West of Fifth

CHAPTER FIVE

Row after row of sedate brownstone houses met Blake in his part of Brooklyn and stolidly followed his homecoming. There was no shaking them off. When he left one behind, a similar house rose beside it. In summer a few hotels before whose doors lines of taxis churned, along whose tops roof gardens sparkled in the sky, sent a thin trill of vivacity through the surrounding section; in winter even the hotels were quiet. He chose his own home by number instead of by recognition and, noting his baby carriage behind the stairs, he knew that he had made no mistake. All the circumstances of his daily return: the evidence of the child; the bell ticking eagerly to his ring; the door opening to his footsteps; the shaft of light in its angle, ready to embrace—all these details, a source of cheer and comfort perhaps to his neighbor returning like himself, he never failed to find oppressive. He just brushed his wife's cheek, so softly extended, and went by.

Edith spoke of the weather, carefully circling his defection from dinner. They never quarreled. She was determined that he should have no fault to find with her, not realizing that, with a person one should love and doesn't, the very lack of faults is in itself the most alienating fault.

She hung up the coat he had thrown over a chair. There was nothing more to do in the kitchen so she sat down near him. She was tall, graceful, had always carried herself with dignity, and a strain, a weariness about her, the first hint of the erosion of her daily life, could not destroy the perfect balance of her features, the peculiar charming shade of her red hair, firmly coiled. All her gestures remained calm. When she wheeled the baby carriage, thinking—thinking of Blake and of their child and of herself—people would take her for a nice-looking young matron, a little pale perhaps, a little tired from household duties.

"I guess I'll lie down," said Blake. "Will you leave some coffee for me?"

He preferred to work from midnight to dawn, then to sleep till afternoon, a schedule to which his wife had adapted herself with distinct doubts of its irregularity. Especially now, since the birth of the baby, she found the custom trying. But she would not say much. Only...

"Is Jerry coming again?"

"No. He can't work without a piano."

She looked relieved. Jerry was to write the music for the play, and when he and Blake collaborated, clicking a typewriter and humming portions of songs, the baby stirred, Edith was afraid the neighbors might complain. Someone had already spoken to the janitor about the noise of the typewriter in the small hours. She mentioned this to Blake without comment.

He glanced up quickly. "I could work in Jerry's room," he said, "I'll have to anyhow, once in a while. He can't do much here because there is no piano."

"Where would Jerry sleep then?"

"Oh, well..." He did not feel that he cared to explain the various ways in which Jerry whiled away his nights.

"It won't be very pleasant for me, to be alone," said Edith softly.

"Well, we don't have to work together yet. I thought, if you had rather..."

"No. Only—the baby—but I think he's grown used to it."

Blake said no more.

It was this indifference, an impenetrable neutrality of action, word, expression, that defeated her time after tune as the smooth back of a duck defeats drops of water. With a man who ignored the past and would not glance at the future, she found fewer and fewer loopholes to evoke past tendernesses, to envisage future plans. She watched him from under her lids. He sat on the couch, turning the sheets of a newspaper and, though he uttered no word, it was apparent that he waited for her to relinquish him so that he could go to sleep. He sat there, sober, thin-faced, with his mouth in a tight line. Of late he held his mouth in a glummer, closer line than ever and spoke as if it were a trouble to open it.

She observed—but it was so impossible to feel, to know what he thought. The effort to concentrate and seize his mind behind the pale, high temples only drained her own mind of every idea, of every hope, and left her dry, her body taut, and within her, her nerves, the muscles of her heart fluttering in a disordered measure, frightening, unrestrainable. She made a grimace, attempting to control them, concluding, as she always did, that she had been weakened by the birth of the child. She was not able to rise just yet.

To justify her presence she asked with a certain timidity, though it was such a natural question from a wife to a husband, "Are you worried over anything?"

A fresh line cut itself between his brows. He shook his head.

But this gesture was not colorless as usual; there was a distinctness to it, a harshness, that seemed to her to offer a clue. "Would it be about money?"

"Do you need any money?" he said briefly.

"I shall soon."

Now he pondered above the paper, studying the wall and keeping very quiet. This silence cut her to the heart. In the past she had perhaps laid too much emphasis on his pursuit of an alien will-o'-the-wisp, on the snapping of those moorings which she could see no sensible reason to loosen. She was sorry for that, even if she still saw no reason and still longed for the moorings. In spite of herself, she often tried to impress upon him subtly the harassment of their present life in contrast to their old life, hoping the difference would become as clear to him as it was to her, certain that once it was clear it would also be abhorrent. At the same time she could not bear to see him thus struggling with his eyes on the opposite wall. And at the same time it was true that she would soon need money, and it was Blake she had to look to for its provision.

"I'll have to ask Fred," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "He ought to have some ready for me now."

"I can't see why he doesn't pay you regularly," ventured Edith.

"Oh, it's the way they do things. The acts don't always pay regularly. It's show business." He emphasized the last words by a sneer and Edith glanced at him with a sudden, swift hope.

"Blake," she said, "I have a letter from your mother. Wouldn't you like to go back home for a short visit and look around? Perhaps you would like it so much better now." In her eagerness, she was leaning over and looking wistfully into his eyes.

He withdrew them. "No!" he said.

"It wouldn't be giving up. It would be just a visit."

"No."

But they were talking now, they were discussing their common life, and even negation was more cheerful than a return to silence.

"You know I'm not so well, Blake," she went on gently. "It's my heart."

He could not help a pale smile behind the paper. He looked to see whether she, too, had noticed. But no, she was entirely unaware, entirely serious, as she continued, "Having the child has strained my heart, the doctor says."

Now he looked her straight in the eye. "Whose fault was that?" his eyes challenged her, and, flushing, she would not lower hers and answered them with pride.

"Well?" he said.

"The rest would do me good."

He rustled a sheet of his paper while she waited. She had some moments to imagine the elation with which she would return home, the relief at having removed him, at least for a while, from this environment which had so changed him, so that his next words struck her with twice the force of surprise.

"Well, why don't you go, then?" he said quietly. "I guess I can raise the fare, if that worries you."

She was speechless. She stared at him, searching his immobility with a last intense and useless effort, like a searchlight attempting to probe a stone wall. Every line of his face was obvious to her; she saw the tight-shut lips, the pale brows drawn together, the cheeks too thin for their squareness, and a light lock of hair falling over the temples, and that was all. For a second his neutrality had vanished; a rift had appeared in the wall, offering a glimpse of what lay behind it, and had closed in that second, too swiftly for her to see. Why had she not been alert? Now, search as she would, scan every detail of his expression, no trace remained of where the rift lay, much less of why it lay there, if it did. She rose at last. At the door she paused, trying to get less than an idea, merely a hint of some idea.

