There is always love (2 page)

"So, his name is Greg. What's he like?" "Not too young, early thirties, perhaps. Military setup. He has just come from training at Plattsburg. Hester was there for a week, you remember. Uncanny perception, I'd say. New Yorker. Up-to-the-minute clothes. Snappy car. Gray, almost black eyes, clear and compelling. Determined mouth tiU he smiles, then it's rather touchingly boyish. I'd hate to clash wUls with him. He'll be perfect for Hester. Something in his voice 6

makes you feel that he belongs in the till-death-us-do-part school."

*The direct answer to a mother's prayer. It's your cue for a dignified exit. How about it? Will you go to New York with me? I've leased an apartment, modem to the last saucepan, I judge from the description. That's what I want, a sophisticated background. I shall leave 'Ruthetta' with the other antiques. From now on, I'm Ruth. I'll take Liberty Hull to keep house for me; I can't leave her, she's been with us so long she's family. She's all excited about it and for a wonder hasn't lisped a word about my plan in the village. I hear Skid's whistle. He has tracked you down, Lindy. Quick, before he gets here. Will you come?"

"If I may pay my way."

"Of course you may, silly."

"Then I'm following your advice and getting out. I'll take a chance. I'm just a little gambler at heart. You've struck a spark."

"So glad I'll be there to watch the fire. Something tells me that there will be one big blaze." A horn and a clatter sounded simultaneously at the edge of the lawn. "One would think that the son of plutocrats would have a car that didn't rattle and groan like the rigging of a ship in a gale. For goodness' sake, tell Skid we're coming, Lindy, before he cuts up the grass any more."

II

LINDA glanced at her wrist watch, compared the time with that of the clock on the wall. The hands of each had moved only five minutes though she felt as if an hour had passed since she had looked at them before.

It was such a silent place, this office set back on a terrace thirty stories above the city street. She could almost hear the hard beat of her heart. One wall was a sheet of mirror, the others were paneled in a hght, satin-smooth wood. Closed doors of the same shut out whatever business transactions were going on behind them. The pile of the carpet was as deep and springy as the pine-needle-covered ground in the woods at home. There were a few inviting tan-leather chairs with low tables beside them on which lay large portfolios. Did they hold the photographs of the property offered for rent or sale? There were no pictilres of houses and estates. She had expected to see the walls covered with them like the walls in Sim Cove's office.

In an alcove a girl was busy at a typewriter which was as soundless as the room. She wore a tailored navy-wool frock with crisp, narrow turnover pique collar and cuffs. From the top of her smooth, dark hair to her glistening nails she had the same polished look as the office. Beyond the window behind her the tower of the Empire State Building slowly emerged from the morning mists and took form like a Max-field Parrish magic castle.

Linda's eyes left the receptionist to regard herself in the mirrored wall. Not too bad. The hair visible below the brim of her moss-green felt had a satin-sheen, her teeth were beautifully white, her skin smooth and delicately tinted; her lips were vivid and still persisted in tilting up at the corners though she had been looking for a position for two weeks. Her amethyst jacket and her skirt of a plaid which combined green and amethyst were expertly tailored; her mother had given her the money for them as a going-away present. She would much rather she had protested agamst her leaving home. Instead she had encouraged the experiment. Had she been glad to have her go because of Hester?

She slammed shut the door of memory. She would allow none of the problems of the past to blur this new life. Besides, she had enough to think of in the present. It had taken her two weeks to reluctantly decide to remind Keith Sanders that he had promised her a job. She hadn't wanted to go into real estate again but she wanted less to be idle. She had been waiting an hour to see him. Had he slipped out another door to avoid her? Better to know it at once if he had.

She crossed the room and stopped at the desk which offered the information in gold letters on a small black oblong that Miss Dowse was the incumbent.

"Are you sure Mr. Sanders will see me this morning?"

The girl looked up from her work. "Gee, I'm sorry. You were so quiet I forgot you were here. I'll speak to him again."

She touched a button on the inter-oflSce phone. A sound which was a cross between a grunt and a growl responded.

"Miss Bourne is still waiting, Mr. Sanders."

"Who?" Quite plainly Linda heard the impatient question and visualized his cold blue eyes.

