The Wall Street Girl

CHAPTER XXIV

VACATIONS

During this next week–the week Frances was on the ocean and sailing toward him–he gained in confidence day by day. Miss Winthrop was so absolutely sure of her point of view that it was difficult in her presence to have any doubts.

Frances was due to arrive on Monday, and for Sunday he had arranged at Jacques’ a very special little dinner for Miss Winthrop. Miss Winthrop herself did not know how special it was, because all dinners there with him were special. There were roses upon the table. Their odor would have turned her head had it not been for the realization that her trunk was all packed and that to-morrow morning she would be upon the train. She had written to an aunt in Maine that she was coming–to this particular aunt because, of the three or four she knew at all, this aunt was the farthest from New York.

As for him, he had forgotten entirely that Monday marked the beginning of her vacation. That was partly her fault, because for the last week she had neglected to speak of it.

Ordinarily she did not permit him to come all the way back to the house with her; but this night he had so much to talk about that she did not protest. Yes, and she was too weak to protest, anyway. All the things he talked about–his fears, his hopes, speculations, and doubts–she had heard over and over again. But it was the sound of his voice to which she clung. To-morrow and after to-morrow everything would be changed, and she would never hear him talk like this again. He was excited to-night, and buoyant and quick with life. He laughed a great deal, and several times he spoke very tenderly to her.

They had reached her door, and something in her eyes–for the life of him he could not tell what–caused him to look up at the stars. They were all there in their places.

“Look at ’em,” he said. “They seem nearer to-night than I’ve ever seen them.”

She was a bit jealous of those stars. It had been when with her that he had first seen them.

“You aren’t looking,” he complained.

She turned her eyes to the sky. To her they seemed farther away than ever.

“Maybe Frances is looking at those same stars,” he said.

She resented the suggestion. She turned her eyes back to the street.

“Where’s the star I gave you?” he asked.

“It’s gone,” she answered.

“Have you lost it?”

“I can’t see it.”

“Now, look here,” he chided her lightly. “I don’t call that very nice. You don’t have a star given you every night.”

“I told you I didn’t need to have them given to me, because I could take all I wanted myself. You don’t own the stars too.”

“I feel to-night as if I did,” he laughed. “I’ll have to pick out another for you.” He searched the heavens for one that suited him. He found one just beyond the Big Dipper, that shone steadily and quietly, like her eyes. He pointed it out to her.

“I’ll give you that one, and please don’t lose it.”

She was not looking.

“Do you see it?” he insisted.

She was forced to look. After all, he could afford to give her one out of so many, and it would be something to remember him by.

“Yes,” she answered, with a break in her voice.

“That one is yours,” he assured her.

It was as if he added, “All the rest belong to Frances.”

She held out her hand to him.

“Thank you for your star,” she said. “And–and I wish you the best of luck.”

He took her hand, but he was confused by the note of finality in her voice.

“I don’t see any need of being so solemn about saying good-night,” he returned.

He continued to hold her hand firmly.

“But it’s good-bye and–God-speed, too,” she reminded him.

“How do you make that out?”

“You’re going on a long journey, and I–I’m going on a little journey.”

“You? Where are you going?”

He didn’t want her to go anywhere. He wanted her to stay right where she was. Come to think of it, he always wanted her to stay right where she was. He always thought of her as within reach.

“My vacation begins to-morrow,” she answered.

“And you’re going away–out of town?”

She nodded.

“You can’t do that,” he protested. “Why, I was depending upon you these next few days.”

It was difficult for her to tell at the moment whether the strain in her throat was joy or pain. That he needed her–that was joy; that he needed her only for the next few days–that was not joy.

“You mustn’t depend upon any one these next few days but yourself,” she answered earnestly. “And after that–just yourself and her.”

“That’s well enough if everything comes out all right.”

“Make it come out right. That’s your privilege as a man. Oh, that’s why it’s so good to be a man!”

“You ought to have been a man yourself,” he told her.

She caught her breath at that, and insisted upon withdrawing her hand.

“I used to think I’d like to be,” she answered.

“And now?”

She shook her head.

He had swung the talk back to her again, when the talk should have been all of him and Frances.

“It’s in you to get everything in the world you want,” she said. “I’m sure of that. All you have to do is to want it hard enough. And now there are so many things right within your grasp. You won’t let go of them?”

“No,” he answered.

