Skyscraper (27 page)

“It has been,” Sarah explained, “kept extremely quiet. For several reasons. There had been a rumor of a merger there,” she said, “and it didn't go through. Depositors felt that it meant the institution was unsound. There was a run on the bank and its branches, one that no bank could withstand. So it was thought wise that all the details of this particular proposition be worked out, and the thing made absolutely certain with no chance of a slip-up, before anything was said. But something has been said. It's been reflected on the Street. That is to say, stock in both companies is being bought up quietly, in small blocks. For quite a time, and very cleverly. It may not mean anything; we'll see how long it goes on. But it is beginning to cause talk—and it looks very much as if there had been a leak somewhere.”

“But,” asked Lynn, and her voice sounded small and thin to her own ears, “what on earth could Tom have to do with it?”

“Nothing—I sincerely hope.” Sarah looked at the younger girl. This was the first time they had talked together alone since
Tom had left the bank. “But he was in a position to know, he couldn't, you see,
help
knowing.”

“Well, if he didn't know,” argued Lynn, with a laugh which was entirely unnatural, “you couldn't accuse him of buying blocks of stock—on fifty a week!”

“My dear,” said Sarah amazed, “of course not. I merely asked you a simple question. After all, you must have known that he left the bank's employ under a cloud, and I wondered if—”

“What do you mean, ‘under a cloud'?”

Sarah answered gently, “Mr. Norton accused him of being responsible for the leak. Of course he had no proof, and naturally Tom denied it. But he had to be let out just the same.”

“Let out!” said Lynn in a whisper.

“What did you think had happened?” Sarah asked her, astonished.

“He
resigned
,” Lynn told her. “He told me he was going to resign. He wanted to, he hated the work, he wanted to take a job with the UBC people. He had just put of f quitting downstairs and going up the tower because he didn't think I'd approve.”

“He said nothing of that to Norton,” Sarah told her.

“Perhaps he didn't have a chance,” Lynn flared up. But she thought, could he have known? And covered himself by telling me he was going to resign? She put her hands to the dark head with a distracted gesture. “Suppose he did say something,” she asked, returning to the original discussion, “but without realizing it was important,”

“He couldn't help realizing it was important,” Sarah reminded her. “At first the quiet purchase of the stocks went unnoticed. Lately all sorts of rumors have been current, during the last few days in fact. It is evident, we think, that some one individual or group of individuals is trying to buy up all the available shares. Naturally officers and directors are not beside themselves with pleasure.”

Lynn said stubbornly, “It wasn't Tom.”

Sarah was silent.

Lynn said defiantly, “He just wasn't happy in the job, that's
all.”

Sarah nodded, “I suppose that's the main thing,” she said. She thought, Norton may be all wrong. Strangely enough, it didn't particularly matter to her whether or not Tom was the cause of this muddle. Nothing much mattered but that Tom and Lynn be happy—and safe. She realized with a slight shock that she had not, after all, changed with the years. Her principles, her judgments went by the board when in conflict with her emotions. She asked Lynn now, “You're happy with your job, aren't you?”

“Of course I am. I'm crazy about it. Not that I want to be there all my life; I want awfully to go on.”

“I think you'll have an opportunity,” Sarah said carefully. “I don't want to raise your hopes prematurely, but I can tell you this much. Since the particular sort of promotion I've done in my department has been so well received there is a chance that I may, at some future date, be transferred to the advertising department, in charge of advertising. If I do, that will leave my position empty. I will be given a chance to recommend someone. And I'll recommend you, Lynn—”

“Sarah—you angel!”

“Don't look so wide-eyed. You must have known for some time that you would one day take my place. But you'll have to work.”

“I will. Oh, Sarah, I'll work—so hard. I—I've been thinking for quite a while of enrolling at Columbia for some night courses—now that I don't see Tom much, now that his work keeps him busy and at such off times.”