"Would it relieve you," she asked, "if I went home for a time?"

"What do you think?"

She went into the kitchen and set about making fresh coffee with many small busy movements, so as not to think at present. When she looked into the room again the light had been put out and she could not see his face where he lay on the couch. But she thought that he slept.

CHAPTER SIX

Not till the plant has forged through the ground can we see that the seed was fertile and events ripe for its blossoming. Thus, too, our lives are made up of accidents, chance seeds of the residue Nature provides against barrenness, blown by the wind of every-day, taking no root in our existence; and of coincidences which are accidents that find the soil receptive and come to fruition. Without specific design on Blake's part, the conjunction of a certain mood of his and certain words of Edith's had caused to happen that which he and Grace had so much desired. Edith had withdrawn voluntarily. She went home on what she thought was a long visit. Blake had merely now to keep her there, which was simpler.

The sunshine of the noons to which Blake opened his eyes that summer stroked his lids with a special zest. He had divested himself of the apartment in Brooklyn and gone to live with Jerry. From the first moment of waking he felt the hum of the street outside, a midtown Manhattan street that repeated like a second, fainter chorus the shining song of Fifth Avenue, mingled with the troubled, grimier notes of Sixth, where men stood with eyes glued to employment lists, where the El roared and small shops jostled each other and clamored. Blake's bed was soft and wide. It was part of the bedroom suite brought from St. Louis via Brooklyn, and in the midst of the dark blue hush of a semi-sacred parlor set which Edith had once chosen with such care, Jerry sprawled, his clothes neatly folded and himself sunk in a red, torpid slumber.

Their place and the house itself had the quietude of sleep, in spite of the sunshine, the sound of wheels sizzling up the black, hot street, the hoots of cars and a light zigzag of some work far off that rose, that ebbed, that never ceased. Negro maids were treading the carpeted stairs, clicking keys in doors closed upon a similar silence, and outside the black porter applied luster to the banisters with a languid hand.

When the telephone buzzed Blake dragged it into bed with him by its cord and spoke sleepily to Grace. "Hello," he said, and "Yes," he said with a yawn, "I'm just getting up." A more distinct effort of gallantry greeted the next call. Nearly every day this female voice, which had phoned to ask about one of his vaudeville playlets, continued to pursue him with semi-mysterious and flattering banter.

"Who'z'at?" called Jerry drowsily from the living room. He made his entrance, rumpled, opening and shutting gelid lids to the motes of sunshine, as if in a sort of exercise, and in his brief glimpses expressing disapproval of the tossed state of the room. In contrast with his genial disposition and life of easy concurrence, Jerry was a stickler for the tidiness of material objects. He picked up things; he straightened things; ashes on the carpet turned his face wry as much as a false note or a piano out of tune. "Who'z'at?" he said, and sitting down on the bed, "I got to cut this out."

"No one for you. You want to train your lady friends not to call you at 3 A.M. There was some girl ringing this phone every half hour from three to five."

"Same girl? Mm. Musta been Madalynne. You got yours trained, haven't you?" said Jerry sadly.

In leisurely fashion, Blake's day unwound ahead of him. He walked up his street which pleased him with its width, the houses having long ago been built back so that they, too, seemed to have leisure. On Sixth Avenue he passed the groups of men who stood before the employment bulletins, their hands hanging loose, their mouths dully open, peering at each letter and still irresolute whether to enter or leave, as if they knew that, no matter which action they chose, it would come to the same thing in the end. The air, brilliant with heat, picked out each spot of wear, each harsh line, awkward bones, and coarse hands, weaving in and out and about the groups in a nimble grotesquerie of light and more light and in final, swift rays not ignoring the stocky ankles of women, the cheap glazed fibers of a stocking, a smudge of a face, dingy, blemished, under the inquiring eye of the sun. Blake moved around them. Turning the corner, he went by the Friars' Club. Here was another knot of men loath to leave the sunshine that stroked their sleek shoulders and polished boots and tinged full cheeks and fleshy cheeks. Blake sent a cool glance through this group. He knew some of the men by sight.

When he reached the restaurant on Broadway he opened his mail and lost some of his tranquillity. He had a letter from his wife, three pages of small, even words, upon which a few bulbs, burning high in the chandelier even at noon, cast a weird, too-naked light. It was as if this room could not exist without some promise of the glittering night. Its chandeliers were gilded and its walls were adorned wherever possible with the same grimy gilt. The raucous blonde hair of his waitress remonstrated harshly with long, dusty rays of sunlight creeping in—and so did her gold teeth.

He wished to tear the letter up but there was no place to throw the pieces, so with a frown he restored it to his pocket. He had formed the habit of sending his wife money with merely a line of enclosure, but her small, even words continued to groove a path to reach him, each word wearing as a drop of water, each containing a minute part of the energy of its sender, and each to be evaded by the intangible negation of its recipient.

Afterward Blake went to the theater where his show was to be rehearsed. At the press agent's suggestion they had sent out a call for chorus girls with long hair. Blake found a few reporters; Jerry, with his coat off, haranguing the orchestra which he was to conduct; and the bare lines of the stage, its bare steps, even its bare floor, hidden by the soft bodies, the pale arms, long legs, the bright clothes of girls. Most of them had taken off their hats, and a few had even loosened their hair, spreading triumphant, delicate fans of gold and auburn, of dusk and chestnut about them.

The press agent was counting the long-haired ones. He returned in disgust.

"This is Mother's Day in the Old Ladies' Home," he said. "Not a long-haired dame under forty, I swear."

"There's a little blonde over there," suggested a reporter.

"Yeh—go look at her close and you'll find she has a grandchild. If you can pick anything out of this lot——"

The producer lowered himself into a front-row seat, resting a short arm on either side and his jowls on his chest. The director, on the other hand, was a tiny, gnarled person who wiped the back of his neck with a bandanna and cursed legs and girls. The theater was choked with heat. The girls said, "Whew!" and waved bits of handkerchiefs and rubbed and powdered their noses without respite.

"Now, you girls stand up and come to the center of the stage. No. Not all at once. Say, you Bill, you get them into line. A dozen at a time, Bill. Goddamn this heat. Goddamn everything above two inches."

Some of the girls thought fit to smile. Others held grave faces and looked loftily up to the dome of the theater. Others drew themselves up in the line, took a dancing pose, gyrated slowly round like models. And each dozen, clad in varying plumage—in summer silk that clung to hips and breasts, in organdy with great, crisp hats, in practice bloomers that exposed pink flesh, dimples, the slim bones of ankles in businesslike nakedness, leaving the girls as pathetically unhidden as long, plucked fowls—each dozen moved with sealed faces, with indifferent faces, with open giggles before the lidded eyes of the producer and the sneering inspection of the director, before Blake to whom they all looked flawed for his show, who was disappointed in all of them, before Jerry who was touched by each pretty face, before the reporters who were pleased to be in the presence of so many chorus girls.

