Delphi Complete Works of Booth Tarkington (Illustrated), page 435
“Don’t you think that’s the way to look at it, Aurelia,” she repeated.
“Well — —” Aurelia said, and paused. “Of course in your new position you’ve got to consider yourself, Stella, and be careful not to take any false steps. Naturally things are liable to be pretty different between you and Bill from now on, you know, Stella.”
The hairbrush in Stella’s white and shapely hand ceased its movement, and for a moment came to rest upon her fair head; she was surprised. “Different between Bill and me? Why, how could that be?”
Aurelia laughed sadly; she sighed as if in pity for her friend’s innocence. “It would be a lot better for you, dear, if you’d had more experience with men. You’d be better prepared for the way they act when they begin to get rich. You married too young, Stella, ever to really know much about them.”
“But, goodness me! I certainly know all about Bill, Aurelia.”
“Up to now you do, yes. But you’ve never known Bill with a big income and plenty of money in the bank to spend on anybody he likes to spend it on.”
Mrs. Greeley set the brush down on the table and turned to face her friend. “But, goodness me! You don’t think Bill wants to spend — —”
“You don’t know men, dearie!”
Stella was puzzled and a little disturbed. “He’s never denied me anything I really wanted or needed; but you know how careful and saving he’s always been. He doesn’t care much about show and splurge. I’m sure that what he spends his money on will be something sensible, Aurelia.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Hedge said quickly. “But are you sure that who he spends it on will be something sensible?”
Stella’s lovely blue eyes became larger in an astonished stare. “But who except me — —”
Aurelia shook her head wisely and gloomily. “Rich men are subject to temptations that don’t come other men’s way.”
“Yes; but of course Bill isn’t rich yet and anyway — —”
Aurelia interrupted with a little outcry of protest. “Don’t say ‘anyway,’ Stella! You mean that ‘anyway’ he’s too crazy about you. The devotion of a faithful wife never saved a man yet when a fascinating and designing woman got after him, and that’s just the kind of women that do get after important men. The trouble with you and Bill is that he’s become important. That’s the whole trouble, Stella, and you certainly ought to see how careful you must be not to take a single false step at this juncture. Just at this juncture, Stella, a single false step would be absolutely fatal.”
Young Mrs. Greeley’s expression, at first denoting mere puzzlement, had become a little perturbed. Nevertheless she laughed and seemed uninclined to be serious. “Why, Bill is the most faithful old soul in the world, and you’ve told me a hundred times, Aurelia, that you never did see a man that was crazier about his wife!”
“Yes — up to now.”
“But, Aurelia — —”
“Listen,” Aurelia said, and the gravity with which she slowly shook her head checked the protest. “You don’t know the workings of the N.K.U. like I do, Stella. I know the inner workings of the N.K.U. like a book. I knew everything that went on there long before Henry got ’em to give Bill a try. Bill is stepping into Joel Thomas’s shoes as factory manager and Joel is retired at his own request. Do you know why, and do you know why George Peale, the factory manager before Joel Thomas, was also retired at his own request?”
“I don’t know about Mr. Peale, Aurelia, and about Mr. Thomas I only know what Bill’s told me. He said they’d given Mr. Thomas such large stock bonuses that with what he’d saved out of his salary he was well enough off to quit and buy a place in the country and travel and have a good time. Bill says Mr. Thomas has always wanted to take it easy and now he can. Isn’t that why he quit?”
“It’s anything but!” Aurelia said. “Thomas quit for the same reason Peale quit before him. He quit because his wife made him.”
“Mrs. Thomas? What would she — —”
“My, but you’re dumb, Stella Greeley!” Aurelia cried. “You act as if you didn’t know who was Peale’s secretary and who was Thomas’s secretary and who’s going to be Bill’s secretary now. She’s been the N.K.U. factory manager’s secretary for twelve years and she’s still got the job, hasn’t she?”
“What?” Stella said blankly, and her mystification seemed complete. “You don’t mean to say you’re talking about Miss Nelson?”
“Don’t I?” Aurelia returned grimly. “Just you ask Mrs. Thomas whether I’m talking about Miss Nelson or not!”
Stella was unconvinced; she laughed. “Why, Miss Nelson must be at least thirty-eight!”
“Is that what she looks?”
“No; but she must be.”