“Your home, your wife, and your work–it’s wonderful to make good in so many things all at once! So–good-bye.”

“You talk as if you were not coming back again!”

“I’m coming back to Carter, Rand & Seagraves–if that’s what you mean.”

“And you’re coming back here–to your home?”

“Yes; I’m coming back here.”

“Then we’ll just say s’long.”

“No. We must say good-bye.”

She had not wished to say this in so many words. She had hoped he would take the new situation for granted.

“When I come back you must look on me as–as Mr. Farnsworth does.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“No; it’s very, very good sense. It’s the only thing possible. Can’t you see?”

“No.”

“Then Frances will help you see.”

“She won’t want to make a cad of me; I know that.”

“I’m going in now.”

She opened the door behind her.

“Wait a moment,” he pleaded.

“No, I can’t wait any longer. Good-bye.”

She was in the dark hall now.

“Good-bye,” she repeated.

“S’long,” he answered.

Softly, gently, she closed the door upon him. Then she stumbled up the stairs to her room, and in the dark threw herself face down on her bed.

CHAPTER XXV

IN THE PARK

Either Frances had grown more beautiful in the last three months, or Don had forgotten how really beautiful she was when she left; for, when she stepped down the gangplank toward him, he was quite sure that never in his life had he seen any one so beautiful as she was then. Her cheeks were tanned, and there was a foreign touch in her costume that made her look more like a lady of Seville than of New York. As she bent toward him for a modest kiss, he felt for a second as if he were in the center of some wild plot of fiction. This was not she to whom he was engaged,–she whom he purposed to marry within the week,–but rather some fanciful figure of romance.

He stepped into her car,–he did not know even if he was asked,–and for a half-hour listened to her spirited narration of incidents of the voyage. It was mostly of people, of this man and that, this woman and that, with the details of the weather and deck sports. Under ordinary circumstances he might have enjoyed the talk; but, with all he had to tell her, it sounded trivial.

They reached the house. Even then, there was much talk of trunks and other things of no importance to him whatever. Stuyvesant hung around in frank and open admiration of his daughter; and Mrs. Stuyvesant beamed and listened and stayed. Don had a feeling that, in spite of his position in the family, they looked upon him at this moment as an intruder.

It was another half-hour before he found himself alone with her. She came to his side at once–almost as if she too had been awaiting this opportunity.

“Dear old Don,” she said. “It’s good to see you again. But you look tired.”

“And you look beautiful!” he exclaimed.

Now that he was alone with her, he felt again as he had at the steamer–that this woman was not she to whom he was engaged, but some wonderful creature of his imagination. The plans he had made for her became commonplace. One could not talk over with her the matter-of-fact details of marrying and of housekeeping and of salaries. And those things that yesterday had filled him with inspiration, that had appeared to him the most wonderful things in life, that had been associated with the stars, seemed tawdry. She had been to London to see the Queen, and the flavor of that adventure was still about her.

“Don, dear, what’s the matter?”

He was so long silent that she was worried. He passed his hand over his forehead.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “There were a lot of things I wanted to say to you, and now I can’t think of them.”

“Nice things?”

“Perhaps it’s the house,” he replied vaguely. “I wish we could get out of here for a little while. After lunch I want you to come to walk with me. Will you?”

“Where, Don?”

He smiled.

“In the park.”

“What an odd fancy!” she answered.

“Here I get you all mixed up with your father and mother and the Queen,” he ran on. “I want to talk to you alone.”

He sounded more natural to her when he talked like that.

“All right, Don, though there are a hundred things I ought to do this afternoon. And I must decide about going to the mountains with Dolly. What were those other plans you cabled me about?”

“Those are what I want to talk over with you,” he answered.

“What are they? I’m dying to know.”

“I’ll tell you in the park. Now I’ll go, so that you’ll have time to do some of the hundred things you want to do.”

He turned.

“Don’t you want to–to–”

She held out her arms to him. He kissed her lips. Then she seemed to come back to him as she had been before she sailed. He could have said all he wished to say then. But her mother was calling her.

“I’ll be here at two. And, this once–you must cancel every other engagement.”

“Yes, Don.”

