by Peggy Gaddis
“What can you do about it?” he repeated after a moment. “I really couldn’t say. After all, he’s your father, not mine.”
He turned and went back up the steps, leaving Carey to stand there in the snowy street, down which a bitter wind howled suddenly. She shivered and became conscious of Harris, the chauffeur, still standing expectantly beside the open door of the car. She let him help her into its fragrant depths, told him to stop at Ronnie’s place, and sank back against the pearl-gray cushions as the big car purred away from the curb.
She was badly shaken by the things Joel Hunter had said. She and her father had been good friends since she could remember. But this last year had been such a hectic one — trips abroad; visits to schoolmates, one in Honolulu, one in Maine, and another out west on a cattle ranch; she hadn’t seen a lot of her father the last year or so. And now Joel Hunter told her her father’s health was precarious — Suddenly she gave her shoulders a little shrug and dismissed the shabby, dark-eyed young man from her thoughts. But throughout the evening she kept finding herself thinking of him again and again. And each time she realized the direction of her thoughts, she liked Joel Hunter less.
After all, she told herself with growing resentment, what business was it of Joel Hunter’s if she was sometimes too busy for Father? The big house on East Sixty-third Street was competently staffed, beneath the argus eye of Mrs. Shallenberger, the housekeeper, who would certainly see to it that everything her father could possibly want was provided for his comfort. Her father neglected? She sniffed at the thought.
Ronnie Norris, with whom she was dancing, looked down at her, his handsome face touched with a slight frown.
“Of course, if you’d rather talk to yourself than me, I suppose it’s quite all right,” he told her a trifle grumpily. “But if I am really as boring as all that, maybe you’d rather be alone?”
Carey relaxed a little in his arms and gave him her most dazzling smile. “Was I talking to myself? That shows what bad manners I’ve got — I’m sorry. Somebody ruffled my temper and got away with the last word, and ever since I’ve been thinking of perfectly devastating things I might have said — if only I’d thought of them in time.”
Ronnie’s handsome brow cleared. “Oh, well, if it’s like that — ” he forgave her handsomely.
They danced in silence for a minute and then someone cut in. A little later she saw him dancing with Ann Paige. That annoyed her and made her set her teeth hard. Ann Paige was a debutante of two seasons ago who hadn’t managed to snare herself a husband, despite the fact that the Paige fortune was large and Ann its only heir. Ann was dumpy and wouldn’t let anyone teach her how to dress; and she was known as the worst conversationalist in the world, a matter of ridicule among the gay, fresh young things of the present season, as well as others of her own season.
Carey watched Ronnie smiling down at Ann who was all but visibly bubbling with excitement at the attentions of the very handsome if penniless Ronnie. Carey knew perfectly well that Ann would marry Ronnie at the drop of a hat if she only had the chance; but Carey was smugly sure that she wasn’t going to have the chance, for Carey had her own plans about Ronnie. She was going to marry him herself at the end of the season. And she could feel just a bit sorry for Ann because Ann was going to feel very unhappy about not landing Ronnie for herself.
Two
SHE WENT to tea with Ronnie the next afternoon. One of the engaging things about Ronnie was that he made no bones whatever about his penniless condition. He confessed frankly that he had been brought up to expect a lot out of life; expensively educated to do nothing more than play golf and polo — with borrowed clubs and ponies, of course. And then the uncle who had paid for all his expensive and useless upbringing had died and left an estate that brought in a little over five thousand dollars a year. That was the sum total of his income.
“So what could I do?” Ronnie had asked Carey soon after they met. “I played good bridge, fair golf. I danced well. I was the answer to a country hostess’s weekend prayers for an extra man. So I follow the only profession for which I’ve had any training — professional houseguest.”
