The Gorgeous Girl. Nalbro Bartley
live with the Faithfuls; Mary’s a nice girl but I can’t go their quiet ways. I only stay because it’s cheap. I owe more than two hundred dollars right now.”
Gaylord was sympathetic. “I owe more than that,” he admitted; “but I’m going to have some concerts and there’ll be good horse races soon––sure things, you know. You’ll see, little girl. What would you say if I showed you a real bank account?”
“I wouldn’t waste time talking. I’d marry you.” Her good humour was returning. “Honest, Gay, do you think you might draw down some kale?”
Like all her kind she had an absurd trust in any one 38 who was paying her attention. With a different type of man Trudy would have been beaten, courageously had the gentleman arrested, and then interfered when the judge was directing him to the penitentiary.
“I wish you wouldn’t talk that way. When we are married and you meet my friends you’ll have to brush up on a lot of things.”
“I guess I’ll manage to be understood,” she retorted; “and when we are married maybe you can get my job so as to support your wife!”
The orchestra began playing a new rag, and Trudy and Gay immediately left their chairs to be the first couple on the floor. They were prouder of their dancing than of each other.
After several dances they became optimistic over the future and finished their dinner with the understanding that at the first possible moment they would be married and Trudy was to be a hard-working little bride causing her husband’s men friends to be nice to the Vondeplosshes, while husband would persuade the Gorgeous Girl to be nice to his wife.
They decided, too, that Mary Faithful was clever and good––but queer.
That Steve O’Valley would discover that a self-made man could not marry an heiress and make a go of it as well as a man of an aristocratic family could marry an adorable red-haired young lady and elevate her to his position.
That Trudy was far more beautiful than Beatrice Constantine, and as one lived only once in this world––why not always strive for a good time?
Whereat they had a farewell dance and moved on to the moving-picture world, where they held hands and stared vapidly at the films, repairing to a cafeteria 39 on a side street for a lunch, and then to the Faithful parlour. Mary had gone to church, Luke had boy friends in to discuss a summer camp, and his mother snored mildly on the dining-room sofa.
They took possession of the front parlour, and the enlarged crayons of the Faithful ancestors bore witness that for more than two hours these young people giggled over the comic supplement, debated as to the private life of the movie stars, tried new dance steps, and then planned how to get everything for nothing and, having done so, not to share their spoils.
“A perfectly lovely time!” Trudy said, glibly, as she kissed Gay good-night.
“Perfectly lovely!” he echoed, politely. “Don’t work too hard to-morrow, Babseley, will you? And do nothing rash until you see me.”
“Call me up to-morrow at eight, Bubseley,” she giggled. The pet names were of Gay’s choice.
So Bubseley tottered down the walk while Babseley turned out the lights and retired to her room with a bag of candy and a paprika-brand of novel. At midnight she tossed it aside and with self-pity prepared to go to sleep.
“And I’ll have to go to work to-morrow,” she sighed, planning her next silk dress as she did up the Titian hair in curlers.
40
CHAPTER III
WHEN the world was considerably younger it dressed children in imitation of its adults––those awful headdresses and heavy stays, long skirts to trip up tender little feet, and jewelled collars to make tiny necks ache. Now that the world “is growing evil and the time is waxing late” the grown-ups have turned the tables and they dress like the children––witness thereof to be found in the costume of Aunt Belle Todd, Mark Constantine’s sister, who had shared her brother’s fortunes ever since his wife had been presented with the marble monument.
Like all women who have ceased having birthdays Aunt Belle had not ceased struggling. She still had hopes of a financier who would carry her off in a storm of warmed-over romance to a castle in Kansas. Her first husband was Thomas Todd, the carpenter, chiefly distinguished for falling off a three-story building on which he was working and never harming a hair of his head; also for singing first bass in the village quartet. Aunt Belle had slightly recoloured her past since she had lived with her brother. The account of Mr. Todd’s singing in the quartet was made to resemble a brilliant début in grand opera which was abandoned because of Aunt Belle’s dislike of stage life and its temptations, while his rolling off the three-story building was never alluded to except when Mark Constantine wished to tease.
She was a short, plump person with permanently 41 jet-black hair and twinkling eyes. Prepared to forgo all else save elegance, she had brought up her gorgeous niece with the idea that it was never possible to have too much luxury. Seated in the Gorgeous Girl’s dressing room she now presented excellent proof that the world was growing very old indeed, for her plump self was squeezed into a short purple affair made like a pinafore, her high-heeled bronze slippers causing her to totter like a mandarin’s wife; and strings of coral beads and a gold lorgnette rose and fell with rhythmic motion as she sighed very properly over her niece’s marriage.
“It will never be the same, darling,” she was saying, glancing in a mirror to see if the light showed the rouge boundaries too clearly––“never quite the same. You’ll understand when your daughter marries––for you have been just as dear as one.”
Beatrice, who was busy inspecting some newly arrived lingerie, did not glance up as she answered: “Don’t be silly. You know it’s a relief. You can sit back and rest from now on––until I’m divorced,” she added with a smile.
“How can you even say such a thing?”
Beatrice tossed the filmy creamy silk somethings or other away and delivered herself of her mind. “Alice Twill was divorced before she married this specimen; so was Coralie Minter; and Harold Atwater; and both the Deralto girls were divorced, and their mother, too. And Jill Briggs is considering it, and I’m sure I don’t blame her. Everyone seems to think a divorce quite the proper caper when things grow dull. You may as well have all the fun you can. Steve wants me to have everything I fancy, and I’m sure he’d never deny me a divorce.”
42
“You are marrying a splendid, self-made young man who adores you and who is making money every day in the week. No girl is to be more envied––you have had a wonderful ten years of being a ‘Gorgeous Girl,’ as your dear papa calls it, and at twenty-six you are to become the bride of a wonderful man––neither too early nor too late an age. I cannot really grieve––when I realize how happy you are going to be, and yet–––”
“Don’t work so hard, aunty,” Bea said, easily. “Of course Steve’s a wonderful old dear and all that––I wish I had asked him for the moon. I do believe he’d have gotten an option on it.” She laughed and reached over to a bonbon dish to rummage for a favourite flavour. She selected a fat, deadly looking affair, only to bite into it and discover her mistake. She tossed it on the floor so that Monster could creep out of her silk-lined basket and devour the remains.
“If you call natural feelings of a mother and an aunt ‘working hard’ I am at a loss–––” her aunt began with attempted indignation.
“Oh, I don’t call anything anything; I’m dead and almost buried.” She looked at her small self in the pier glass. “Think of all I have to go through with before it is over and we are on our way west. Here it is half-past twelve and I’ve not eaten breakfast really.