"Here, you with the Dutch cut—no, not you—that girl there." A girl seemed startled, said, "Me?" and stepped to one side. "You with the blue bloomers. Yeh. That one. And that one. Step back you with the hair and let me see the others. Yes, I mean you. Goddamn it, dear, will you step back?"

The producer whispered to the director.

"That little girl with the curls, didn't I see you around the Savoy in London?"

The others cast sharp looks from her to the men. "Why, I've been to England," said the girl haughtily.

Someone snickered.

"Just stop that noise, now, just stop that noise," shouted the director. "Whaddye think this is, a tea party? You girls, what are you waiting for? If your names haven't been taken, go on home. Go on. Get them out, Bill."

A girl called, "You haven't even looked at us."

"Oh, I haven't looked at you, haven't I? All right, step forward, I'll look at you now."

She stepped forward hardily, pirouetted, kicked out and would have continued.

"That's all right," snapped the director. "You don't have to go into your dance for us. We know you're a Pavlowa. But I'll say that for you, dear," he added, "you're worth looking at. Take her name, Bill. Any others we haven't looked at? Come on. Step forward or go home."

Those who had not been chosen lingered about the stage. The youth named Bill, his collar open at the throat, a pad in his hand, dispersed group after group into receding fragments, only to have them congeal again, murmuring, with eyes on the men who had not yet gone, opposing to his hoarse shouts the massed immobility of their hope. Drive them as he would, they moved forward, they moved back, unheeding, passive, according to some pattern of their own instinct.

"Only two in the bunch with long hair," said the press agent to the reporters. "That's a hot one for you."

"These babies look all right, but can they sing and dance? That's what I'd like to know," said the director. "Bill, tell 'em to come here same time to-morrow. Hey, you, all of you whose names we got, same time to-morrow. And no use any of you others coming—hear me?—no use!"

He added pessimistically, "Better send out a call for another batch."

When Blake turned the corner of his street again the retreating sun had strewn the sky with minute pink clouds, crisping one within the other like rose petals across one side of heaven. Lucent the air lay over the brownstone houses and bright summer awnings of tea rooms and over the bodies of limousines before the smooth shop windows. And in his house, where the windows were open, the light swam over Grace's pure skin as in another ether, in tiny bounding motes of light and shade. There was a mote on her nose and one that fled along her cheek and he kissed these, searching them out to the reward of her deep amusement. They made a circuit of the room in an embrace exaggerated so as not to come within the terms of sentimentality, an improbable embrace, a travesty on embraces, which yet could not conceal the force and persistence of their arms about each other, their utter absorption in each other, as, like great actors immersed in their parts, they set up a dais for themselves and swept below, aside, the audience of Jerry and his exuberant Madalynne.

Madalynne was a girl with a superfluity of everything—of flesh, of hair, of clothes, of complexion, of voice, and of the love which she lavished on Jerry. Even her name was over-spelt. With Grace she had felt it necessary to adopt a superfluity of dignity, matching, she thought, Grace's own, but in the presence of this embrace she felt that the barriers had been let down. She cast herself on Jerry's bosom, exuding baby talk at every pore.

Grace and Blake laughed into each other's eyes with a mute laughter, with a derisive understanding. "The perfect hot momma," murmured Grace, and aloud, taking pity on Jerry, she said to him, "Does Blake's mysterious lady still call every day?"

"Does he tell you that?" said Jerry. He freed himself by a number of shakes and pats, good-natured and indifferent, much as one does with an over-fond dog. "I'll never understand you two."

"And you stand for it?" demanded Madalynne. "My God! How can you bear it?" she cried. "Why, if such a thing happened with Jerry I'd never rest till I settled it. And Blake, how can you act that way to your girl friend? Shame on you! Jerry wouldn't do that to Momma, would'ums? Yum-yum."

Grace quickly put her hand up to her mouth. "I want him to ask her to the opening," she said.

"So you can meet her and judge what you're up against?"

Blake could not hide a certain gratification and Grace said to him, "I can meet her without you. Dee knows a woman who knows her."

"I knew I shouldn't have told you her name."

"Always keep your girls separate," declared Jerry solemnly. "Take it from me——"

"What! What girls are you keeping separate, Jerry Barker?"

"Not a one, hon. Honest-to-God, dear. I'm just advising Blake. You're the only girl for me."

"That's what you say. But I'd like to know about this. How come you know so much about keeping girls separate? I tell you I won't stand for any of that. I don't like the idea of girls being free to chase in and out of this place—I don't mean you, Grace. You tell Momma, Jerry, you 'fess up, you naughty boy, what've you been up to?"

"I swear to you, hon, I've had enough of—I mean—I've got you and that's enough for me."

"Jerry lov'ums his momma?"

"Absolutely, hon."

Outside, Grace remarked, "Does she really think Jerry'll marry her? She told me he promised her a diamond ring if the show went over."

"She can think what she likes," said Blake. "So he promised her a diamond ring?" He smiled sardonically. "The more fool he. He's got his hands full."

Grace sent him a strange, fleeting look. How men did resent a woman who concluded that the most heart-easing satisfaction she was likely to obtain from a man was money or its equivalent! Was it because she was a proof, which even they could not overlook, of the insufficiency of their own irresistible charms?

However, she kept quiet.

CHAPTER SEVEN

On the night Blake's play opened, as she entered the theater, the first person Anita saw was Grace. She stood at the head of the center aisle, within a little group of which she was acting as heart and core. To her throat, held aloof, as if beyond the reach of glances from the inflowing and anonymous crowd and almost beyond the reach of friendly nods, she was folded in a shawl of ivory silk. And her very soul had sheathed itself in silken hauteur, as she stood with eyes that wandered deeply over the lighted theater and the faces agog for pleasure, over silken shoulders and bare shoulders and shoulders black and gray jostling down the aisles and across the aisles toward pleasure. Now and then she murmured some preoccupied reply, not deigning to lower her eyes, to one of the group surrounding her.

Now and then she emerged from this group, swooped from her height with a sudden nod to an entering person, a greeting of unexpected cordiality, a fastening of her eyes upon him.

As Anita was about to approach she issued entirely from her circle and, with no move of seizure, with her arms close under the ivory shawl, she seemed to assume possession of a man just passing by, to spiritually clutch his coat-tails and bring him to a halt.

"I'm so glad—you could come, Maurice," she said with her significant pauses.