She came to the door with him, and stood there until he turned the corner. He did not know where to go, but unconsciously his steps took him downtown. He stopped at a florist’s and ordered a dozen roses to be sent back to the house. He stopped to order a box of her favorite bonbons. Then he kept on downtown toward the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves. But this was the first day of his vacation, and so he had no object in going there. He must find a place to lunch. He came to a dairy lunch, and then he knew exactly what it was he needed. He needed Sally Winthrop to talk over his complication with him.

As he made his way to the counter for his sandwich and coffee, he frowned. He had told her that he would surely need her. Now she was gone. He suddenly recalled that she had not even left her address.

Only two days before he had been discussing with her the final details of the house awaiting Frances, and she had made him feel that everything was perfect.

“She will love it,” she had assured him.

It was as if he heard her voice again repeating that sentence. Once again he reacted to her enthusiasm and saw through her eyes. She had made him feel that money–the kind of money Stuyvesant stood for–was nonsense. A salary of twelve hundred a year was enough for the necessities, and yet small enough to give his wife an opportunity to help.

“When the big success comes,” she had said to him, “then Frances can feel that it is partly her success too. A woman doesn’t become a wife by just marrying a man, does she? It’s only when she has a chance to help that she can feel herself really a wife.”

As she said it he felt that to be true, although to him it was a brand-new point of view.

And Sally Winthrop had given him, in her own life, a new point of view on woman. He understood that she had never married because she had never happened to fall in love. She had always been too busy. But if ever she did fall in love, what a partner she would make! Partner–that was the word.

“It’s in you to get everything in the world you want,” she had said last night, when she was leaving him.

So it was. He gulped down the rest of his coffee and glanced at his watch. It was shortly after one. He must stay down here another half-hour–stay around these streets where he had walked with her and where she had made him see straight–until he had just time to meet Frances.

He went out and walked past the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves, and then walked to the Elevated station where she took the train at night for home. The sight of the steps up which they had climbed together made him almost homesick. He wished to Heaven that she had postponed her vacation another day. If only he could see her a few minutes right now, he would be absolutely sure of himself.

It was after two when he reached the house, but Frances was not ready. She was never quite ready.

“I’ll wait outside,” he told the maid.

The maid raised her brows a trifle, but answered civilly:–

“Very well, sir.”

As he walked back and forth the Stuyvesant machine also drew up before the door and waited. He viewed it with suspicion. He could not say what he had to say in that. She must be afoot, as Sally Winthrop always was.

He was making his turn at the end of the street when she came down the steps and before he could reach her stepped into the machine.

“I have several little things to do after we’ve had our walk,” she explained to Don, as he came up.

She made room for him by her side. Because he did not wish to argue before the chauffeur, he took his allotted place; but he himself gave the order to the driver:–

“Central Park.”

Then he turned to her.

“When we get there we must get out and walk.”

“Very well, Don,” she submitted; “but I think we’d be much more comfortable right here.”

She regarded him anxiously.

“Is anything worrying you, Don?”

“Only you,” he answered.

“I?” she exclaimed. “If it’s because of Jimmy Schuyler, you needn’t worry any more. He was very nice at first, but later–well, he was too nice. You see, he forgot I was engaged.”

“The little cad!” exclaimed Don.

“You mustn’t blame him too much. He just forgot. And now he is very attentive to Dolly.”

“She allows it?”

“I think she rather likes him. She has invited him up to camp. And, Don, dear, she wants you to come too. It would be very nice if we could all go. Can’t you manage it?”

“It doesn’t appeal to me just now,” he answered.

The machine had swung into the park. He ordered the chauffeur to stop.

“Come,” he said to Frances.

He found the path from the drive where the children played, and he found the bench where he had sat with Sally Winthrop. Then all she had told him came back to him, as it had in the dairy lunch.

“It’s about the other plans I want to tell you out here,” he began eagerly.

“Yes, Don.”

“I’ve done a lot of work while you were away,” he said proudly.

“It seems a pity it was necessary,” she answered.

“It’s been the best thing that ever happened to me,” he corrected her. “It has made me see straight about a lot of things. And it’s helped me to make good in the office.”

She looked puzzled.

“You mean you’ve been made a partner or something?”

“Hardly that–yet,” he smiled. “But it’s pretty sure I’ll be put to selling when I come back.”

“You’re going away?”

“I’m on my vacation,” he explained. “This is the first day of my vacation.”

“Oh, then you can come with us?”

“I’d rather you came with me.”

“With you, Don? But where?”