“Crystal Nelson’s thirty-five,” Mrs. Hedge said authoritatively. “She looks about twenty-three, and if you don’t know yet that it’s what a woman looks and not what she is that counts, it’s time you found it out.”
“Of course anybody knows that,” Stella said, and, with a gentle unconsciousness that did not wholly please the caller, her glance returned to the mirror and remained there for several moments in a sweet placidity. “I think I can trust Bill perfectly, Aurelia,” she added turning again toward Mrs. Hedge.
Aurelia felt baffled; she could not easily have explained why. She had not come down to her friend’s apartment with the intention of making Stella jealous of Crystal Nelson; she had no such purpose, nor, so far as she was conscious, any purpose at all. Yet she found herself now — she knew not how — committed to a course of action seemingly founded upon precisely that purpose and that intention: it appeared necessary to convince Stella that Miss Nelson was a dangerous woman, inevitably threatening the marital peace of the Greeleys. The facts for the establishment of such a case against Miss Nelson were meager, and Aurelia had already overstated what had been merely gossip and rumor; but when she felt a pressure to convince she had the habit of treating facts as elastic conveniences to support argument. So now she smiled pityingly and shook her head. “Mrs. Peale was a pretty good-looking wife, too, Stella; and Bill hasn’t had any experience at all of women. Have you ever seen a man yet that wouldn’t fall for an attractive woman’s flattery? I don’t envy you what you may go through in the next few months, Stella — I hate to say it; but indeed I do not!”
Again she was not without effect, and Mrs. Greeley’s expression became one of disquiet, although she still offered resistance and protested. “But Bill’s always been so steady, Aurelia.”
“Yes, and that’s just the danger now. It’s exactly that kind of man you’ve got to look out for when some sudden success like this big new appointment comes his way. Men like that are the very ones to lose their heads about women and go completely off the handle the minute they become important. You see, Stella, no woman has ever made any fuss over Bill up to now. All this time he’s been plugging along in a subordinate position there wasn’t any reason to notice him. But now all at once he’s a big man out in the limelight, and you’re going to find things absolutely different: you’ll have to watch him like a hawk.”
“But how could I?” Stella returned plaintively. “I can’t go down to the N.K.U. and sit in his office all day, can I?”
“No — and there’s just the unfairness of it. That’s what I hate worst about the whole thing, Stella. What I mean, it’s the unfairness to women; we certainly get the raw end of the deal.”
“How do you mean, Aurelia?” Mrs. Greeley asked, baffled by this abrupt generalization. “You mean if Miss Nelson tries to get Bill to flirting with her or — —”
“I mean women don’t get a square deal out of life, Stella. I mean, you take a woman for instance that’s married a man when they were both pretty young, and lived with him through hard times when they were pinched and skimped for money, and done her share and worked with him to make both ends meet, and gone without good clothes and all the things she needed, and everything, so he could get ahead and make a career for himself — well, and suppose he does make a career for himself and all of a sudden begins to be looked on as a rich man, well, where does she stand then? That’s what I mean by the unfairness of it.”
“I don’t see exactly, Aurelia. You mean — —”
“I mean just what I say. You take a woman in that position, about our age, Stella, and I tell you she’s got to look out for herself to keep from getting dished. Just look at the unfairness of it! Her husband’s used to her; she’s given the best years of her life to him; but so far as he’s concerned she’s just like some old shoe. And she isn’t getting any younger, let me tell you! If he’s going to dish her for some other woman, he may do it any day or he may put it off so long that it’ll be too late for her to fix anything up for herself. That’s the danger of it, Stella.”
“You think — —”
Mrs. Hedge did not permit this timorously begun question to be completed. “It’s the danger of it, Stella,” she interrupted, “and at the same time it’s the unfairness of it. A man can be any age and he can look like the Old Scratch dressed up — it doesn’t matter — if he’s successful there’ll always be women ready to jump at him. But here you take you and me, Stella, and we’re just at the critical age. The way I look at it, if something happened to Henry and he began to make a whole lot of money all of a sudden, I’d begin to take measures to protect myself. I’d begin to say to myself, ‘Here! Look out! Right now I’m still attractive enough to land somebody else if he dishes me, and maybe a bigger fish than Henry at that! But a few years from now I won’t be able to land anybody at all and then what’ll I do if Henry dishes me? The only thing for me to do is to be ready to beat him to it!’ That’s the way I feel, Stella, and I’m just passing it on to you because, looking at it one way, you’re in that position right now.”