To the girl who had loosed his arm and moved ahead of him she gave no attention at the moment. However, without waiting for notice, this girl carelessly turned her face. It was fair as a spring morning. She drawled to Grace, "H'are yuh? Gettin' along?"

And she added with a derisive sweep of her hands up from her nose, "I see yuh're comin' up in the world—yup-in-the-world," and swayed down the aisle.

Imperceptibly, the group drew near Grace again and imperceptibly drew nearer, as if there was that in her shadow which separated them from the anonymous inflow. They kept close under her wing—Letty and Harold, the Lindens, who were friends of theirs, and some persons Anita did not know—staring about over the theater, mantled by her importance, individualizing themselves again as the friends of the author.

Anita attracted a vague "hello" from Grace. In spite of motions from Letty, she went on to her seat. She had not wished to come, but Grace seemed to find her lack of excitement annoying and she did not like to offend Grace. The latter had been so kind about getting her her job. She was alone. She had never been to an opening night and watched with solitary interest a hocus-pocus of ceremonial new to her.

In the first rows, among which she sat, everyone seemed to perform the ritual of knowing one another. As soon as a person reached a seat, he or she would search the surrounding faces for signs of recognition and attempt to form alliance with some portion of the scattered inner circle who were making this opening their festive and intimate occasion. All the other undifferentiated faces, tiers and tiers, on the balcony, up and down the rows, pressed heavily forward; a shower of undifferentiated chatter and laughter splashed the theater like a shower of bright raindrops. One mustn't let oneself be swamped by these other faces. And every nod, every acknowledging glance, every knowing remark was a slight thread to grasp with which to outline the boundary between those within and the other undistinguished mass without. It was as if the more nods, the more smiles they collected, the more exchanges of specialized gossip, the more assurance they gained that this boundary was defined. It was as if each nod, each smile, each familiar greeting slowly brought their individualities into shape from formlessness, like chemicals etching on seemingly blank paper inch by inch the outlines of a secret script. It was as if, in the widening scope of these nods, these smiles, these familiar greetings, they could see their individualities expand and gauge their bulk, as one may gauge the bulk of a stone by the widening ripples in the water.

In the anticipant hush after the first lights had been dimmed Grace advanced down the aisle. Blake would not sit with her. Sleek in evening clothes, he spoke quietly and did his best to suppress excitement or suspense. But his voice gave him away. He was quite hoarse. Grace was saying, "Considering that it's a musical show and there are two other openings, what can you expect? The critics would naturally choose Toreador. Maurice Lensky came anyway—that's something. And I saw Edmond Edmonds, too. Really—if you get two of the second-string critics, that's doing very well, with two—more imposing—shows opening the same night."

Blake frowned and moved away. Her eyes looked after him in some surprise, while a smile rose to her lips, and seeing Anita near her she whispered, "He hates me to say any show is more important. I never dreamed he would take this—so seriously." She passed, smiling to herself, and was followed by Diana Porter Reece with her husband and a man who, Anita noticed gratefully, also wore his every-day clothes.

"You go sit by Anita," said Diana Reece.

Somebody shushed her. The last lights went out and left this man, whose red hair was plastered every which way on his neck and forehead, fumbling at his seat. He grinned at Anita. The curtain rose.

Soon after the play had started a whisper fluttered along the row from Grace through Diana Reece and reached Anita. She saw a man proceeding down the aisle, followed by a blonde woman who dragged tennis rackets. The man took his seat first, then drew himself away so that he hung over the aisle, in order to let the woman pass. He continued to sit in this fashion. It was a colyumnist with his wife. From time to time Grace craned her neck to see whether he smiled or applauded.

The play was a neat little play, neither as lavish as most musical comedies nor quite as vapid. Blake had permitted himself the boast that there was not one scene in which the hero dreamed of chorus girls portraying anything, whether the Spirits of Bituminous Coal or the Fashions of Yesteryear. His boast was justified. The curtain fell on the mild glow of a neat little melody, "Your Kisses Are Blisses." The audience hummed it and the orchestra plugged away at it. All the people who knew each other rose and hurried to the lobby. "Come along," said Diana Reece kindly. So Anita came along, too.

The confusion of the lobby under yellow lights gradually resolved itself into groups of people, smiling, nodding, exchanging specialized gossip, asking each other how they liked the show and answering with an aplomb that would mark them for the initiate. "Well, what do you think of it?" "Not so hot, huh?" "Think it'll go?" "Why not?" "Got one good song." "And one set. It won't take 'em long to work off the nut, anyhow." "Good chorus. Not a bad idea, a specialty chorus."

"Well, how do you like it?" said Grace, coming up with warm cheeks of excitement and enormous eyes. "I don't know where Blake has disappeared. Everybody wants to see him."

"It's swell so far," declared Diana Reece. The bronze flesh of her shoulders shone above a blazing wrap.

Her husband added in his heavy, slow voice, "That's a good tune."

"'Your Kisses Are Blisses.' Yes. I think—that should be a hit."

The third man kept a solemn silence. Anita thought that he looked like the Irishmen in the comic strips, square with a wide, almost lipless mouth, a stubby nose and, yes, freckles. He had, moreover, their very expression, subtly naughty and unblinkingly solemn. Grace was looking at him, too, with a coy lift of her brows that Anita understood meant she was aware of him.

"How did you like it, Dennis?" she asked.

"O.K.," said Dennis through his nose.

Diana's laughter rippled broadly. "That's all you'll ever get out of him. Look, Grace," she said. "There's your mysterious telephone lady. There's Renie Harrington, large as life and just as permanent, if you can figure out what I mean."

They all saw Blake approaching with a little golden-haired woman, all in white, lavishing animated hands, animated eyes, and an animated, pointed face entirely on him, while his own countenance showed, in spite of itself, a pale tinge of pleasure.

"Try dynamite," advised Diana. "That may dislodge her, but, mind you, I make no promises."

Grace moved toward them at once, wrapped in her ivory shawl, cool. "I've been out—gathering opinions," she said to Blake. "Everyone is crazy about that song."

The other woman paused and, in several glances, they considered each other. She made a slight retreat. "I've just been telling Mr. Andrews how charming my husband and I think it is. And we really do know quite a bit about the theater, in spite of being amateurs. Even Mr. Andrews has heard of our little theater." Eyes, hands, lips, and the pointed chin all assisted in a crescendo of admiration, now discreetly including Grace.

Blake had no choice but to introduce them, so that they could measure each other in full politeness, reconnoitering with their eyes, with soft words, along each other's soft, self-contained faces for the exact situation. "You must all really come and see our little theater," said Mrs. Harrington. "At the Peck Settlement."

And, "Are you—coming to Blake's party after the show?" said Grace.

