Joan and Co.

Joan obeyed the message she had received at the office from Devons to the extent of going back home and waiting there two hours for him. She spent most of this time in her room within arm’s reach of the telephone, expecting every second the jangling bell to summon her. But the thing remained silent—ominously silent. Then, unable to control herself further, she ventured to ring up the office. It was Miss Manning who answered with the businesslike announcement, “The Devons Manufacturing Company.”

“Has Mr. Devons come in yet?”

“No,” was the curt reply. “Do you wish to leave any message?”

“I think not,” replied Joan.

She replaced the receiver on its hook with a snap.

It was foolish of her to be irritated. For the last few days she had struggled with a correspondence that had served her fair notice that it was getting beyond her mediocre ability. Down deep in her heart she had anticipated the necessity of turning over part of the work to more experienced hands. But not the whole of it. An assistant was the most she had contemplated. And now Devons had ordered her home like a discharged clerk and without consultation had filled her place. She was entitled, at least, to the customary two weeks’ notice. She felt humiliated. She had been trying very, very hard to make good—harder than Mark Devons suspected. As the first really serious undertaking of her life, she had felt as though her success or failure were in the nature of a test.

Going back to the beginning she had some reason to feel proud. It had all been new to her! He should remember that. Until she entered the office of the Devons Manufacturing Company she had never been inside a business office. The financial world had been as vague as the Government world designated by the initials U.S.A. on mail pouches and uniforms. It existed she knew, and she had once taken a course in civil government so that she was not wholly ignorant, but it went on year after year without in any way involving her. In the same way men and women went downtown to their various tasks in the morning without in any way interfering with her private life.

Suddenly she had joined those who went downtown in the morning and had done her level best to learn what they did and to fulfill her own little function among them. She had done this joyously, proudly, and little by little with more experience, and always with the feeling that the man in the long linen duster spattered with acid holes was fully appreciative of her efforts.

To be sure, he did not say very much. That was not his way. He attended to his business and left her to attend to hers. That was how he could praise her best. He turned over to her absolutely the responsibility of the books and the typewriting. And sometimes he glanced up and smiled as though in encouragement.

Here in her room she felt her cheeks crimson at the memory of his eyes upon her. It was as though he said at such times, “Well done, partner.”

Of course, there was nothing personal about their relations. That is, she was quite sure there was nothing personal. She tried, at any rate, to keep that quite strongly in mind. Perhaps at this moment it was more necessary than ever. But she wondered if he was not going to miss her out of the office as—well, as she had to admit she was missing him. This subject of personal relationships was a broad one and, of course, in their case it did differ somewhat from the usual employer and employee type. He had been here in her house, for one thing, and she had seen him as a man first rather than as an employer. He had been just Mark Devons for several weeks before he became president of the Devons Manufacturing Company. It was she who had helped him to the latter position—she and Dicky.

For a moment her thoughts switched off to Dicky. She had not heard from him for a week or more—not since in her last letter to him in the South she had informed him that she was too busy to reply at length to his letters. She wished, almost, he were back in town. She would rather like to see him. And yet if he learned of her discharge he might laugh. Her brows came together and unceremoniously and altogether unjustly she proceeded to thrust him out of her mind.

After all, she was assuming too much about her present position and Miss Manning, considering that she had not all the facts. It was as if to emphasize this conclusion that at this instant the telephone rang. Yet it was neither Miss Manning nor Mark Devons who called for her. It was a strange voice.

“This is Miss Fairburne?” he inquired.

She answered almost as curtly as Miss Manning herself might have done.

“Yes.”

“I rang up the office for you and was told I would find you at home.”

“Yes?”

“I won’t give you my name because it wouldn’t mean anything to you. But I’m a newspaper man.”

She waited. She associated newspaper men with scandals and tragedies.

“I just wanted to tell you that if any one tries to use unfairly a story I wrote about you—”

“A what?” she gasped.

“Something I wrote for the Sunday paper. If any one tries to put anything over with it, just tell ’em you’ve talked with me and that it won’t go.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“You needn’t understand anything more than that. How long you been away from the office?”

“All the morning,” she answered.

“Then if I were you I’d get back there. And, remember, just say the man who wrote the yarn is going to kill it.”

“Please,” she trembled, “can’t you tell me more?”

“That’s enough. Get back. You’re too good a sport to hurt.”

“But—”

“Good luck.”

With that the receiver was hung up.