"Miss Bourne."

"Who the dickens is Miss Bourne?"

**Tell him that she sat beside him at dinner at Mrs. Grant's last June. That he told her he would give her a position if she came to New York," Linda whispered instead of dashing from the ofl&ce as anger prompted.

The girl faithfully relayed the message. It brought a laugh from the other end of the line before a voice exclaimed:

"The Uttle country girl with the naive line! Tell her I'm 8

busy. No opening here at present. Wait a minute. Get her phone number. That's all."

"You needn't tell me, I heard," Linda assured before the girl could speak. "I couldn't help hearing."

"I'm sorry. He's always like that in the morning. Try in the afternoon. His secretary walked out on him yesterday. She thought she had him eating out of her hand, didn't believe he would let her go. I'll bet she got the surprise of her life when he said *O.K.' He'll need someone. Be sure and come back though I'll warn you now he's a hard man to work for. He's a slave-driver. That secretary could afford to walk out; I, the receptionist, can't. So think it over."

"Thanks for the tip, but no one could be harder to work for than the boss I left. I will be back this afternoon if I don't find something before. Good-by."

She was half-way across the room when a man entered.

"Tell Sanders that I'm—Miss Bourne! When did you blow into town?" It was the driver of the black roadster, Gregory Merton, smiling, undoubtedly glad to see her. "What luck to run into you like this I"

Linda gently extricated the hand she had laid in his, eagerly extended. Her heart, which had been smarting from Keith Sanders' indifference, went all melty with pleasure.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded as if only then aware of her surroundings. The sharp lines she remembered cut between his eyebrows, his smile was gone.

"If you mean, by 'here,' New York, I'm living in the Big City; if this office, I'm looking for a position. I met Mr. Sanders last summer and he assured me that when I wanted a job he would have one all tied up in pink ribbons for me."

"Look here, don't decide until I've talked with you. I . . ."

A door behind them opened. Keith Sanders appeared on the threshold. His rather thick red lips made his sm^, clipped mustache appear even more blond than his hair. He seemed taller, more good-looking than Linda remembered him and that had been good-looking enough. His blue eyes flashed from the face of the man beside her to hers and hardened.

"My receptionist notified me you were here, Merton. You were so long appearing that I came to see what had happened to you. By Jove, Miss Bourne, I'm glad you haven't gone. I was deep in a business problem when Miss Dowse phoned and for a minute your name meant nothing, then all of a sudden I remembered a lovely girl in a fluffy white dress. I'd started after you when Merton was annoxmced. Of course I have a place for you. You're just what I need. You..."

"Wait a minute." Gregory Merton's irfttmiption was cool and imhurried, his gray eyes clear and disconcertingly direct

beneath his sharp-drawn brows. "I need another secretary. Want the position, Miss Bourne?"

"Keep out of this, Merton. I engaged her first. You can't.. .*•

Linda laughed suddenly. The tilt of her mouth above her sturdy dimpled chin was challenging.

"This situation isn't real. It's something out of a radio skit. Two businessmen clashing over a girl of whose capability they know nothing. It doesn't make sense."

"Your mistake. I do know something about your work,** Sanders corrected. "I played golf with your boss, Sim Cove, last summer. When he wasn't disputing the score he was broadcasting the fact that he had the world's best secretary and saleswoman, that you practically ran his real-estate business, so you see I'm not engaging a girl because she's charming."

"And I'm making the offer because I recognize ability when I see it. I'm a 'sensitive,' one of those psychic chaps you hear about, Miss Bourne. I can tell by looking at you that you'll fit into my organization like the missing piece of a picture puzzle. I'll guarantee to be the world's best boss."

Greg Merton's voice was light but his eyes were grave as they met hers, almost as if he were warning her to go slow. She liked him, liked him more than at their first meeting, and he had set her heart glowing then. That first meeting. On the screen of her mind flashed a picture with sound effects. She saw him leaning forward in the roadster, heard him say:

"Don't tell me I'm wrong, that this isn't the date you set for me to dine with you."