"If Mr. Andrews asks us," said Mrs. Harrington coquettishly. So Blake, glancing at Grace with a rueful amusement, asked her. The bell tinkled.

Again the curtain rose. This time the colyumnist's seat was empty, causing Grace's face to fall and whispers to circulate between her and Diana Reece. Only Anita and the red-haired chap remained unaffected by this discovery. Soberly, they watched the stage upon which creatures dazzling in light made no secret of a business-like exhibition of wares. Neither said a word. Each applauded conscientiously at the proper moments. At one such moment, as they caught each other's eye, Dennis became almost articulate. Pressing one half of his mouth over the other in a slow grin, like a small boy closing his lips over stolen jam, he winked. It was an expression that could not be answered by a smile; it engendered a similar grin. Anita began to laugh, feeling with surprise that she was happy for no reason.

The second closing chorus seemed brighter and the finale poured forth in an urgent volume of vari-colored melody, light, and noise, rising as high as it could or dared on the highest of high notes. The orchestra played, "Your Kisses Are Blisses." The audience rose humming, "Your Kisses Are Blisses." And out in the lobby they were selling it: "Get the music of the show—'Your Kisses Are Blisses.'"

The crowd moved slowly, unsnarled itself from the tangles at the exits, out into the summer air which no blatancy of electric lights could harden or speed. Anita had meant to slip away, but she was caught tight in a group formed by Grace, who cast her eyes everywhere, and by other people who were going to the party. Grace's eyes were somewhat shadowed. Turning to Anita, who stood nearest, she seized her arm and made a more eager effort to get out. "I'd better go home," murmured Anita, and Grace looked at her in amazement. "You won't come to the party? You're silly! You must come with me. I don't know what's happened to Blake." She was no longer remote. The outline of her face, always quick to reflect inner commotion, had hardened. It had a sudden tragic emphasis as her eyes widened, grew deep and obscure with whatever momentarily troubled thoughts engaged her. What these could be Anita did not understand, but she was caught up and swept along.

They found Blake already at his apartment, playing host to the Harringtons and to some individuals who were devoted exclusively to the cocktails. Blake strewed cheer like beams of sunshine about him. He poured drinks for people, hastening here and there almost on the balls of his feet, and patting Anita's arm, to her great surprise. Grace seemed almost as surprised, seemed at a loss. With her all-encompassing gaze, with a serene demeanour in which lurked a hint of challenge, lovely in chiffon whose rose-hued pallor was differentiated only by a shade from the glowing pallor of her skin, she moved about under the watching eyes of Renie Harrington, defining her place as hostess. Renie Harrington's dashing eyes rested on her from time to time, sensing, retreating, adjusting. Grace went to sit by her. They engaged in animated conversation. Anita, passing by, heard Grace suggest, "Let's—have a lunch date sometime, shall we?"

Shortly, the entrance of the rest of the party was heralded by Diana Reece. She had thrown off her flaming shawl. She burst upon them from the doorway in sequins that shimmered and dazzled and glittered sinuously with each step, in bracelets that clinked, in a bar pin whose diamond sparkle went clear across the room and stabbed the eyes of a youth between cocktails and reality. He had had a deal to drink, and, blinking in this brilliance composed of scintillas that flashed before his eyes unseizably in his condition, bewildered by the rays of diamonds, the shine of golden bracelets, the fleshly luxuriance of rich dark skin and a red mouth, he had one of the sudden inspirations of the inebriate. He stalked across the room to Dee and took her hand and faced the company.

"Produced by Morris Gest," he said with due solemnity. And retired amid the ensuing plaudits and seemed to vanish and was heard of no more that night.

For a time, Anita and Dennis managed to sit very cheerfully together by a window open into warm and misty air. They attracted no attention. They said almost nothing, unless a series of grins and answering grins could be considered talk. She did not even know his name. There was between them the curious unrestraint of strangers meeting with no background but that of the particular time and the particular space, and sure to part there. But when Anita saw Grace stare at them with an amused and dawning comprehension in the depths of her eyes, saw Grace advance toward them, like a mutual friend breaking in upon the unbounded sympathy of strangers, enclosing it at once within the restrictions of the social order, she felt a qualm of uneasiness and wished to retreat. Dennis, however, had now managed to drink enough to simulate articulateness. He grasped her hand in alarm, pulling her back. "Ah, no! Don't go!"

Grace took a seat and surveyed them with a slight, surprised smile, with an approving intimacy.

"What do you find to say to each other?" she demanded.

Taken unawares, they raised their eyes and looked at each other with another grin. Grace stared at Dennis, then back to Anita more fully, revolving almost distinctly, on the surface of her eyes, a new appraisal of Anita's possibilities.

"Why aren't you dancing?" she suggested. They hadn't thought of it.

"Dennis is a very good dancer," said Grace. She probed Anita's face, seeming to hint for some response to what she was arranging, which was not clear to Anita. "You ought to see him on a real dance floor." She added with many pauses and the advance and inflation of her eyes, "Why don't we—have a dancing date sometime? Dennis and you and Blake and I and Dee and one of her young men?"

"O.K.," said Dennis agreeably.

"Next week—maybe?"

"O.K.," said Dennis. "Any time you say."

"Well—I'll make the arrangements—and call you," she added, and glanced at Anita for gratitude. But Anita was flushing. It seemed to her that the shameless mechanism of Grace's plans must be as apparent to Dennis as it was to her. Grace had acted in all friendliness and she would look forward to the date—and yet some of the easiness had vanished. Her face, when she looked at Dennis thereafter, must wear a certain constraint.

It was a good party. Two policemen, called by some unaccountable neighboring spinsters in the small hours, saw at once that no one was less than conventionally clothed and no one more than conventionally drunk. They agreed in righteous indignation at the insomnia of spinsters. They said, "Why this is a nice party!" They were welcomed into it. A girl borrowed one officer's cap and club and did a dance, while they watched indulgently from the doorway. They were offered a drink and did not refuse. Blake, at the peak of goodwill toward all the world, pressed passes to his show upon them. Everyone was grateful for the seal of true abandon which they had set on the party. Everyone would be glad to tell of having been to a party which had brought police intervention. On leaving, everyone said with satisfaction, "A swell party!"

Grace was going home with Harold and Letty. She made a definite ceremony of departure for the benefit of Renie Harrington who, bolstered by her husband, sat on and glanced and sensed, an acute reminder of the exigencies of social usage. Renie Harrington's artful eyes silkily subverted the position of hostess which Grace had taken such care to indicate.

"We'll—see each other again—soon, won't we?" said Grace.

"Oh, are you going?" said Renie Harrington. And her eyes rubbed in the fact that, after all, Grace had to go. Ah, those leave-takings so often, at the end, forcing her outside!