When Joan swung open the office door and stepped in, it was like a scene from a melodrama. Devons and Forsythe, both pale and evidently very much excited, were facing each other. They were as tense and alert as two wild animals about to spring at each other’s throats. Unconsciously Joan looked about for Miss Manning, as though seeking support. She was not there. The two men were alone. They both swung toward the door in challenge of the intruder. Then quickly Devons strode forward.

“Joan!” he exclaimed, “what brought you down here?”

“You were to telephone me and you didn’t,” she answered.

“I know, but—in an hour. You’ll go back to the house now?”

“I think I’d rather wait here,” she decided.

“You mustn’t. This man”—he spoke as though he meant “this thing”—“I must see him alone.”

“Why alone?”

“He has some business—some very confidential business with me.” He took her arm as though to escort her out.

But she resisted.

“If it’s business, haven’t I a right to be consulted?” she asked. She turned to Forsythe. “Mr. Devons and I are partners,” she explained.

“So I understand,” he nodded.

“So you see what concerns him also concerns me.”

She closed the door behind her and moved to the center of the room. In a silent appeal Devons lifted his eyes to Forsythe. What the latter saw gave him a sense of advantage. If he, too, had at first resented the interruption, he now saw it in a different light. Speaking directly to Devons he said:

“We had nearly finished, had we not? There was some unfortunate delay about the check, but surely you will trust me until to-morrow. In the meanwhile, if you will sign the contract it will enable me to leave at once.”

The last few words were what Devons snatched at. Forsythe would leave at once if the contract was signed. At the moment any price seemed small if it would clear the room of the man. Standing there with his eyes upon Joan, he magnified a hundredfold the hideousness of what Forsythe had just threatened. It was as though the latter in his own person represented that American public who would feast with ghoulish eyes upon those pictures of her in the Sunday paper. The evil smile about the man’s coarse lips would, if he did not act now, be multiplied soon into a hundred thousand such smiles. He would have struck Forsythe down at this moment would it have done any good. But if he killed him he would be extinguishing only one of those smiles—only one out of thousands. Worse—it would only add further point to the story. It would seem to justify it and give it an importance that would send it speeding over the whole wide world. He must keep himself very steady.

“Let me have the paper,” said Devons.

Eagerly Forsythe drew it from an inside pocket and handed it over. At the same moment he produced a fountain pen and unscrewed the cap.

“Miss Fairburne will serve as witness,” he suggested.

“Certainly,” she agreed. “Of course I may read the paper first.”

Before Devons was aware of her intention she took it from his nervous fingers and stepped a little away. He followed with an exclamation:

“It isn’t necessary for you to read it.”

She held it behind her back, meeting his eyes steadily.

“I’m quite sure it is. Dad has often told me never to sign a paper without first reading it.”

“But you are to be only a witness.”

“To what?”

Devons turned back again to Forsythe.

“It’s merely a contract for a sale of the business,” he tried to assure her. “Mr. Devons appreciates the fact that a larger organization is in a better position to handle—”

But without listening further she broke in:

“Sale? You are selling the business, Mark Devons?”

“It—it seemed the best thing to do.”

“You are selling—our business?” she repeated.

“If you understood!” he exclaimed.

“I think I’m beginning to understand,” she returned. “But it doesn’t seem fair to make me fumble around in the dark.”

“It’s a simple business proposition,” broke in Forsythe.

“I wonder,” she replied. She turned away from him. “You said nothing of this yesterday, Mark.”

“No.”

“Then your decision came suddenly?”

It was Forsythe, whose mind seemed to be working more nimbly than Devons’s, who supplied the answer.

“Only because the offer came suddenly,” he said. “It’s one of those things where quick action is necessary.”

But she in her reply ignored Forsythe entirely.

“Tell me a little more about it,” she pleaded.

“He—he made me a cash offer and I accepted it,” he answered. “That’s all there is to it except that the sooner I sign the contract, the sooner we are rid of him.”

“How much was his offer?” she asked.

Devons hesitated, but there was no escaping from her eyes.

“Twenty-five thousand,” he answered slowly.

“But that’s absurd!” she exclaimed.

“There were other considerations,” put in Forsythe hurriedly.

Devons started. He turned toward Forsythe with clenched fists.

“And these were?” inquired Joan.

“I find myself in a position to do him a certain service.”

“It must be a very valuable service, indeed.”

“I think he will agree with me that it is,” returned Forsythe.

“You will tell me what that is, Mark?” she asked.

“No, no—I can’t.”

“Then you will, Mr. Forsythe.”

“If you do,” breathed Devons, “so help me God—”

Joan placed her hand upon Devons’s arm.

“Steady,” she warned. “I think I know already a good deal about it. You are both referring to a newspaper article—”

“Then he has told you?” demanded Devons.

