by Peggy Gaddis
He took the ring, and she could have slapped him hard for the momentary relief she saw in his eyes as he slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.
“I’m sorry you’re taking it like this, Letty,” he said, and now he was pompous again. “I had hoped we would all be friends.”
“You couldn’t possibly be that much of a fool, Ken—not even you could be,” she told him, and swept from the room, her head erect, her slim back stiff and eloquent in its fury and humiliation….
It was much too early to meet Anice, so Kenyon, relieved that the unpleasant scene with Letty was behind him, thought he might as well stop at the office. The early evening editions of the newspapers would carry the announcement of his elopement with Anice, and he wanted to convey the information to Phyllis and the others before the tabloids started screaming.
The fact that it was almost twelve o’clock, two hours later than he was accustomed to reach the office, had the staff alarmed; several important appointments had been missed. And when he paused at Phyllis’ open door, she looked up in sharp relief and said frankly, “I’m so glad you are here, Mr. Rutledge.”
“Come into my office, please,” said Kenyon, curtly brushing her words aside. Puzzled, apprehensive in spite of herself, Phyllis followed him. When the door had closed behind her, Kenyon stood facing, his hands sunk deeply into his pockets.
“Since you seem to be Anice’s nearest relative, Miss Gordon, I think perhaps you should be the first to know that Anice and I were married last night,” he said crisply.
Phyllis caught the edge of his desk and steadied herself against it, as she stared at him, wide-eyed, every drop of color draining from her face. She was dazed, incredulous, yet forced to accept the simple fact that he was telling the truth. And when the first thought that struggled from her dazed emotions found its way into speech, she said: “So she put it over, after all.”
She spoke lowly, merely voicing her thoughts, yet she could not, if she had searched for a hundred years, have found a statement that would have angered and annoyed him more. His eyes blazed, and there was a little muscle quivering in his cheek against his rigid jawline.
“That’s a vile thing to suggest, Miss Gordon, and I am afraid it’s all the proof I needed of the things that Anice, poor angel, has been forced to reveal to me,” he said slowly and distinctly, his eyes dark with angry dislike. “You have treated her shamefully. You threw her out of your place because she objected to your immorality; you cared nothing that the girl had no place to go, in a city so big and crowded and dangerous for one as innocent and as lovely as Anice. Did you know—or rather, did you care—that she spent one night riding in the subway, in terror of the evil characters who menaced her? Or that I found her here in my office one night, because she had no place to go? And you drove her to such a pass.”
“Mr. Rutledge, Anice left my apartment for an excellent room at a woman’s residential club—a place I could not afford,” said Phyllis hotly.
Kenyon eyed her with fury.
“That is, of course, a lie,” he said, and the words came like a brutal slap in the face. “I’m afraid, Miss Gordon, that I shall have to let you go. A month’s notice, of course—or, if you prefer, you can go immediately and receive a month’s pay in lieu of notice. I do not care to have women of your moral character employed in my office.”
Phyllis’ knees trembled so that she could barely stand, but from somewhere she managed a ghost of a laugh not untouched with hysteria.
“She’s certainly done her work well,” she commented when she could steady her voice. “But then I’ve known from the first how fiendishly clever she is!”
“I suppose she would seem fiendishly clever to you because she is transparently honest, essentially decent, and as innocent as a lamb,” said Kenyon sternly.
Phyllis stared at him, caught by such surprise that she could only breathe, “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“Certainly I believe it—I know it to be the truth,” he said sharply. “I pride myself on being a student of character. If Anice were not the sweetest, most honest, purest-minded girl in the world, I’d be the first to know it!”
Phyllis had no words to answer that. Perhaps because she knew instinctively that no words of hers would have any effect on him in his present state of mind. Anice had set her trap and baited it beautifully, and the whole thing was working out exactly as her cold, self-centered little mind had planned it.
Phyllis said evenly, “I shall be glad to go, today—that is, unless you feel I could be of service in training someone.”