She drew Anita apart to say good-bye.

"Is Dennis taking you home?" she inquired.

He was.

"Anita," said Grace wistfully, "he's awfully nice. We could all have such a lot of fun together if we had a place."

Her eyes were still, so still, with a velvet pathos. She looked weary and lines of strain had lengthened her cheeks above the ivory shawl. She pressed Anita's hand with a sudden clutching warmth, and had to go.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Grace's lunch date with Renie Harrington had to be postponed, for Renie explained that she seldom came to town during the summer. As soon as Grace heard of her return, therefore, she called up.

She was surprised to find herself haled to tea. Perhaps Renie had discovered that, socially, it was not so possible to remain unaware of Grace in connection with Blake. This was what Grace minded—not so much that Blake had been loath to reveal her existence to Renie Harrington, but that Renie could invite him to her country home for dinner—alone—and for week-ends—alone. Of course, Grace knew that she also could move in circles apart from Blake, but she didn't want to; it gave her a sense of stability to have the pair of them recognized as a social unit.

Renie Harrington lived on the less fashionable west side of the park. In a living room lined with books and charming trinkets, and arranged to express wealth with unusual lack of ostentation, Grace learned that her hostess spoke French and Spanish, that she knew about "incunabula," whatever they were, that she collected first editions, went to auction sales, had an acquaintance by no means naïve and worshipful, yet a bit wistful, with practitioners of the arts, and that she and her husband were wrapped up in the theater at the settlement house. Dick trained the members in acrobatic dancing and Renie helped him to choose and stage the shows. Yet she was not a "yearner," Grace thought. She was no fool and very amusing. Her hair cast a golden shadow over the sharpness of her chin and the suggestion of lines about her cherubic lips, it sent a gleam like that of a sunbeam skimming over her words, delicately shining, delicately hiding. She had many fine gestures to suit.

"Would you mind if we went to look at my child?" she said after a time. "I'm playing nurse maid this afternoon. Just think, I have three children. I'd like a fourth. But, you see, there's been a strange rivalry on that score between myself and my sister and my cousin; we were all married about the same time and whenever either of us has a child, the others feel they must have one also. After the third childbirth my cousin was left so weak that Aunt called upon Nannie and myself and said, 'Don't you think it's about time you girls stopped bearing children? You'll be the death of each other yet.' So we have ceased! Enfin!"

Grace raised her eyebrows and remarked that it was, indeed, a strange rivalry.

They were now in the nursery. "What do you think of Anne-Marie?" said Renie.

"She's a very—cunning child." Grace approached the crib on tiptoe. "I should say she looked rather like your husband."

"Doesn't she? Isn't it strange? You'll see how strange it is when I tell you the story."

Once more in the living room, she settled herself on a green couch, and though she did not steal looks to right and left, she gave that impression.

"I shouldn't tell you," she said. "If you'll promise to be as silent as the grave—well, and so this is what happened. We were in the hospital, my sister and I, at about the same time, but my little child died—and Nannie had twins! The irony of it! You can imagine how devastated I was—and there was poor Nannie with two little girls already and two more to bring up. So I had a brilliant inspiration and—in short, Nannie consented to give me one of the twins to raise as my own—and that twin is Anne-Marie!"

For an instant Grace was genuinely startled.

"Why, but everyone thinks you have three children of your own. I remember Dee Reece mentioned it—and Blake——"

"Oh," cried Renie with a little squeal, "but we haven't breathed it to a soul! No one knows except the immediate family. Remember, you mustn't tell—mustn't tell even Blake—though I suppose you tell each other everything?"

It was as if she had stroked Grace with a light velvet paw that yet left a faint, apprehensive suggestion of a sting either just administered or just to come. What she was after Grace did not yet quite understand. She was fairly sure of what Blake was up to—some little thing, some word or expression or lack of expression, the intuition which was not intuition at all but the most meticulous observation, never failed to give her a clue. But what might Renie Harrington be capable of?

"Not—necessarily," she said aloud.

"Well, of course," said Renie, retreating (she was good at retreats, Grace had noticed), "there might not be anything to tell! Blake is such a charming young man—and so able—and he has the most perfect taste, hasn't he? I had to come into town to do some shopping one day and whom should I stumble upon on Fifth Avenue but Blake! So he helped me choose scarves and sweaters and socks and shoes—and a really interesting cigarette case. See—isn't it fascinating?"

"Yes, it's pretty," said Grace, and in spite of her disquiet her lips curved demurely as she held the silk case in her hands. It happened that she herself had pointed out the case to Blake in a shop window; she felt certain that he had sent it to Renie. "The little cat!" she thought suddenly. "She's playing with me—those goofy stories! That's what she wanted me up here for."

But why should Renie bother to hide the fact that Blake had sent her a cigarette case? There was a story Grace had picked up about Renie in the course of her inquiries, a story which she now remembered. Renie had married the fiancé of her best friend while the other girl's back was turned.

"Speaking of Blake," Grace said, "you know we go about a lot to first nights—I have enough theatrical connections to get good first-night tickets without much trouble. I wondered—if you'd like to come with us some time?"

"Oh, I'd like to. I'd have to ask Dick, of course. He's being very busy just now. We're old-fashioned. We don't believe in having dates apart from each other."

"You like to keep your eyes on each other," thought Grace, and she recollected that, so far, she had never suspected Blake of having any but afternoon dates with Renie.

"Of course, I meant to include him," she said aloud.

"And you must come up to dinner here some night with Blake and we'll take you to our theater."

"That would be—lots of fun."

Grace glanced at Renie and it seemed to her that Renie had taken a swift look at her. Could it be that Dick was jealous and Renie had been reduced to using her, Grace, as a shield for her coquetries with Blake? Nothing could suit Grace better. She didn't mind the coquetries so long as she knew their limitations. She felt somewhat relieved.

She went into Renie's room to fix her hair. Renie followed, talking amiably.

"How nice that you've never cut your hair," she remarked. "I can't imagine you with short hair, any more than I can imagine myself. And you do it up so perfectly!"

"Well, it isn't so good right now," said Grace. "I usually have a bit cut off now and then. I hate any hint of a—door-knob—at the back, don't you?"

"Yes, it could be trimmed," said Renie, with her head to one side. Suddenly she clapped her hands. "Oh, do let me trim it for you! I adore cutting hair. I always cut Nannie's hair and my children's hair. I'm an expert. See, here are the scissors ready to hand. Do let me—just this once."

Grace laughed and submitted, but with a slight anxiety. She was rigidly careful of her hair. It had to be marceled just so and arranged just so. Still—it seemed silly to object. "Please be sure not to cut too much off—just a very little bit." She watched Renie in the glass.