Carey had liked his frankness, and had excused as amusing his failure to attempt to make a living. The fact that Ronnie had a habit of knowing just where one could pick up “the most fascinating bargains” in everything from grand pianos, motor cars and country estates, to costume jewelry and imported house linens was accepted as an asset by his friends. They were too polite to reason that he undoubtedly acquired some very nice commissions for such knowledge. As long as he was witty, agreeable, well-bred, well-tailored, and always available, his various hostesses were perfectly willing to provide bed and board; while his affluent friends furnished his amusements and his little luxuries.
He and Carey lingered over tea until a gray-violet dusk closed over the world and the street lamps glowed like jewels. And then as they came out of the hotel, Ronnie said casually:
“Too bad you’re not in the market for a new car. I know where an unbelievable bargain can be picked up for practically a song. An imported affair, of course — special built job — you’d be very becoming to it. It’s the only one of its kind in the country — and, believe it or not, it can be had for ten thousand. Isn’t that ridiculous?”
Carey looked at him with faint suspicion. “If it’s all that, why does the owner want to sell it?” she demanded.
Ronnie chuckled. “She’s an ex-showgirl. Her husband is sixty and insanely jealous. They’ve only been married a few months and he hasn’t yet made his new will. And I told you that this is the only car of its kind in the country, so — ” He lifted elegantly tailored shoulders in a little shrug.
“I get it. The ex-showgirl would like something less conspicuous for her comings and goings.”
Ronnie laughed. “She hasn’t had it long enough for it to have acquired any evil repute,” he assured her, amused. “It was only delivered a week ago. She took one look at it and knew she’d rather have a Ford or a Chevrolet — something not quite so noticeable, something in which she would feel at home.”
“Seems to me you know quite a lot about the lady,” Carey said with a little gust of jealousy.
Ronnie’s eyebrows went up and there was a glint of disdain in his eyes. Carey flushed, knowing that she had spoken like a bad-mannered schoolgirl. Before he could say anything that would add to her discomfiture, she said carelessly:
“Trot the car around tomorrow after lunch and I’ll give it a look-see. If I like it, I’ll have Dad write you a check.”
“You’ll like it — it’s really something very distinctive, and yet in perfect taste,” Ronnie assured her.
As her taxi slid away from the curb she looked back over her shoulder and saw him disappearing into a drugstore in whose doorway there was the sign of a public telephone booth. He was going to telephone the ex-showgirl about the prospective sale of her car. Ronnie would come in for a nice commission, of course, but Carey assured herself that this was quite all right. When a man has no other means of earning a living, he can’t be too choosy. And it was perfectly absurd that at this very moment the lean, dark face of Joel Hunter should suddenly come before her eyes.
When she reached home and entered the door that John held open for her, she heard voices from the direction of the library and looked a question directly at John.
“Mr. Winslow came home from the office early, Miss Carey, and brought Miss Hendrix with him for some confidential work,” John answered the question.
Carey nodded and then turned in at the library door. Miss Hendrix had been her father’s confidential secretary for seventeen years.
“Hello, Pops,” she called cheerfully, bending to put her cold cheek against his. “How do you do, Miss Hendrix?”
The middle-aged woman whose dark hair showed threads of silver, her face lined and colorless, her eyes steady and brown, spoke to her in a colorless voice, which Carey scarcely waited to hear.
“What are you doing home f
rom the office this time of the day, Dad?” Carey demanded of her father with mock sternness. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to keep that good-looking nose of yours to the grindstone and make pots of money for me to spend? I just bought a new car this afternoon — at least, I think I did. I haven’t seen it yet.”
She missed the sharp, angry look that Margaret Hendrix gave her. But she did not miss the very slight tautening of her father’s face as he said, “But, Carey, your convertible is almost new. You’ve only had it six months.”
“But this is something very special, Pops,” Carey insisted, her resolution to buy the car stiffening with this hint of opposition. “Besides, I can use two cars — or we could sell mine. This one is an imported job, specially built. And unbelievably cheap — a mere ten grand! Think of it. Well, ‘bye-bye, I’m off for a nap.”