“Anywhere you wish, as long as we go together and alone. Only we must get back in two weeks.”

“Don, dear!”

“I mean it,” he went on earnestly. “I want to marry you to-morrow or next day. Your trunks are all packed, and you needn’t unpack them. We’ll spend all the time we can spare in the mountains, and then come back–to the house. It’s all ready for you, Frances. It’s waiting for you.”

She stared about in fear lest some one might be overhearing his rambling talk.

“Don,” she gasped.

“Nora has cleaned every room,” he ran on, “and I’ve saved a hundred dollars for the trip. And Farnsworth is going to give me a raise before December. He hasn’t promised it, but I know he’ll do it, because I’m going to make good. You and I together will make good.”

She did not answer. She could not. She was left quite paralyzed. He was leaning forward expectantly.

“You’ll come with me?”

It was a full minute before she could answer. Then she said:–

“It’s so impossible, Don.”

“Impossible?”

“One doesn’t–doesn’t get married that way!”

“What does it matter how one gets married?” he answered.

“What would people say?”

“I don’t care what they’d say.”

“You mustn’t get like that, Don, dear,” she chided him. “Why, that’s being an anarchist or something, isn’t it?”

“It’s just being yourself, little girl,” he explained more gently. “The trouble with us is, we’ve thought too much about other people and–other things. It’s certain that after we’re married people aren’t going to worry much about us, so why should we let them worry us before that? No, it’s all our own affair. As for the salary part of it, we’ve been wrong about that, too. We don’t need so much as we thought we did. Why, do you know you can get a good lunch downtown for fifteen cents? It’s a fact. You can get an egg sandwich, a chocolate éclair, and a cup of coffee for that. I know the place. And I’ve figured that, with the house all furnished us, we can live easy on twenty-five a week until I get more. You don’t need your ten thousand a year. It’s a fact, Frances.”

She did not answer, because she did not quite know what he was talking about. Yet, her blood was running faster. There was a new light in his eyes–a new quality in his voice that thrilled her. She had never heard a man talk like this before.

“You’ll have to trust me to prove all those things,” he was running on. “You’ll have to trust me, because I’ve learned a lot this summer. I’ve learned a lot about you that you don’t know yourself yet. So what I want you to do is just to take my hand and follow. Can you do that?”

At that moment it seemed that she could. On the voyage home she had sat much on the deck alone and looked at the stars, and there had been many moments when she felt exactly as she felt now. Thinking of him and looking at the stars, nothing else had seemed to matter but just the two of them.

There had been a child on board who had taken a great fancy to her–a child about the age of one that was now running about the grass under the watchful eyes of a nurse. His name was Peter, and she and Peter used to play tag together. One afternoon when he was very tired he had crept into her arms, and she had carried him to her steamer-chair and wrapped him in her steamer-rug and held him while he slept. Then she had felt exactly as when she looked at the stars. All the things that ordinarily counted with her did not at that moment count at all. She had kissed the little head lying on her bosom and had thought of Don–her heart pounding as it pounded now.

“Oh, Don,” she exclaimed, “it’s only people in stories who do that way!”

“It’s the way we can do–if you will.”

“There’s Dad,” she reminded him.

“He let you become engaged, didn’t he?”

“Yes; but–you don’t know him as well as I.”

“I’ll put it up to him to-day, if you’ll let me. Honest, I don’t think it’s as much his affair as ours, but I’ll give him a chance. Shall I?”

She reached for his hand and pressed it.

“I’ll give him a chance, but I can’t wait. We haven’t time to bother with a wedding–do you mind that?”

“No, Don.”

“Then, if he doesn’t object–it’s to-morrow or next day?”

“You–you take away my breath,” she answered.

“And if he does object?”

“Don’t let’s think of that–now,” she said. “Let’s walk a little–in the park. It’s wonderful out here, Don.”

Yes, it was wonderful out there–how wonderful he knew better than she. She had not had his advantages. She had not had Sally Winthrop to point out the wonders and make a man feel them. Of course, it was not the place itself–not the little paths, the trees, or even the big, bright sky that Frances meant or he meant. It was the sense of individuality one got here: the feeling of something within bigger than anything without. It was this that permitted Sally Winthrop to walk here with her head as high as if she were a princess. It was this that made him, by her side, feel almost like a prince. And now Frances was beginning to sense it. Don felt his heart quicken.