“An excellent idea,” Sarah agreed relievedly, and turned the conversation to talk of books which would be useful, of classes which she herself had managed to attend, of the successful lectures on finance to prospective women buyers, of the bank's facilities, which she herself had arranged and managed.

“I can enroll after vacation,” Lynn decided.

She left Sarah's early, determined to ring up Tom. If he were at home she'd see him at once, if he could come around, and get this thing straightened out. She told Sarah so in a brief reference
to the topic as she was leaving. Sarah said nothing. She was already sorry she had spoken to Lynn. The last thing she wished to do would be to cause trouble between Lynn and Tom Shepard.

Tom was not at home. But Hank was. Hank told her that Tom had been sent out to Long Island to learn the ropes at the UBC's great station there. He'd be gone several days, Hank thought, and would live out there for the time being. “He tried to get you,” Hank explained, “between throwing things in a bag, but no one answered at the apartment. He's getting on swell,” Hank said, “best thing he ever did in his life was leaving the bank. He wasn't cut out for a J.P.”

So Hank too thought Tom had “left.” Perhaps, perhaps Mr. Norton hasn't told Sarah the entire truth; perhaps Tom had gone to ask that his resignation be accepted, and Norton, angry and disappointed, had flared out at him about this other business. But that, she admitted, wouldn't hold water either.

 

 

 

“MEN MAKE ME SICK!”
LYNN DID NOT, AS IT HAPPENED, GO HOME FOR vacation. Her mother wrote her that there was an infantile epidemic in town, her father was driven day and night, and they had decided it would not be safe for her to return. “Perhaps,” she wrote, “when it is all over we can take a little holiday trip to New York to see you.”

So Lynn remained in town, enrolling for all the classes she could manage for the fall term and for a tail-end summer class before the regular session. She took her two weeks' vacation literally in a classroom, and during that time did not see Tom at all, his apprenticeship on Long Island lasting longer than he had expected. He telephoned her now and then and wrote her short, illegible, happy notes.

The fact that Jennie was leaving worried her. Would she be able to swing the apartment alone? She thought not; not yet, at any rate. And of course she wouldn't permit Jennie to pay. She spoke to Sarah, a little self-consciously.

“Jennie's leaving the apartment,” she said. “I suppose I'll have to look for a room, or go to the club again.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It isn't a pleasant prospect; in the last few months I've become pretty accustomed to freedom.”

“Where's Jennie going?” Sarah wanted to know.

“Oh”—Lynn was vague—“I don't know; she's tired of housekeeping I guess.”

Sarah raised her heavy eyebrows but forbore to press her further. She said, after a moment, “There's a little apartment on the ground floor in this building. Just one room and bath. The tenant is sailing on October first for Europe. She has a long lease. She told me that if she could rent it to someone reliable she would be willing to let it got for very little, less in fact than the rent. I—you'd be alone, of course, but in the same building with us.”

“Sarah, that sounds grand!”

“Have you a lease where you are?”

“No, just one of those month-to-month things. Gosh, I'd love it,” said Lynn. “Could I see it?”

Having seen it, she told Jennie, “It's just the thing, awfully cute. You couldn't swing a cat in it, but I haven't a cat and wouldn't swing one if I had. It's fitted up as a living-room you know, one of those studio couches, and there's a sort of electric-plate affair in something not as big as a clothes closet. I can't stay on here alone anyway, Jennie; and I don't know of anyone I like well enough to ask to come in with me.”

“Sounds all right,” Jennie admitted after a moment, “if you're willing to be under Sarah's eagle eye every minute of the day and night.”

“Oh, she won't interfere with me,” Lynn said easily. “It would never occur to her.”

“I'm not so sure,” said Jennie. “Lynn, you haven't told Tom—anything, have you?”

“Of course not,” Lynn replied indignantly. “What do you think I am? Why?”

