience
—”

“Is that where the shoe pinches, Sarah?”

In part, it was. But she had herself in hand now, and answered, “No, not altogether. I can't have you taking Lynn's happiness from her.”

“Are you sure it's happiness?” His mouth twisted. He said violently, “What can that cub give her that I can't?”

“Life. Youth—”

“Oh, youth!” He dismissed it with a gesture. “What does she want from life, a home, shelter, love passion? I can give her these things. As well as Tom Shepard. Better.”

“He
can give her marriage,” Sarah said.

There was a species of sick triumph in her eyes. Marriage—David Dwight had not been able to give her marriage; at least,
he had not wished to be able—And now, for a long time, his rather legendary wife had served him as protection—

In the scant minute which elapsed before Dwight answered, he thought and realized a number of things. Marriage—with Lynn? It had not occurred to him. Why should it have done so? At first, a pretty girl, a desirable girl; one played with the idea of pretty girls and then, perhaps, with the pretty girls themselves. Later, with the intrusion of Tom, one resigned oneself to a waiting game. Waiting for what? Seduction was an abhorrent word, a word not in Dwight's working vocabulary. But if a girl turned to one on, say, the rebound, of her own free will, was that seduction?

No, not exactly. If he had had that goal, and end to waiting, in his mind, he put it aside now. Marriage with Lynn. His breath quickened at the thought, his heart pounded, he clenched his hands in the pockets of the dressing-gown. To teach Lynn to love, to show Lynn the wide reaches of this very glorious world, to be guide and mentor and lover, to slip back into unthinking youth again through the elixir of her youth, to dream, perhaps of a child, of children—not of the rangy uninteresting girls who bore his name, whose blood was tinged with his own, but of boy children, sturdy, brown babies, with Lynn's gray eyes—

That the present and only Mrs. David Dwight might be persuaded to release him he knew; none better; he had known it for a long time; but the idea had not appealed to him, had far from suited his book. But now! He laughed, a short, excited sound, curiously brutal, curiously exultant. There sat Sarah, the faint, sickened triumph still in her eyes. She thought she had him. She was wrong. He had her; he had, on the instant, everything that made life worth living. “
He
can give her marriage,” Sarah had said. Well—

“That, too, might be arranged,” said Dwight, coolly.

She shuddered away from him. “No!”

“Yes. Mrs. Dwight,” he smiled maliciously, “is rather bored. Or so I've heard. She might be persuaded, for a consideration.”

Yes, he knew she could be persuaded. But the consideration must be very large. Far, far larger than he could afford. His
thoughts turned back swiftly to his conversation with Lynn on the previous night. If there were anything in it—by all the unholy gods, what curiously poetic justice!

That there had never been rumor of Dwight's wife freeing him before this, Sarah knew. She looked at him incredulously. The arrangement had, so far, been an exceptional convenience to him.

“Marriage,” he went on, enjoying himself, loathing himself, a veritable battlefield, “marriage by bell and book, a home, children. Can your candidate do more?”

“No.” But now suddenly she thought she had conquered; she said, again, in triumph.

“She loves Tom. She doesn't love—you.”

“No,” he said frankly, “she doesn't love me—yet.”

“You think you can make her love you—all you stand for? David, it wouldn't be love, it would be glamor, enchantment, it would be—betrayal of the most material sort—”

He rose, faced her, smiling very slightly.

“Sarah, we are getting nowhere. We are, I take it, enemies?”

“Enemies,” she agreed, low. She too rose. They regarded one another warily, they were duelists, dealing with clumsy words, yet they bore invisible weapons, weapons of the spirit, which nevertheless drew blood.

“An armistice?” he suggested, after a long minute. “As long as Tom Shepard is in the picture, I'll keep out. Does that satisfy you?”

She thought she had won. She thought that this was his way of telling her so. Her hands went out to him, and drew back, fell at her sides.

“Your word of honor, David?”

He was a little pale. He had his code. He asked, “Must I?” and then nodded gravely enough. “My word of honor, then, as long as Tom is in the picture,” he said.

She told him, “You keep promises—honor promises. I know.”

He knew too. He opened the door, held it for her. For an instant their eyes met, for an instant that unspoken, vanished
thing was living, flashing between them for a second's fraction.

“Sarah, Sarita,” he said, and sighed, “life plays us idiotic tricks. Try to think that it wasn't wholly my fault, my dear.”

It had been years since he had called her Sarita, the silly, the sweet nickname. She was crying silently as she stumbled back along the passage and up the stairs, careless of how they creaked under her hurrying tread.

Dwight went back to his room and stood again at the windows. He had given his word. As long as Tom were in the picture. But he had not promised to withhold his erasing hand—“I told him if he did this I'd never speak to him again.” He smiled and went, catlike, into his bedroom.

 

 

 

JENNIE'S BARGAIN
IN THE MORNING THEY DROVE TO TOWN. “Sarah,” asked Dwight. “will you do me the honor?” and held open the door for her. Grimly, looking twenty years older than her age, she climbed in and sat beside him.