And Kenyon, because he hated her for what Anice had told him of her, said brutally, “That won’t be necessary. I assure you you are by no means indispensable here, Miss Gordon. Your check will be waiting for you if you will stop at the cashier’s office on your way out.”
Phyllis looked at him for a long moment, and then she nodded and said expressionlessly, “Thank you, Mr. Rutledge,” and went out.
And now Kenyon was free to think of the girl who would be waiting for him at the prearranged meeting place, and hurried off like a schoolboy who cannot wait for a long dreamed of and long planned for treat.
Anice was sitting in the hotel lobby, her small, shabby bag at her feet, waiting for him almost humbly. His heart went out to her, racing ahead of his hurrying feet. She looked up and saw him and the look in her eyes set his blood pounding. But all he said was, “Ready, angel?”
She put her hand in his, and he lifted the shabby little bag with something approaching tenderness and drew her with him to his waiting car.
“Was it—was it so very bad?” she asked when the car was threading its way uptown.
“You mean Mrs. Lawrence?” he asked. “Not pleasant, of course, but—” he lifted one shoulder in a little shrug, took one hand from the wheel and dropped it on her knee “—it was worth it.”
She blushed shyly and dropped her eyes. And Kenyon forced himself to pay attention to the traffic.
“I also told your cousin, Miss Gordon,” he said, and Anice tensed a little and dropped her eyelids above a faintly startled, slightly uneasy glance.
“She—she was surprised?” she began.
“Very much so,” said Kenyon grimly. “So much so that I yielded to an impulse and fired her.”
Anice caught her breath and her eyes flew wide.
“You fired Phyllis?” she gasped.
“And thoroughly enjoyed it,” said Kenyon shamelessly. “After the way she has behaved toward you, it was a pleasure.”
Anice turned her eyes away, lest he see in them more than she was as yet willing to reveal.
“But—but—oh, darling, I’ve brought you so much worry and bother,” she stammered, her voice soft with unshed tears. “I know how you loathe jilting Mrs. Lawrence. And Phyllis was such a good secretary, how can you manage without her?”
Kenyon laughed indulgently and patted her knee again.
“Bless your little heart, Miss Gordon was not essential—by no means indispensable—and I do not wish to employ a woman whose morals are loose.” He broke off and said tenderly, “And if I had to close my offices and retire, I’d rather do it than keep a woman on who had been as despicable to you as she has been.”
Anice smiled at him dewily, and said huskily, “I shall just have to be terribly sweet to you all my life, darling, to make up for being such a bother.”
“That’s a promise,” said Kenyon youthfully, and parked the car in front of the austerely beautiful apartment house whose two top floors were his town house.
A bellboy, looking pained at seeing the building’s most important tenant belittling his dignity by carrying a small, shabby suitcase, whisked it from his hand and ushered them into an elevator. In front of the door of the apartment, Kenyon pressed his finger on the bell, turned and lifted Anice into his arms. The door opened and the butler almost forgot his years of training as his usually dignified employer stepped across the threshold, carrying in his arms a slight blond girl in a
simple dark frock.
Kenyon had no shame, the butler discovered, as pained at his employer’s lack of dignity as the bellboy had been. Kenyon kissed the blond girl before he set her on her feet, and then turned to the butler and said, with a youthful air that struck the butler as bordering on the gruesome, “Somers, this is Mrs. Rutledge, my wife. Hereafter, you will take your orders from her.”
Somers maintained his imperturbable air with an effort that made the sweat break out upon his plump, well-fed body, but he managed a faint, “Yes, sir—very good, sir.”
“Convey the news to the staff, Somers,” said Kenyon crisply. “And ask Mrs. Clarke to come in.”
Somers all but tottered away. In the servants’ hall, he mopped the sweat from his brow and faced his subordinates with the air of one who delivers a bombshell to make the atom bomb sound like a five-cent firecracker.
“The master is home for lunch,” he announced solemnly. “And he’s brought the new Mrs. Rutledge with him.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Mrs. Clarke demanded sharply, “You mean he and Mrs. Lawrence eloped?”