“I didn't think you had. But Slim's been getting all hot and bothered about me lately. I—I just won't see him that's all,” said
Jennie, setting her small jaw firmly. “I can't afford to. Suppose I get fed up with Jake—and Slim's handy? God knows what I'd do. And I don't
want
to do anything,” she added ambiguously.

“Oh, but Jennie,”—Lynn flushed and stumbled a bit—“if Slim should find out he wouldn't—I mean, you wouldn't have any more trouble with him.”

Jennie slid her long eyes around at her friend.

“Oh, yeah? Well, you're all wet—that is, if you mean that Slim would cut me off his calling-list. He wouldn't, naturally, have honorable mentions any more but—”

“Oh, Jennie, not Slim!”

“Why not? He's a man,” said Jennie definitely.

Tom came back in high feather, enthusiastic to the boiling or bursting point over his work. But Lynn, the first time they were alone together, paid him scant attention. She came straight to the point.

“Tom,” she said, “why didn't you tell me Mr. Norton let you out?”

He looked excessively uncomfortable. Of course he might have known she'd find out! Everyone knew, he supposed. He answered awkwardly, “Gosh, it was all so darned stupid. I—I didn't want to tell you. You see, I walked into his office, all set to tell him I was quitting—and I can prove it too, Lynn, by the date I interviewed ‘em up at UBC and was taken on—and then he sprang it at me. About firing me, I mean. Lord, you could have knocked me over with a—a cobweb!”

“But why did he fire you?” she demanded, believing that much of his explanation, impossible not to believe him; he was so entirely eager and honest.

“Oh, I wasn't ‘responsible.' I didn't take my ‘obligations' seriously, or so he said.”

Now was the time for her to say, “And didn't you? Did you—did you break your word to me about Rawlson?” But she couldn't say it. She had missed him so much, she had him back again, he hadn't lied to her, she knew he hadn't lied, perhaps Sarah had misunderstood Mr. Norton, perhaps she had taken this talk of obligations and responsibilities to mean a dishonorable
discharge.

She said irrelevantly, “Oh, darling, I'm so glad to have you back. Don't let them send you places again, will you? I've missed you so much. I wish,” she said, low, “that they hadn't fired you—I mean—”

He kissed her. “So do I,” he said cheerfully, “but if I'd said, ‘I'm quitting, anyway,' he wouldn't have believed me, Lynn, I would have felt like a fool.”

She asked, “I supposed you know Bob Rawlson has your job?”

He looked so perfectly aghast that she knew he hadn't known; knew, too, with a relieved throb of her heart that he hadn't been seeing Rawlson.

“Rawlson!” he exclaimed.

“Yes. Sarah told me that Mr. Norton had given him this chance, as he was dissatisfied where he was. Tom—do you think,” she asked, “that—that it was wise—of Mr. Norton?”

“Wise?” He frowned, puzzled, then understanding, he laughed. “Sure! Thinking of that jackass idea he—I mean we had? Get it out of your funny little head. Pipe dreams, that's what it was. Nothing to it. Rawlson's forgotten it long ago, I guess.”

She thought,
Then he doesn't know there's been talk on the Street
.

She decided not to tell him. What was, after all, the use?

By the middle of October Jennie had moved to a Riverside Drive apartment, to her own amused chagrin.

“Jake,” said Jennie, “is old-fashioned. He thinks that if you're going to keep a woman—”

“Please, Jennie, don't talk like that.”

“Why not? Is there a prettier name for it?” asked Jennie, and continued imperturbably—“that you have to keep her on the Drive. I held out for Park Avenue or at least, the East Side. But nothing doing. Still it's a nice dump,” she conceded carelessly, “and has all the works, including a maid.”

She added, “I don't suppose you'll come see me.”

“Why not?” asked Lynn, in her turn.

Tom, learning that Jennie had moved and Lynn was moving, was insistent in his demands for an explanation. What's the big idea? I thought you liked the place and that you two got along like a house afire.”