“Mr. Forsythe? No. I learned about it—quite by chance. But now I demand to be allowed to see it.”

“Impossible!” gasped Devons.

“I demand it as my right,” she repeated steadily.

Forsythe smiled again—viciously, cynically.

“It might save us from further delay, Devons,” he said.

“Joan,” pleaded Devons, “don’t ask to see it.”

“It is my right.”

She was magnificent. More than ever now she looked like a princess. Her head was up and her clear eyes challenged the world. Her lips, like those of a child, were firm like those of a woman. But just because of this it was necessary for him to stand firm by her side and save her from hurt.

“If you will let me sign,” he urged, “then I can tear up the other. So it will be as though it had never been.”

“It will never be like that until I have seen it,” she answered. She held her hand toward Devons. “Let us have it over with,” she said.

It was like an order. It was like an order from the throne. It was as though he were deprived of all further choice in the matter. It was her affair now—not his. She demanded as her right and he dared not refuse. The moment she learned of the existence of this manuscript it became hers—like a letter that has been mailed. And yet he would have gone back to the day when he had stumbled out of Arkwright’s room hungry and alone, to have warded off the blow. He would have wiped her out of his life as though she had never been, to have saved her from this. As much as she meant to him now—as much as the future meant to him—he would have done that.

“I am waiting.”

It was her voice again. He drew the photographs and typewritten manuscript from his pocket.

“Some day,” he said,—“some day I’ll make the men who did this suffer.”

She took the packet from him and opened it. Forsythe, his eyes squinting, watched her. He saw the color spring to the girl’s cheeks; saw her breath come faster; saw her, as he thought, cringe. And yet her fingers remained steady. He did not like that. When she finished, she raised her eyes first to him—then to Devons who had half turned away from her.

“This is all of it?” she asked.

“Good Lord! Isn’t that enough?” choked Devons.

“It’s sort of a silly thing,” she said.

Devons snatched it from her fingers. He tore it across and then into little bits.

“Now let me have the contract,” he ordered. “I want to get this done with.”

“That was only a copy,” Forsythe reminded him.

“I have your word that the original will be destroyed, too?”

“I will do my best.”

“Then—” began Devons, reaching again for the contract she still held in her hand.

She moved a little back and, as he had torn the manuscript, tore the contract—once across and then into little bits. She did it quite unemotionally and facing the two men. Forsythe was the first to recover. He stepped toward her.

“You did that in ignorance—just plain fool ignorance,” he growled. “It will cost you big.”

“I doubt it,” she answered. “But if it’s necessary to pay, I will pay, Mr. Forsythe.”

“You mustn’t listen to her,” cut in Devons. “She—she doesn’t know. This is between you and me, Forsythe. You will make out another contract and I’ll sign it.”

“If you do I shall consult my father’s lawyer,” she answered. “Surely I must have some interest in the business. If so my signature is necessary, too. Remember we are partners, Mark.”

“You have partnership papers?” demanded Forsythe, paling a little.

“That is our affair,” she replied.

“If true, it would add interest to the news story,” suggested Forsythe.

The phrase served its purpose in arousing Devons once more.

“We have no agreement in writing,” he answered.

“Then,” smiled Forsythe, recovering some of his former assurance,—“then I don’t see why we can’t finish our business without the help of Miss Fairburne. I can write out a little memorandum that will serve until we replace the formal contract which the young lady destroyed.”

He stepped to the desk in the corner—her desk. Devons followed.

“Mark,” she called.

He turned.

“You are letting him make a great deal out of nothing,” she said. “I do not see that any great harm would be done if the story were printed. I don’t like to allow him to think I stand in fear of any such trifle. But—it won’t be printed.”

“What!” exclaimed Devons.

“Before I came down here I had a telephone from the man who wrote the article. He promised that if any attempt were made to use it unjustly he would tear it up himself.”

Forsythe struggled to his feet. “I don’t believe you,” he choked.

Devons made for him with a lunging blow. But before he could follow it with a second, Joan had reached him.

“He isn’t worth it,” she pleaded.

Devons held himself with difficulty. Joan turned to Forsythe. “Perhaps you had better leave at once,” she suggested.

“It isn’t true,” repeated Forsythe. “You’ll make a mistake if you believe her, Devons.”

But at the same moment he began to edge toward the door. As he reached it he paused.

“It’s your last chance,” he trembled.

“Not his but yours,” she answered. “I—I can’t hold him much longer.”

Then Devons made for him once again and Forsythe disappeared.