He was Hester's friend. Her mother and sister hadn't wanted her to meet him. He had really been the occasion of her leaving home, though the cause was deeper, much deeper. That settled it. She would keep as far away from him as possible and judging from the animosity between the two men which was thick enough to cut, Keith Sanders' office would serve. She looked from one to the other and smiled.

"I've taken time to consider the offers. Thanks for wanting me, Mr. Merton, but. . . but I'll stay here."

"Fine! Fine!" Keith Sanders exulted. "Miss Dowse, show Miss Bourne into the office she will occupy. I'll be right along to talk terms. Now, Merton, we'll settle the matter about which I phoned you."

"But not so easily as you have settled this." The ice in

Greg Merton's voice gave Linda a premonitory chill before

the closing door shut off the sound of Keith Sanders' reply.

That night after dinner she and Ruth sat in front of what

the advertisement of the apartment had described as a wood-

burning fireplace, in which danced and capered midget flames. It was a large room. The casing around the fireplace was of blond mahogany, the wall above it was one vast mirror, which reflected her lime-green frock and Ruth's violet crepe. Tables and piano were of the same satin-smooth wood. Large chairs and a capacious couch were upholstered in cotton tweed the shade of the beige hangings which were striped horizontally with a deeper beige, brown and Chinese lacquer red. Ceramic lamp bases were of the same red, with pale shades. A brown sof-tred rug was on the floor. A bowl of Chinese lacquer on the table.

"Weren't you in luck to get this place?" Linda exclaimed. "It does seem strange, though, not to see you against an antique background. Stranger to see your hair cut and in short curls all over your head. Sometimes I wonder if you be really you. I love it, though, the change, I mean. If you were after sophistication, you found it, plus, in this apartment. The furniture is the last word in modem design."

"Heavens knows I needed the change. I like this room but I'm stiunped when it comes to flowers. Nothing seems to fit. I expected that the walls would close in on me in protest when I put that silver vase with three yellow roses on the table and the copper bowl with that mass of near-white chrysanthemums on the piano, but I had to have them."

"A room without flowers is a room without a soul. After the racket of the city this apartment is like a walled-in enclosure of color and quietness. Speaking of quiet, you've hardly spoken since I told you of my lucky break. I'm still a bit dazed, myself. It's unbelievable. Of course there was something behind it. Two modem businessmen wouldn't fight over securing a certain secretary—^the woods are full of them. After I accepted Keith Sanders' offer, I felt as if I were a leaf tossed into a current, that having started I must go on or be dragged under. Queer feeling. I wonder what it meant. Was it a premonition of danger?"

"Danger! Don't be ridiculous, Lindy. If you ask me, I think the Sanders man was pretty lucky to get a girl with a conscience, who didn't boost her price. I gather that in his eagerness to block Merton you might have asked for anything and got it."

"I was practically office manager for Sim Cove, buyer and seller and publicity specialist. He boasted that he never let business interfere with his golf. I inquired when I first came to New York what the pay was for that sort of work and asked for it. Sanders was a bit staggered but came across, although he remarked:

" 'For a country girl you do know your way around, don't you?'

"*But, you see, I haven't always lived in the country,' 1 explained sweetly. 'My father was a Federal Court judge in Boston. We lived there winters for many years.*"

They had been such happy years. Her father and she had been boon companions. Had he sensed his wife's absorption in her elder daughter and tried to make up for it to the younger? She shut her eyes tight to keep back a rush of tears as she visualized his noble head crowned with short, silvery curls; his humorous dark eyes. She could hear his deep voice encourage:

"You can do anything you want to do, Lindy. I hope you'll want to be a grand wife and mother, but whatever it is never forget that your Dad believes you can be tops."

If only she could remember, forever and ever, the light in his eyes and the tenderness of his voice as he had said it.

"What is Gregory Merton's business?" Ruth's question brought her back to the present.

"We didn't get that far. He spoke of his 'organization.' After he left I was so busy learning the ropes that I didn't think of him again. Have I told you that I have an office to myself with the skyscrapers and towers of Manhattan vanishing into the mists or emerging gold-tipped from the sun just outside the window?"

"Only twice, dearie. Look up Gregory Merton in the telephone book. I'm curious to know why there should be a feud between him and your boss. Is it cherchez la femme, or business? Whichever it is it spells drama to me."