There was one snip, then another. "That's enough," said Grace. "No, it isn't even," declared Renie. Before Grace could stop her there was a third long snip and Renie had cut off a full quarter of the hair. Grace jerked her head away. She went quite white and was on the point of grabbing the shears. Renie stood by, giggling like a naughty child. "Oh, I couldn't stop myself! It struck me what fun it would be to bob it. Do let me bob it, now I've started. Do you know, that's how I bobbed Nannie's hair—she asked me to trim the ends, and before she knew it I had it all cut off. Such a joke on her!"

"It must have been," said Grace, quivering. After a second during which she clenched her hands tight, she gathered the remainder of her hair into a knot. It was difficult, since Grace's hair had not been very long in the first place. Some of the hairpins would not hold; a few ends straggled.

"Oh, you don't really mind," coaxed Renie. Grace could see her face in the glass. It looked impishly cheerful. "Why, it'll grow in no time. Nannie and I are always playing jokes like that on each other. Just this summer, in the country, I asked her to put a freckle lotion on my face and she spread on some stuff that's supposed to make hair grow! Fortunately, it didn't work—but we laughed over it for ages."

"What a happy family that must be!" thought Grace. The hair stayed up, anyhow. It might have been worse. She tucked on her hat and managed a smile. "Well, it was certainly nearly a joke on me," she said, in a tone that tried to be tolerant but kept a residue of crispness. She was, in fact, almost scared, and so nervous that she could not bear Renie another moment.

The latter showered her with expressions of penitence. "I never thought you'd mind so much. I can't resist a practical joke—it's an inane trait, I know. Do let me—— Oh, a Spanish comb would be stunning on you—with your eyes. I have a gorgeous one presented to me by an admirer, and, as often happens with the presents of admirers, I have no use for it. If you can wear it..."

Grace departed with the Spanish comb, with a promise to come to dinner soon and a disturbed sense of being obliged to defend herself against unfamiliar weapons. Women weren't supposed to be cats these days, to fight with rapiers and jeweled daggers and artfully curved knives, not to mention delicate claws—obsolete weapons all and so much more flexible and treacherous than the blunt pistol. Think of trying to ruin your opponent's hair or her complexion—for she felt almost certain it was with deliberate malice Renie had used the scissors. It wasn't done, it wasn't modern!

Dusk had already fallen. It was foggy, windy, drizzling, and Grace started for home. When she reached the Sixth Avenue El, however, she changed her mind and continued to Broadway. Letty had just moved to a larger apartment a few blocks away, for she was expecting a child. There would be a story to tell Letty—and Blake, too.

She was cheered by the lights on Broadway. It was not indeed like the forest fire of clustered electrics that burned farther down, shedding, on clear nights, a haze like smoke over the sky for blocks around. The lights here were small, farther apart; they fell like a shower of golden raindrops through the mist.

Now that danger was past, she even began to see the humor of Renie's ways of warfare. She did not blame Renie for a flirtation which seemed to be mostly an idle test of skill—for Renie, she judged, had no idea of chancing the throw of so solid a bonnet as Dick Harrington over any windmills. It was often fun to test one's skill. She did it herself, and if she, why not Renie? Time was when she would have trembled with jealousy at Blake's slightest concurrence. But why should she tremble now? After all, she could concur, too, if she liked. As one possessing some of the qualities at least which made for victory, why should she ever be afraid? She wouldn't be. She wasn't. Let it be always open season, good hunting for all! Let the defeated, those who were not strong enough, those who were too squeamish, plead for quarter, balk at the game, struggle to change.

It was merely that she disliked women who did not rule their own closed seasons—a type like Renie, for instance, for whom much of the interest in an affair lay in the ability to harass some other woman by it. It was a type that never trusted others of its sex; no wonder, when it wasn't to be trusted itself! She, Grace, would not knowingly engage in a flirtation which meant nothing to herself but which caused anguish to another girl. All that other had to do was to ask her to stop.

Of course, if there were some strong compulsion, such as there had been with Blake—that was beyond blame as it was beyond reason. People might say she had taken a man away from his wife, but it had been through neither careless experiment nor selfish plan. She had been compelled to do so—if indeed she had taken that which had been just as strongly impelled to go. And she had risked herself, had taken every chance; to be an "other woman" she had made sacrifices. She remembered sitting in Schrafft's one day with Ruth, among matrons who wore diamond engagement rings and diamond-encrusted wedding rings as they ate whipped-cream lunches between shopping and the matinée. She and Ruth had to choose more by the prices on the right side of the menu than by the dishes on the left. And Ruth said, as they were skipping dessert ("just two cups of coffee, please")—Ruth said, with a sweep of her hand over the fur-coated, diamond-encrusted mélange, "Pity the poor wives, Grace! Not a diamond between us and we're these terrible other women!" Then she and Ruth had to rush back to their jobs. Jobs bore watching; it was easy to lose jobs. And they had no one but themselves to rely on. Not laws. Not lovers. Certainly not Blake! It was his wife whom Blake felt obligated to shield, his wife whom he permitted to rely on him. She, Grace, was his equal in love, and equals bear their own responsibilities without so much as a complaint, let alone a desire to share their burdens.

She did not mind exactly—but so many of the responsibilities had sprung from or were accentuated by Blake. Ma was on the rampage again—Grace had believed that bringing Blake to dinner now and then would cause Ma to subside. But she complained that Grace stayed away too many nights. "Yes! And if Jerry didn't have his blonde momma, I'd stay away oftener," thought Grace defiantly. The solution was an apartment of her own—another responsibility. She had almost induced Anita to share it. Anita ought to have a place in which to receive Dennis. He was worth annexing. There was a good deal lacking in him but, as Grace had told Anita, "You can't have everything. Personally, I would dispense with a lot in a man for the sake of a little charm." Yet Anita was so obstinate, so childish in some respects; she could plan and at the same time she was just as likely to disrupt all plans by a moment of inopportune revolt. Grace had offered to collect furniture from among her friends; she had offered to bear the larger share of expenses. She would have to, since Anita earned so much less.

Money, money, all this meant money! So much money for Ma instead of board, so much money for surroundings, so much for attractive clothes. Fatal to have a lover ashamed of one's background or one's appearance. And that led back to the job. If she lost her job—a slip would do it—so much of the structure so carefully raised would topple. Money. Job. Blake. Anita. Ma. As she walked, the words lost sense, threshing back and forth in her mind.