Somers, who disliked her heartily and had conducted a somewhat acrimonious feud with her for so long both would have missed it if they had ever ended it, said grimly, “The new Mrs. Rutledge is not the former Mrs. Lawrence. She’s the—er—young person you put to sleep in the maid’s room, Mrs. Clarke, and asked to breakfast with the servants. The master would like you to come to the library, Mrs. Clarke. I wouldn’t stop to pack. He’ll probably give you long enough notice to do that before you leave. You, too, Gertie. I remember how much you enjoyed ‘telling the little tramp off’ when the—er—present Mrs. Rutledge was here last.”
Mrs. Clarke stared at him as though she could not believe her ears; then she went out of the room, the swinging door rocking behind her.
Gertrude said, wide-eyed, “So the boss married the little chippie.”
Somers drew himself erect, and his tone and his manner were both severe.
“Gertrude, you will kindly refrain from speaking disrespectfully of the mistress!”
“Gawd!” said Gertrude simply.
In the doorway of the library, Mrs. Clarke said coolly, “You sent for me, Mr. Kenyon?”
Kenyon, his arm about Anice, looked up and frowned.
“Yes, I did. This is Mrs. Rutledge, Mrs. Clarke. You will take your orders from her in the future,” said Kenyon curtly. “And I expect you to do everything possible to make her completely comfortable.”
Safe in the circle of his arms, her face turned toward Mrs. Clarke so that Kenyon could not see her expression, Anice gave Mrs. Clarke a long, significant glance and her red mouth curled in a little satisfied smile, while her eyes glinted with malice.
And Mrs. Clarke, looking into that lovely, spiteful face, knew that she was defeated before ever she began to fight.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SPURRED BY THE WHIPLASH of anger against Kenyon’s injustice, Phyllis made short work of clearing out her desk. She did not stop to think how little of herself she had brought into the office where she had given of her strength and her devotion and five years of time. She did not stop to think of anything except giving any of the curious thirty or forty people in the big outer office any inclination of the reason for her going.
For the last time she went down in the elevator, out into the street. Behind her the outer office thought nothing except that she was going to lunch, a little late but nothing out of the ordinary.
Her apartment was like a haven of refuge, though she was unaccustomed to it at that hour of a weekday. She went about opening windows, turning on the electric fan to freshen the air. She went into her bedroom, got out of her office clothes, and had a brisk shower. Clad in a thin, cool housecoat, she rummaged in the icebox for food. A salad, a glass of iced tea—anything. It was quite sufficient, for she had no idea what she was eating.
She was still dazed and incredulous. Anice married to Kenyon! Married to him! It was incredible, yet it had happened. For the first time, with a feeling of letting an active dog off a leash, Phyllis gave full rein to her thoughts, and the puzzle deepened.
How in heaven’s name had Anice managed it? Working in the big outer office, one among a dozen or more girls, how had she so impressed herself on Kenyon’s consciousness that she had succeeded in marrying him? And with the further complication of his engagement to Letty, in every way so suitable for a position in society as Mrs. Kenyon Rutledge? Phyllis had looked upon Letty’s beauty, her sleek sophistication, her inherent charm, and had felt her own love for Kenyon completely and utterly hopeless. Yet Anice had married him!
Out of her bewilderment came the memory of things Kenyon—his voice hard with anger, his face cold and set—had said to her.
“Did you know that I found her here in my office one night, because she had no place else to go?”
Startled, Phyllis went back over that statement. She had been too dazed, too stunned to take in all its implications when Kenyon had hurled the accusation at her. He had said something, too, about Anice spending a night riding in the subway. Phyllis could not believe that. She knew that Anice had gone straight from her apartment to the woman’s hotel where she had stayed ever since. Yet she had managed to convince Kenyon that she was homeless, and that she had had to take refuge in his office. Phyllis nodded to herself thoughtfully. That must have been where Anice had got in her winning work. She and Kenyon had been alone in his luxuriously furnished office—perhaps Anice had been in some revealing garment. Phyllis nodded slowly. Yes, she knew Anice so well she could all but visualize that scene. And Kenyon, his sense of chivalry aroused by this pathetic child … “Oh, the damned fool!” said Phyllis furiously. “The utter damned fool! To be taken in by her.”