“Here's luck,” Travis hailed Lynn, his eye brightening as she took her place beside him.

“Enjoying yourself?” Dwight asked Sarah as the miles unrolled beneath the wheels, while back at the place which had no name Millie and Jack Carter regarded each other without pleasure across their breakfast trays.

“Please—”

“I'm sorry, Sarah,” he said instantly; and was.

Because of their early start and the scarcity of traffic, they came to the Seacoast Building on time. Lynn said delightedly, holding out her hand, “It was—gorgeous. I can't thank you enough.”

He replied coolly, smiling at her, “it was pleasant of you to come,” and turned to Sarah. Lynn, a little taken aback, watched them. Incalculable man! One moment he was your friend, dependable, you had only to reach out your hand for comfort. Nice, that feeling. Then, the next second he was less than you friend, more than your friend, caressing eyes and disturbing
voice. That frightened you a little, but was—pleasurable. And then, again, as now, he was a hundred miles removed from friendship, and acquaintance merely, courteous, a little bored.

Not that it matters—much.

He said nothing of when they would meet again. It was the first time he had not given her a meeting to look forward to.

She went to work, a little hurt, more than a little puzzled. But he lingered, detaining Sarah. “Will you lunch with me tomorrow?”

“Why?”

“You know why. We'll talk of—cabbages,” he promised, “and kings.”

“Well,” asked Tom, appearing at Lynn's elbow toward luncheon time, “did you have a thrilling weekend—with Sarah?”

He was ugly, definitely so. He had seen the car draw up, had seen the people in it. Lynn replied defiantly, “Very. And you needn't take that attitude, Tom Shepard. I
was
with Sarah and you know it!”

“Sarah and who else?”

“We were at Mr. Dwight's country place.”

“Very jolly,” admitted Tom, and departed without further word. She had half expected it, of course. But—oh, everything was spoiled a little today. She slammed her desk drawer shut.

“Blue Monday?” asked the blond Miss Marple, understandingly, “well, I feel that way myself. Boy, I haven't gotten over Saturday night yet. Was that a party!”

“Lynn, but what else can I do? He says—he says he's sorry.”

Could people really be “sorry” and begin all over again with the memory of things they had said between them, terrible things, terrible memories?

Jennie? Perhaps Jennie would be free. Suddenly Lynn wanted Jennie and her astonishing acceptance of things as they are, her unenglamored eyes, her slangy, salutary cynicism that was not cynicism at all but a hard, poised ego as blunt as an old knife, impervious to the usual slings and arrows. She would go upstairs, she thought, and look for Jennie.

In the express elevator she rose, swift as a bird but without
volition, and watched the small green numbers flash above the door as they passed each floor. She had been once or twice to Madame Fanchon's with urgent messages for Fanchon's “best” model. Now she went into the gray, ivory-paneled room, empty at this hour sacred to luncheon. Fanchon herself, in a bright long tunic and a brief crêpe-de-Chine skirt came out and frowned at her a moment, puzzled.

“If I might see Jennie?” asked Lynn, smiling.

“Oh, Jennie's little friend. But, certainly!” She stepped to the curtains at the door of the models' room, thrust her dark birdlike head between them, spoke; and returned. “It is nearly autumn,” she told Lynn. “We've been very busy.”

Mr. Pearl drifted by. Lynn had never seen him before but she recognized him at once. He was like a lily, walking, vague flutterings of pale hands, probably pink-tipped. He looked at her with nearsighted curiosity. No, she was not a buyer. He smiled with an entirely academic appreciation of pretty girls and wavered into the stock room.

Jennie came into the room, with the step that would have been ambling had it not been for her integralgrace. She looked, Lynn thought, somewhat taken aback.

“'Allo, keed,” she greeted her in her idiotic idiom. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Jennie, have you had lunch?”

“Not yet.”

“Come downstairs and eat with me. I want to talk to you.”

“Okay,” agreed Jennie, shrugging.

Later, as they made their way toward the cafeteria, Jennie touched Lynn's arm.

“Not there, let's go to the Gavarin,”she suggested. “It's on me, this time. And I've graduated.”

“Jennie, did you get a raise?”

“Maybe.” Jennie's face was imperturbable. They went into the Gavarin and ordered. Jennie leaned back in her chair.

“What's under your hair, infant?”

“Nothing—but—”

“But what?—dandruff?” Come on, spill it; mamma's
listening.”

Lynn found herself talking furiously. Her quarrel with Tom—she did not mention the cause, “We just disagreed about something”—the weekend—“Such fun, Jennie, such a perfectly grand place”; Dwight's subtly changed attitude, Tom's exhibition “barging into the room and calling me down!”

Jennie commented slowly, “It looks like your girl friend to me. Dirty work at the crossroads.”

“Girl friend?”

“Sarah the Stately. Sure she hasn't been putting a bug in Dwight's ear, on your account? Look here, was he—all over the place about you, down there?”

“Of course not.” But she hesitated, colored up a little.

There had been, after all, a rose garden by moonlight, an ankle turned, an arm about her, a voice—
“sweet person
—”