At Seventy-second Street she had to pause for the traffic to skid by. The wind from the west slapped her skirt and the damp girdled her as with a moist, penetrating arm. The windows of the farther buildings were glittering scratches, straight up and down and across mist, hieroglyphs drawn finely and exactly and meaninglessly in space. It was like being on board ship—the wind beating about one's head, the air swished with boos and restless with squeals from the boats. How small this little island squeezed up out of the water—east, west, below, beyond, on all sides, rising and tossing and throbbing and falling—no repose anywhere—one vast, moaning, mixed-up flux.

At length the traffic stopped and she went on, perilously clutching the bit of driftwood which was the pavement with little tentacles of high heels.

CHAPTER NINE

Not long afterward a situation in the M.A.N. office began to monopolize Grace's conversations with her most intimate friends. "You know—how—I worry," was the prefix they had learned to recognize when she was determined to make them share her troubles. And Grace was worried.

A man named Graves had arrived from the coast by order of Mr. Meiselson, who was president of the M.A.N. Mr. Graves had distinguished himself, as everyone knew, by being the only sober press agent at a luncheon for a women's committee in the coast studio. This was his reward. He came East bearing the title of supervisor of both the New York and the Hollywood publicity offices. Roy Williams had always understood that this was his position; now Graves became suddenly his superior. Everyone saw how it would go. The M.A.N. was never satisfied merely to fire; it liked to prepare its victims for firing. First Roy Williams had been denuded of his title; by spring his private office had been taken away from him and turned over to Graves. While he was still deciding whether, for the sake of prestige, it would not be best to resign, his duties were being snatched from him one by one; soon his very typewriter itself would vanish, and finally his salary.

Small whirlpools of disquiet, expansions of the central whirlpool, swirled about each of the desks in the outer room. Each wondered who would be sucked in and who would be left. Grace had been favored so much by Roy Williams that she feared she would be counted among his retainers, and it is well known what happens to the friends of the old régime when the new assumes power. She tried hard to maintain her neutrality, being docile and sympathetic with Roy Williams; pliant, serious, and intelligent with Mr. Graves.

Her attitude seemed to work. Graves did not like Mr. Colton, who handled the daily newspapers and fan magazines. When it came time to herald the arrival of a newly risen star he ignored Colton, to whom the job properly belonged, detached Roger Darray from the press books and Grace from her women's features, and assigned them both to Nola Winter.

Nola Winter was a fledgling star, still warm from the incubator. The Broadway opening of her latest picture and her rumored engagement to a famous movie actor had given the M.A.N. sufficient warrant to send her on her first trip East. She was traveling in style, chaperoned, groomed, and stateroomed, to be housed at the Ritz, to be wined and dined and properly introduced to the fan writers, i.e., the public. Mr. Graves himself had caught an earlier train to meet the Twentieth Century and ride down with her. It was the first important effort that had been required of him in New York—a trial of himself as well as of Grace and Roger Darray.

With his last-minute instructions still buzzing in their ears, Grace and Roger walked over to Grand Central. The pavements were caked with summer heat. Underneath a topcoat of somnolence, the air burned with a peculiar, needlelike brilliance. Ordinarily they would have been placid; little could go wrong in a routine arrangement like this. The New York public, represented by the city editors, was as anxious to hear from a pretty new movie actress who might be engaged to Adam Jennifer as Nola Winter was to be heard from. They could be almost certain of making the afternoon papers—with pictures—and all one needed to attract a joyful greeting crowd in a station was a group of cameras. However, even the countenance of Roger, a blank and solemn individual, reflected the tremors of excitement with which Mr. Graves had infected them.

"I hope he doesn't—expect us to meet her waving aloft the keys of the city, the way they do in California," said Grace nervously.

Roger attempted a polite answer which trailed off into murmurs. He kept a slight space between them, while at crossings he gave a start, touched her elbow with his hand, then hastily released it. Grace could barely repress a smirk, thinking of how afraid of her and embarrassed with her Roger Darray always was. She had once tried to attach him, just before his marriage—not very urgently, to be sure, but so as to keep her hand in—and he had never forgotten how nearly, according to Grace, he had "fallen" for her. He always gave her the impression of restraining himself from "falling" even now, a fact which added to her complacent amusement.

They found one cub reporter lounging at the gate with his press card nonchalantly stuck in the band of his hat. More appeared within the interval—all they hoped for: a couple of newspapermen in the twisted soft hats that seem best to conform to the reportorial head; a girl whom Grace knew, wearing spectacles and carrying a book into which, detaching herself from the proceedings, she at once plunged; photographers, a raft of them, bristling with the legs of cameras, some with their caps reversed so that the visors slouched on the napes of their necks. Grace saw with satisfaction that, apart from the groups of welcoming friends who stared at them curiously, growing numbers of people paused in their business and, as if under a spell, without reason or real desire of their own, moved closer and closer to the cameras, stopping now and then, turning away, then moving closer and standing, after the manner of their kind, with mouths slightly agape in an attitude of unalterably patient, of mesmerized attention.

As the train came in the stragglers pressed forward upon the flanks of the newspaper party; the latter crushed against, then passed, the gate, while a few station employees thrust out their arms to bar the crowd. In spite of themselves, other people's welcoming friends and the inquisitive bystanders merged, formed a solid, sweating phalanx around the gate. An impressive greeting to Nola Winter!

The platform was all at once black with scurrying figures, porters, trucks of baggage.

Gradually a few spaces of gray stone floor were left visible between feet. The spaces cleared. They widened. They expanded.

"Y'know what stateroom this baby is in?" demanded one of the photographers.

Grace asked Roger. Mr. Graves had neglected to give them the numbers of the car and the stateroom.

"Oh, she'll be along soon. Sure. Sure. Pretty soon," said Roger.

The length of the platform stretched forth longer and longer, duller and duller, barer and barer. It was dark, even damp, but with a density, a monotony of heat which was unendurable. Far at the other end antlike creatures were still hastening through the gate.

The reporters waited in boredom. The newspaper girl, with some aid from the photographers, climbed upon a baggage truck, fanned herself, and swung her legs. "Are you sure she's on this train?" she said suspiciously.

Grace and Roger consulted.

"Perhaps she's missed it or something," said Grace.

"She'd have wired Graves," said Roger. "No. She must be on it. Probably just fixing up—just fixing up."

One of the sections backed off, backed forward. Grace suggested: "Don't you think—it would be wise—to go through the cars?"

Roger's face was grave. "He must know we're waiting," he said. "He did say Grand Central, didn't he? Might have been a mistake there."

They stood looking at each other, Grace with enlarged, troubled eyes, Roger stiff and pale. The platform was wholly empty now. An occasional employee passed, was questioned, shook his head and went away. They had been waiting nearly an hour. Each of the reporters had gone off to telephone and had disappeared. The photographers gave it up, too, and left one by one, gathering up their cameras and mumbling indifferent curses.