“But Bill wouldn’t ever — —”
“Wouldn’t he?” Aurelia asked quickly. “Maybe he wouldn’t, Stella; but the point of it is that nobody on earth ever knows what a man will do if a clever woman gets hold of him.” She paused, then suddenly and surprisingly laughed aloud. “But my goodness! If I had your shape and your face and your hair, I’d never worry about that, Stella Greeley! I’d certainly step out and show this town a few things if I had just about half of your advantages. I’d cut at least one swath for myself before they got me in the Old Ladies’ Home!”
“Aurelia!”
“I certainly would!” Aurelia said, and she laughed again. “If I had your looks — —”
Mrs. Greeley interrupted with conscientious modesty. “But I’m not a bit better looking than you are, Aurelia. In lots of ways I’m not half as — —”
“Come off!” Aurelia said. “Let’s get down to cases, as the men say. You know as well as I do who it was said you had eyes exactly the color of cornflowers. ‘A beautiful woman with eyes exactly the color of cornflowers!’ Wasn’t that what he said just after you passed him at the last N.K.U. New Year’s Day reception? The whole receiving line heard it, didn’t they? He didn’t say a thing about a single one of the other women there, and there were about three hundred of us. Don’t pretend to be modest about it, Stella; you can’t put any of that stuff over on me. I bet you’ve never looked in a mirror since the reception without thinking of the Big Boss’s talking about your cornflower eyes!”
“I have, too!” Stella protested; but she blushed faintly and laughed. “I think Mr. Cooper’s a nice man, and I’m certainly grateful to him for giving Bill this big promotion; but I don’t believe — —”
“You don’t believe the cornflower eyes had anything to do with it,” Aurelia interrupted archly; for now her manner had become rallying. “Of course not!”
“What!” And with this the cornflower eyes widened in complete astonishment. “Why, Aurelia Hedge!”
“Come off!” Mrs. Hedge said. “You don’t mean to tell me you’re as simple as that!”
“As what?”
“As not to put two and two together. When a man shows a thing that plainly, a woman’s simply dumb if she doesn’t know how to take advantage of it. When a man selects one woman out of three hundred to express his admiration about, and the very next big opening in his business goes to that same woman’s husband — —”
“Aurelia! Why, that’s ridiculous. Bill’s promotion has come through his own — —”
“Pooh!” Aurelia said boldly. “Cooper’s got a dozen men at the N.K.U. just as able as Bill and with more experience.”
“But I don’t think it’s fair to Bill for anyone to say — —”
“To say that he isn’t the first man to be helped by his wife’s pretty eyes?” Aurelia interposed gaily; and she noted that her friend’s blush had deepened. “All right, I won’t say it then.” But at the archness of her glance, Stella cried out.
“Aurelia Hedge, you’re a perfect goose! Mr. Cooper wouldn’t know me again if he saw me.”
“Oh, wouldn’t he though!”
“Not unless I was with Bill. And besides that, everybody says he’s always been absolutely devoted to Mrs. Cooper.”
“Yes,” Aurelia said, becoming serious again;— “and so’s Henry Hedge devoted to me. But if Henry was going to have Crystal Nelson for his secretary — well, I’d begin to wonder a little where I was going to stand, maybe, before long. That’d be my state of mind, Stella; but I think I’d know how to turn the tables all right if I stood in your shoes. I tell you if I had your advantages, Stella Greeley — —”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Stella said, and she jumped up abruptly and began to complete her dressing. “You’d stick to your old Henry just as I’d stick to my old Bill. What nonsense we’re talking! How’d we ever happen to begin it? I want to hop downtown and get a manicure. You going with me?”
“Yes,” Aurelia answered. “My nails are dreadful. If Mr. Cooper gives a party in honor of the new factory manager, the way he did when he appointed Mr. Thomas, what you going to wear, Stella? You better work Bill for enough to get something in cornflower colored chiffon.”
“Oh, you big goose!” Stella cried. “You quit teasing me! He wouldn’t know whether I wore cornflower colored chiffon or corn-sack colored denim.”
“Who?” Aurelia inquired slyly. “Bill?”
