Joan and Co.
apartments and sat up with him the rest of the night. Devons protested,
but Hartley sat on and listened to his hysterical chatter and watched
him. In the morning Hartley gave his verdict.
“What you’ll do will be to take a month’s vacation,” he determined.
“Get out of the city. Go back home.”
“I’ll be all right by to-morrow.”
“You won’t.”
“But I can’t leave. I—”
“You can leave as well as not,” answered Hartley. “Starling is in a
position now to go on with your work with the help of the men you’ve
trained. You’re going, that’s all there is to it. You’re going
to-morrow. I’ll make out a check for a thousand dollars and send it
round to you. Don’t you dare step into the factory again until you come
back.”
Coming from Hartley this was in the nature of a mandate. It left
him nothing else to do. So, in relief, he turned over and slept
intermittently the remainder of that day and night. He woke the
following morning considerably rested and with a sense of exhilaration.
In his mail he found his check and a brief note from Hartley.
“Dear Devons,” it read. “Forget the plant and have a good time.
Everything went along swimmingly yesterday. The best of luck to you.”
He was on a vacation—the first vacation for ten years. All day long
he had nothing to do except what he wished to do. And he was going
home—going back with his dress-suit-case almost filled and enough on
hand to quite fill it. And he was going to see Joan!
The day had come. There was no reason now why he could not go to her
and claim her. Even on the basis of the unfilled orders the firm had
at present, there would be ten thousand dollars coming to him at the
end of the year. The chances were that this would be doubled. In the
meanwhile it might be possible to worry along on his present salary as
long as there was the assurance of the future dividends. The Arkwright
house might have to wait another year or two, but this would give them
time to select a site and perfect details.
He wanted her to come home with him on his first visit. Never after
this would conditions be the same. If, in addition to the tangible
evidence of his business success, he could bring her—then he _would_
arrive as a conqueror. He was thinking of himself—not of her nor of the
home folk. Always he occupied the center of the stage. Perhaps this was
not much to be wondered at. He was hungry for this sort of thing. For
ten years he had been starved of all the little minor successes that
come to most men—that lead up to the final big success. He had been in
the background watching enviously those at the fore. Now it was his
turn and he was going to make the most of it.
He dressed carefully that morning and gave the barber _carte blanche_
to do what he wished with him. Then he strolled into the dining-room
and ate a leisurely and rather elaborate breakfast. It was the
beginning of the day of which he had so long dreamed. After this he
strolled uptown and made several purchases—among them a box of flowers
which he ordered sent to her. He did not dare telephone until eleven,
and then he begged her to lunch with him. She tried to avoid the
engagement, but he was insistent.
“I’m on my vacation, Joan,” he said. “I’ve looked forward to this a
long time.”
There was a note of pathos in his plea that won her. So she consented
to be ready at one.
During the next two waiting hours he walked slowly downtown and back
along Fifth Avenue as far as Washington Square. He walked proudly,
swinging a light stick with an air. There were many who turned to look
at him. He made rather a striking appearance in his smart tailored
clothes. To many he passed as a bridegroom. There was an atmosphere
of confidence and prosperity about him that made him seem to embody
something of the spirit of the June morning. To the young men he
established a sort of standard and to the young women he stood for a
dream.
At one he drove up to the Fairburne house, feeling buoyant after his
walk and showing hardly any effect of his illness of the day before. In
the magic of his new hopes he had thrown it off.
She had dressed a little for him in honor of the occasion and was more
like her old self.
“I’m so glad you’re to have a rest,” she greeted him.
“I guess I’ve earned it,” he answered.
She nodded.
“Where are we going?”
“You’re to follow me to-day,” he replied. “I’m going to make one more
dream come true.”
“I’ll do what I can to help you,” she agreed.
Yet she frowned a little when the taxi stopped before Delmonico’s. Most
any place he might have chosen would have been preferable to that.
Still she was willing to humor him even to this extent. After all this
was his vacation, and she must do what she could to start him on it
happily.
But as she went in by his side the whole place became tensely
reminiscent of Dicky. They had come here together the last time they
had gone anywhere together. They had been here many times before that.
It had become so associated with him that she felt almost disloyal in
coming with any one else. And somehow Dicky fitted better here than
this man now with her. For the life of her she could not tell why,
but Devons appeared slightly out of place. As they moved on to the
dining-room she studied him and wondered why. As far as his personal
appearance went, he was a little better-dressed than others at the
tables. Perhaps that was it. She almost expected to hear his shoes
squeak.
That was a ridiculous thought—so ridiculous that it made her smile.
He was quite serious about ordering the lunch and consulted her taste
in everything. Personally she desired nothing but a salad and tea, but
he was insistent upon making it as elaborate as possible.
“This is part of the dream,” he reminded her.
So before he had more than begun his order he had converted the waiter
from an indifferent bystander into a most attentive and obsequious
servant. If the latter had been asked to characterize his guest, he
would have done it in a sentence.
“Ranch-owner from the West on his honeymoon.”
