A New Name (Musaicum Vintage Mysteries). Grace Livingston Hill
himself of his expensive coat and crawled into the harsh gray coat of the stranger, and said to himself eagerly, “Now I’m becoming a new man,” but he shivered as the car shot forward and the chill air struck through him. Fur lining did make a difference. It never occurred to him before that there were men who could not have fur coats when they needed them for comfort. And now he was one of those men! How astonishing!
The new owner of the fur coat decided that it would be wise not to take the strange young man to his house. He would drop him at the first garage, which was a mile and a half nearer than his home. Then if he thought better of his exchange, he could not possibly hunt him up and demand his coat back again. So the young man was let out in the night before a little garage on the outskirts of town, and the Ford disappeared into the darkness, its taillight winking cunningly and whisking out of sight at the first corner. No chance for that fur coat to ever meet up with its former owner again. And Murray Van Rensselaer stood shivering in the road, waiting till his companion was out of sight that he, too, might vanish in another direction. He had no use for a garage, and he groaned in his spirit over the thought of walking farther with those infernally tight shoes. He almost had a wild notion of taking them off and going barefoot for a while.
Then suddenly a brilliant headlight mounted the hill at the top of the road, and a motorcycle roared into view, heading straight toward him. He could see the brass buttons on the man’s uniform, and he dodged blindly out of the path of the light and ducked behind the garage in frantic haste, forgetful of his aching feet, and made great strides through the stubble of an old cornfield that seemed acres across, his heart beating wildly at the thought that perhaps the man with his overcoat had already stopped somewhere to telephone information about him. He was enveloped in panic once more and stumbled and fell and rose again regardless of the bruises and scratches, as if he were struggling for the victory in a football game. Only in this game his life was the stake.
A phrase that he had heard somewhere in his past came to his mind and haunted him. Like a chant it beat a rhythm in his brain as he dragged his weary body over miles of darkness.
“The mark of Cain!” it said. Over and over again: “The mark of Cain!”
CHAPTER VI
Grevet’s was a fine old marble mansion just off the avenue with its name in gold script and heavy silken draperies at the plate-glass windows. It had the air of having caught and imprisoned the atmosphere of the old aristocracy that used to inhabit that section of the city. The quiet distinction of the house seemed to give added dignity to the fine old street, where memories of other days still lingered to remind old residents of a time when only the four hundred trod the sacred precincts of those noble mansions.
Inside the wrought-iron grill-work of its outer entrance, the quiet distinction became more intense. No footstep sounded from the deep pile of imported carpets that covered the floors. Gray floors, lofty walls done in pearl and gray and cream. Upholstery of velvet toning with the walls and floor. And lightwonderful perfect lightsoftly diffused from the walls themselves, seemingly, making it clear as the morning, yet soft with the radiance of moonlight. A pot of daffodils in one window, just where the silken curtain was slightly drawn to the street. A crystal bowl of parma violets on a tiny table of teak wood. An exquisite cushion of needlepoint blindingly intricate in its delicate design and minute stitches. One rare painting of an old Greek temple against a southern sky and sea. That was Grevet’s.
And when you entered there was no one present at first. It was very still, like entering some secret hall of silence. You almost felt like an intruder unless you were of the favored ones who came often to have their wants supplied.
A period of overwhelming waiting, of hesitation lest you might have made a mistake after all, and then Madame, in a costume of stunning simplicity, would glance out from some inner sanctum, murmur a command, and out would come a slim attendant in black satin frock and hair, cut seemingly off the same piece of cloth, and demand your need, and later would come forth the mannequins and models wearing creations of distinction that would put the lily’s garb to shame.
It was in the mysterious sidelines somewhere, from which they issued forth unexpectedly upon the purchaser of garments, that a group of these attendants stood conversing, just behind Madame’s inner sanctum, in low tones because Madame might return at any moment, and Madame did not permit comments on the customers.
“She was a beautiful girl,” said one whose high color under tired eyes, and boyish haircut on a mature head, were somehow oddly at variance. “She was different”
“Yes, different!” spoke another crisply with an accent. “Quite different, and attractive, yes. But she had no style. She wore her hair like one who didn’t care for style. Pretty, yes, but not at all the thing. Quite out. She didn’t seem to belong to him at all. She was not like any of the girls he has brought here before.”
“And yet she had distinction.”
“Yes,” hesitating, “distinction of a kind. But more the distinction of another universe.”
“Oh, come down to earth, Miss Lancey,” cried a round little model with face a shade too plump. “You’re always up in the clouds. She had no style, and you know it. That coat she wore was one of those nineteen-ninety-eight coats in Simon’s window. I see them every night when I go home. I knew it by those tricky little pockets. Quite cute they are, with good lines, but cheap and common, of course. She was nothing but a poor girl. Why try to make out she was something else? She has a good figure, of course, and pretty features, if one likes that angelic type, but no style in the world.”
“She was stunning in the black velvet,” broke in the first speaker stubbornly. “I can’t help itI think she had style. There was somethingwell, kind of gracious about her, as if she were a lady in disguise.”
“Oh, Florence, you’re so hopelessly romantic! That’s way behind the times. You don’t find Cinderellas nowadays. Things are more practical. If a lady has a disguise, she takes it off. That’s more up to date.”
“Well, you know yourself she was different. You can’t say she wasn’t perfectly at home with those clothes. She wore them like a princess.”
“She had a beautiful form,” put in an older salesperson. “That’s a whole lot.”
“It takes something more than form,” said the girl persistently. “You know that Charlotte Bakerman had a form. They said she was perfect in every measurement, but she walked like a cow, and she carried herself like a gorilla in a tree when she sat down.”
“Oh, this girl was graceful, if that’s what you mean,” conceded the fat one ungraciously.
“It wasn’t just grace, either,” persisted the champion of the unknown customer. “She didn’t seem to be conscious she had on anything unusual at all. She walked the same way when she came in. She walked the same way when she went out in her nineteen ninety-eight. She sort of glorified it. And when she had on the Lanvin green ensemble, it was just as if she had always worn such things. It sort of seemed to belong to her, as if she was born with it, like a bird’s feathers.”
“I know what you mean,” said the woman with tired eyes and artificial blush. “She wasn’t thinking about her clothes. They weren’t important to her. She would only care if they were suitable. And she would know at a glance without discussing it whether they were suitable. You saw how she looked at that flashy little sports frock, the one with the three shades of red stripes and a low red leather belt. She just turned away and said in a low tone: ‘Oh, not that one, Murray!’ as if it hurt her.”
“Did she call him Murray?” asked the fat one greedily.
“Yes. They seemed to know each other real well. She was almost as if she might have been a sister, only we know he hasn’t got any sisters. She might have been a country cousin.”
“Perhaps he’s going to marry her!” suggested the fat