Three
THE FOLLOWING afternoon Ronnie was three-quarters of an hour late for his appointment with her. When she came down the steps to meet him, her brows were drawn together in a little frown; but the moment she saw the car, a stunning thing in dark green and dull silver, upholstered in snakeskin, she completely forgot her annoyance.
Ronnie took the wheel and they drove up Fifth Avenue, across to Riverside Drive at Seventy-second Street, and on up to the George Washington Bridge, while Ronnie talked eagerly of the merits of the car. It was not until they had crossed the bridge and were heading north with the silvery gleam of the Hudson below them that Carey remembered he had been late, and taxed him with it.
“You’ll never guess in a thousand years what made me late,” he boasted.
“I’m not interested in guessing what your apologies may be,” she told him sharply.
Ronnie studied her for a moment, then said coolly, “How you do like to crack the whip over a fellow.”
That set her back on her heels, for a moment and she blinked as though he’d flung cold water in her face. “Meaning I’m a shrew?” she demanded.
“Meaning merely that you’re a child who has had her own way too long. It’s time you were getting your comeuppance, my lamb,” Ronnie said quietly, but with a glint in his eyes.
Carey digested that in silence for a moment and when she could steady her voice against the seething anger that shook her at his daring to criticize her, she asked sweetly, “And I suppose you are self-elected to see I get that comeuppance?”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Ronnie answered her with an almost ostentatious gentleness.
She blinked and her heart began to beat a little faster. After all, he was by far the best-looking man she had ever seen in her life and he had made it his business to be charming to women. He had worked at that as hard as the average man works for success in a more prosaic profession at which he hopes to earn his living. And he was a success.
After a moment in which she showed no inclination to speak, Ronnie said, “And now, if I may, I’ll tell you why I was late this afternoon.”
“Do,” Carey said politely.
“It’s the most cockeyed thing you ever heard,” he warned her, chuckling at the memory. “Ann Paige rang me up this morning and commissioned me to turn her into a raving beauty with charm and sex-appeal and plenty of ‘oomph’.”
Carey stared at him, incredulous. “It can’t be done!” she said sharply.
“I don’t know about that!” protested Ronnie, still chuckling over what he had revealed. “I barged over — after all, a fee of twenty-five thousand dollars is not to be sneered at, not when a guy is penniless. Anyway, I gave her the onceover — ”
“I’m sure of that,” said Carey and hated herself for the tone of her voice.
“Miaow!” Ronnie didn’t sound at all like a cat and he went on cheerfully, “With a rigid diet, supervised exercises, and the services of the very best in the way of beauty operators and dressmakers, she’s going to surprise all of you, her lovelier rivals.”
“But, for the love of Pete — why you?” Carey burst out. “I mean why should she pick you to turn her into a glamour girl?”
Ronnie said gently, “I resent that. Hadn’t you heard that I’m supposed to be something of a connoisseur in beautiful women? And to have something of a flair for choosing their clothes and their cosmetics.”
“And getting handsomely paid for it.” Carey could have bitten her tongue out the next moment. But it was too late. The words were out, and Ronnie was looking a trifle gray about the mouth and his eyes were pinpoints of fury.
For a moment he said nothing, then Carey said meekly, “I’m sorry, Ronnie. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Why not?” asked Ronnie, his eyes straight ahead, his hands gripped tightly on the wheel. “I’m glad to know your very low opinion of me. It saves me the embarrassment of asking you a certain question I’ve had in mind for some time.”
Carey’s heart jumped a little. Her common sense told her that Ronnie was a conscienceless sponger. But her heart said rebelliously that he was gay and charming and disturbingly good-looking. And she listened to her heart rather than her common sense.
“Forgive me, Ronnie. I’m just a jealous, spiteful cat. I’m just angry because Ann thought of this scheme before I did! I might have commissioned you to make me over — ”
“That would be impossible — to make you anything lovelier and more charming than you are,” Ronnie said unexpectedly, bringing the car to a halt, its long silver nose turned off the road into a little sheltered spot away from the wind. “I’m a fool, Carey, and I know you’ll give me the horse-laugh — but I’ve kept it back as long as I can. I’m mad about you. I’ve been crazy about you from the very first moment I saw you. I’ve tried to stand aside and let you have fun this year and be free, but I can’t go on waiting — I’m so darned scared somebody else will come along and cop you. Carey, I adore you — is there a chance for me?”