This was at the moment when Devons was flattering himself that he was
the embodiment of New York.
During the lunch, of which she ate little, he talked again of the
factory and of Hartley and the details of the last month. Then he ran
on to the possibilities of the future, which led him up to Arkwright.
“You remember him?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“It was he who helped fix up my attic for you,” he reminded her.
“Oh, the big fellow?”
He nodded.
“He’s an architect. Did I ever tell you about the house he designed?”
“No.”
“It’s a wonderful house. ’Way back in the winter he told me he had done
it for me. It was a joke then, but it begins to look as though it might
turn out serious.”
In detail he described it to her, watching her eyes to see if she
responded. At least she appeared attentive.
“That’s part of the dream, too,” he concluded. “Some day I’m going to
build that. Where do you think we ought to put it?”
She started.
“It sounds very grand,” she answered. “Would you really enjoy that sort
of house?”
“With acres of land around it.”
“Oh, dear,” she smiled. “It will be quite a royal estate.”
“Yes,” he answered soberly. “It must be that—for you.”
“For me!” she cried.
“Didn’t you understand that?”
“No, no,” she said quickly.
“Who else did you think I was going to build it for?”
“I—I don’t know. You—we mustn’t stay here any longer.”
The orchestra began to play a _valse hésitation_. She looked about in
alarm—as though in search of Dicky.
“I came here just to tell you these things,” he hurried on. “I—I
thought you would be pleased.”
“It’s all my fault!” she exclaimed. “I shouldn’t have come. I—I should
have written you the truth from Atlantic City.”
“The truth?”
“When you wrote me as you did. I won’t pretend. I knew then you were
coming to care for me—in a way that was impossible. Only I didn’t want
to hurt you. I thought that if I said nothing you would see.”
“See what?”
“That—” she hesitated.
“That you don’t love me?” he put in.
She hung her head as though ashamed.
“Yes,” she answered.
He leaned forward.
“After all these months that I have been working for you?”
She raised her head at that. She met his eyes.
“You thought you were working for me, but—but after all is that true?”
“For you!” he cried fiercely. “For you alone! From the first week you
were so kind to me it was that and nothing else. It’s been part of the
dream—the biggest part. I’ve looked forward to taking you home with
me. You were coming back to the little farm as my wife. I was to be so
proud of you. It’s true! It _must_ be true!”
“You—you dreamed those things all by yourself,” she warned.
“Because I had no right to share them with you until I had made good.
I—I couldn’t talk about such things in an attic, could I?”
She thought a second.
“No,” she answered. “And yet if you had—”
“They would have sounded absurd,” he broke in. “I had to wait until I
could give you all the things you deserved. I had to wait until now.”
“And now,” she answered, moving back her chair, “we mustn’t talk about
them any more.”
“You mean you won’t marry me?”
“It’s impossible,” she answered. “I—I don’t love you.”
“But if I wait a little longer—”
“It would make no difference.”
She was firm now. She was direct. She felt this must be over with at
once.
“Don’t go yet,” he pleaded as she rose.
But she stood where she was as he paid his check. Then she started for
the door. He took her arm—holding it so tightly it hurt.
“Joan,” he choked. “You’re spoiling the dream.”
“I’m sorry,” she answered. “I’m very sorry.”
“Then come with me. Oh, I’ll make a princess of you. I’ll work all my
life to get you things. I want so to buy you things.”
“You only make it worse,” she replied.
They had reached the coat-room, and he would have gone right on talking
like that had she not warned him of the eager listeners. Then they were
outside again and she felt freer, though he was still holding her arm.
She herself motioned for a cab.
“You mustn’t leave me like this,” he muttered.
She held out her hand as she had held out her hand to Dicky. But he
refused to take it.
“This isn’t right!” he cried.
“It is necessary. You are making it more necessary every minute.”
“I? It’s you. This isn’t fair of you.”
His face showed both fear and anger. She had never seen him like this.
She was sorry to have to remember him like this.
“Mark,” she whispered, “I wanted to keep you as a friend.”
He laughed harshly.
“Friend? After what I’d planned! But I might have known!”
“Yes,” she answered quietly, “you might have known. Good-bye.”
She stepped into the cab and closed the door. He reached for the knob,
but she gave a sharp order to the driver. She closed her eyes and
leaned back. It was not so Dicky had left her.
Where was Dicky? She needed him now.
CHAPTER XXXVII
BACK HOME
Devons went from Delmonico’s direct to the ticket-office and engaged
his ticket and parlor-car accommodations for that night. With a
vicious relish he took an entire drawing-room. Joan had cheated him of
much, but she should not cheat him of all the rest. He would make his
home-going all that he had planned with the exception of her. He still
had before him his grand entry, and he would let the world at large
know of his success.
He took a cab back to the Avenue and stopped many times to make for
himself some of the purchases he had intended to make with her.
He bought extravagantly for many of those back home he had scarcely
thought of since he left. He took a fierce delight in spending his
money, in converting it into tangible things for them as long as there