Yet that was not quite fair, either. Few men could have resisted Anice; Phyllis herself had been taken in by her over and over again. It would be child’s play for Anice to wind an impressionable man around her finger—and for all his wealth and his social prominence, Kenyon was a bit of a fool where women were concerned. If Anice could convince him that she was forlorn, friendless, penniless … Yes, of course, that must be the way it had happened.
Phyllis examined her own emotions now in the light of that day’s thunderclap of revelations. She had gone on for so long believing herself hopelessly in love with Kenyon. She knew now that it was nothing more than a physical appeal; he would have bored her to tears eventually. She admitted now, as she had admitted before, that the only man she really loved, or wanted to marry, was Terry McLean. And her pretty mouth curled bitterly at the thought. When she had had Terry, body and soul and heart and mind, she had turned away from him and gone crying after Kenyon. But the moment Terry had told her of Eleanor Adams and his hope of marrying the girl, Phyllis had awakened with a bitter shock to the truth—too late! It served her right, she told herself furiously; she had only her own stupidity, her bewildered heart to blame! But that didn’t make her any happier about it!
When, in the early evening, she opened her door to the sound of the doorbell, she was not surprised to find Terry there. He had been in her mind and in her heart so vividly that seeing him there was only to be expected.
She did not know that she blushed or that her eyes sparkled as she said eagerly, “Why, Terry, how nice. Come in.”
She went about the room switching on the shaded lamps, and Terry stood just inside the doorway watching her. When she turned to him, surprised that he had made no move, he said grimly, “Sitting in the dark, were you, eating your heart out? It’s about what I expected.”
Phyllis’ eyes widened.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He held up a copy of an afternoon tabloid with the tall headline she had expected—and dreaded. The tab had made a Roman holiday of the marriage of the multi-millionaire to a lovely blonde in his own office, while his socially prominent fiancée had been forgotten.
“I thought perhaps you’d be here by yourself, cry
ing your eyes out,” he said, and flung the paper from him with fury. “So the little bitch put it over! I hand it to her—she’s good!”
Phyllis laughed, but it was a rather unsteady laugh.
“Of course, Terry—she’s good. She’s a very nice girl—remember? She told us so,” she reminded him.
Terry studied her with a curious intensity.
“Rough on Mrs. Lawrence,” he commented.
“I suppose so,” admitted Phyllis slowly. “But she’s a very grand person, Terry. If Kenyon Rutledge could do a thing like this to her, then it’s better that she should know before they’re married.”
Terry said shortly, “I hope she can realize that, and you, too.”
Phyllis looked at him, wide-eyed.
“What’s it got to do with me, except that I lost my job because of it?” she asked mildly.
Terry’s eyebrows went up, and his eyes widened.
“You mean you cared so much you can’t bear to go on working for the big lug?” he snapped sharply.
“I mean Anice did such a perfectly swell job in selling herself to him that she sold me out!” she told him. “Kenyon fired me the moment he got to the office this morning.”
“Why, the—” Terry’s profanity was rich, varied, picturesque and blistering. When he had subsided a little, he asked cautiously, “Well, of course, you can easily find something else, with your ability.”
“I think I’ll go out to Hollywood and see if I can get a job working for one of the movie companies. It ought to be fun being a private secretary to a movie star,” she said slowly, considering it as she spoke.
Terry looked alarmed.
“You can’t go that far away. Good grief, just when I got a promotion and a raise in pay that makes me almost a substantial citizen, I couldn’t give it up to go traipsing after you, and maybe wind up a bum while you become rich and powerful.”
Phyllis stared at him, wide-eyed, and felt as though her heart were being squeezed so tightly that the blood stood still throughout her body.