Carey’s heart was racing like mad. She was trembling a little with excitement and, as she looked up into his pleading dark eyes, her own became a little shy and the white lids fell, veiling them. But Ronnie had seen what he wanted in her eyes and now his arms were about her, drawing her close against him. When she would have turned her face away from him, his hand cupped her chin and turned it almost roughly until her mouth lay just beneath his own. She felt the hard, eager downdrive of his mouth upon her own and from some hidden depth in her startled, trembling heart some instinct surged upward, ordering her to tear herself from his embrace.
After a little he let her go and sat looking at her. “And you’ll marry me, darling — right away?” he begged eagerly. “Why not this afternoon? We could drive on to some place where we wouldn’t have to wait for a license.”
Carey felt as though she had taken a sudden step in the darkness and plunged headlong over a precipice. She had the feeling of flinging out her hands, trying wildly to clutch at something that would save her. She stammered breathlessly, “Oh, no, no — Ronnie. I couldn’t do that to Dad. Not just run away and be married. He’ll want me to have a real wedding and all that.”
“But he won’t want you to marry me,” Ronnie told her grimly. Then with an unexpected touch of candor: “Fathers somehow don’t seem overly pleased at the idea of me as a husband for their daughters. Of course, I admit I’m a no-good — ”
Carey put her hand over his mouth and would not listen.
“Dad will give his consent, the minute he’s sure it’s what I want,” she said confidently. “He’s never refused me anything in his life, so why should he start now, especially when I never really wanted anything before!”
Ronnie looked relieved. “You think you can persuade him?” he asked swiftly.
“I don’t think,” she answered promptly. “I know he will agree to anything I want — he always has.”
Ronnie’s arms closed about her once more, and he kissed her. After a long moment, Carey raised her head from his shoulder and said firmly:
“So now you can tell Ann Paige to go fly a kite — ”
“Twenty-five thous
and dollars is a lot of money, angel-face,” Ronnie reminded her. “She will give me that when I turn her into a glamour-gal — and I wouldn’t come to you exactly penniless.”
He looked down at her when she didn’t answer, and his eyes danced ever so little at the mutinous set of her pretty chin and the steel in her smoky-gray eyes.
“Jealous?” he murmured.
“Of Ann Paige?” She sniffed disdainfully. “It’s just that-well, I’d rather you didn’t have anything more to do with her, that’s all.”
He let her go and bent to switch the ignition on. She was a little startled to see that there was an ugly line to his set jaw and his voice was curt as he said, “Sorry — I’m afraid you’ll have to be reasonable about this, my sweet. I’ve given Ann a promise, and I usually manage to keep my word.”
“But if you love me — ” Carey protested.
He swung the big car around and turned its silver nose back towards New York.
“I’m mad about you, my angel,” he told her, and despite the words his tone was dry. “But I can’t let you meddle too much in my affairs — not, at least, until we’re married. After that — ” he shrugged.
“After we’re married,” Carey snapped rashly, “you’ll stop being so friendly with people like Ann Paige.”
Ronnie’s eyes slewed for a moment from the road ahead and took her in, and his lip curled with a little derisive smile as he drawled coolly, “How you do talk!”
She managed to hold her tongue and her temper, until they had crossed the bridge and were swinging once more into Riverside Drive. Then Ronnie glanced at her coolly, a conciliatory smile just touching his good-looking mouth, and asked gaily, “Well? What do you think of her? Isn’t she a beauty?”
For a moment, preoccupied with her thoughts of Ann, she raged. And then she realized that he meant the car, so she answered him almost curtly: “Stunning! She sounds like a cream-fed cat, doesn’t she?”