“Oh, you crazy cut-up!” And upon that, both of them began to laugh loudly, as if with the impetus of something at once daring and ridiculous. Then, when their laughter died down, the subject of their discourse became less intimately personal, being concerned with party clothes in general, and presently they were on their way in Aurelia’s sedan still thus preoccupied. But as they descended from the car, Stella said absently, without prelude, or any apparent connection of idea:
“You big goose! I bet he’s over fifty years old!”
“Who?” Aurelia asked again. “Bill?” And in a gale of renewed laughter they entered the manicurist’s shop.
IV
AT THE BANQUET celebrating the inauguration of the new factory manager with whose incumbency the “new policy” of the N.K.U. began, it was both befitting and complimentary that Mrs. William Greeley, wife of the new manager, sat upon the right of Mr. Milton Cooper, president of the corporation and donor of the feast. No one could more becomingly have adorned so conspicuous a position of honor; and Stella, faintly blushing, in scanty cornflower colored chiffon, was thought charming by almost all of the eight hundred people present.
The banquet room was vast, for it was the Auditorium Chamber of the N.K.U. and two thousand sometimes sat there to hear a concert or a lecture or to watch an educational movie; but to-night the great canopy of blue had been lowered, shutting off the galleries and forming a temporary ceiling. Innumerable stars of thin nickel sparkled down from it; there was a silver-plated vase of six pink roses upon every one of the small tables at which most of the banqueters sat; and the N.K.U. band, in uniform, glittered at the end of the room opposite the Speakers’ Table, which was slightly elevated upon a long dais. Here, thus visibly eminent, the grandees of the occasion sat emphasized against a background of green fronds drooping from a grove of palm trees; the cloth was white damask and upon it were ten vases; but here every vase was the silver fountain-mouth for an unfalling spray of two dozen pink roses. The spray was a match for Stella’s cheeks; her hair shone against the green behind her like the gold coronal of a queen in a tapestry; she sat with downcast eyes, knowing that all of the women in the place — and most of the men, too, except during intervals of eating — were looking at her and thinking and talking about her.
Mrs. Henry Hedge, at a table for eight midway down the vast room, talked of nothing else. “Scared to death!” she informed her neighbors eagerly. “I been grooming her for it all day. ‘Look here, Stella’! I told her, the last thing before I put her in my car to bring her here. ‘You don’t have to make a speech,’ I told her. ‘All you have to do is sit there,’ I said. But after all, who wouldn’t be scared? Of course nobody dreamed Mr. Cooper ever meant to make such a tremendous event of it. When Mr. Thomas and Mr. Peale were appointed, it certainly wasn’t anything like this! You know that, yourself, Mrs. Royce.”
Aurelia had the benevolent attention of the whole table but addressed herself particularly to a stout lady in blue velvet seated opposite her. Mrs. Royce was consort to the Manager of the Central Sales Department and officially, so to speak, the most important person of the group. She nodded affably. “Of course it’s partly because Mr. Cooper wants to rouse enthusiasm for the New Policy; but it’s a big tribute to what he thinks of Mr. Greeley. Besides, I must say Mrs. Greeley looks a perfect queen — kind of like a queen from some foreign country being entertained by a king and sharing his throne for the evening.” Mrs. Royce paused to titter, half apologetically, half approvingly, to ameliorate so daring a flight of fancy. “Mrs. Greeley’s an intimate friend of yours, Mrs. Hedge?”
“ ’Intimate’?” Aurelia cried. “I brought her up! She’s about my age, of course; but she’s a near relation of Mr. Hedge’s and they’ve been under our wing, as you may say, ever since they came to town. Mr. Hedge put Bill Greeley into the N.K.U. and has pushed him as fast as he could ever since. As for Stella — —” Here Aurelia paused, glanced toward the royal platform and uttered a little cry of petulant distress. “Oh, dear! She has a habit of holding her head on one side that isn’t becoming. I told her not to do that to-night; but she’s so rattled she’s absolutely forgotten! Oh, dear me, I wish, she wouldn’t do it! I wish I had some way of getting word to her.” Increasingly troubled, Aurelia made sounds of lamentation, then, as if inspired by a bright thought, appealed to a comely, dark eyed young woman who sat at the head of this table. “Miss Nelson, do you think there’s any way for me to get a message sent up to the Speakers’ Table?”
