MRS. HILL was good to her word, and Stephen and Natica were able to buy a small stylish duplex apartment in upper Park Avenue with a marble-floored foyer and a winding stairwell and furnish it with colonial and federal pieces from rooms in Redwood which Angelica had chosen to do over in French styles. Stephen went docilely if a bit sullenly to work for his cousin Tyler Bennett, and Natica found herself pleasurably occupied in decorating her new home, buying new clothes, reading books and cultivating the many members of her new and, to her anyway, interesting family.
The coming of Armageddon to Europe and the period of its curious suspension known as the "phony war" blended with the initial unreality of her new life, making the transition easier for her, perhaps with its implication that nothing need be taken too seriously as nothing was likely to last. Her greatest gratification was in the unexpected welcome that she received from the Hill aunts and cousins. Her father-in-law and his two brothers, Erastus and Fred, both very much like him, were distinctly reserved, even a touch chilly, but she was quick to note that they were thus with others of the family. Their wives and children were distinctly friendly. Angelica had struck the opening note of cordiality, and it was obediently followed. Stephen's sisters were frequent callers, urging her to join them in bridge afternoons or discussion groups. Janine and Susan were certainly not stimulating companions, but Natica cared nothing for that at present. She reveled in her new sense of being included, and she was determined to let nothing interfere with whatever brief period it might continue to amuse her.
Stephen was her one disappointment. He was certainly discontented with his work, if what he did downtown could be called that, for he never discussed it and left the office early to play squash or drink with friends at the Racquet Club, but so long as he did not complain to her—and a lingering guilt about his possible role in her miscarriage kept him silent—she decided to put off facing the problem of his ultimate occupation. Here again, might not the war take care of it? Her doctor had told her that she was well enough to start another baby, but she had persuaded him to take the position with Stephen that it would be wiser to wait a year. She needed the time to reorient herself comfortably in her new world.
As in French society an erring wife was tolerated so long as her husband condoned her conduct, so in its American counterpart a past overlooked by a mother-in-law was overlooked by all. For the first couple of months after her establishment in New York Natica found herself constantly in Mrs. Hill's company. She lunched with her mother-in-law at the Colony Club; she sat beside her in her opera box; she accompanied her on calls to such great ladies as Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and the Misses Wetmore. Everyone appeared to find Natica charming; her intelligence, her good manners, her modesty, were much praised. It was generally concluded that she must have had some good reason to leave her first husband.
Reconciling her own family to her new situation proved an even easier task. When her father was invited to use Uncle Fred Hill's fishing camp in the Adirondacks, he forgot the very existence of Tommy Barnes, as did her mother when Angelica Hill engaged the contracting firm in which both Natica's brothers worked to rebuild the decaying barn and stables of Redwood.
Even Edith DeVoe, now Mrs. Tyler Bennett, did not appear to begrudge her former tutor her elevation into her own circle. She took the arbitrary and often quixotic rules of the social structure entirely for granted: if Natica was accepted, she was quite content to accept her, just as she would presumably have turned her head the other way at the spectacle of her even undeserved downfall. Besides, she welcomed an ally in the Hill family, where she was not finding herself quite as happy as she had expected to be.
"They're more of a clan than anything I've ever known," she confided in her new cousin-in-law. "There must be something about a shared fortune that holds people together. In my family we only saw the uncles and aunts at Christmas or get-together weekends. Of course, some of them lost their shirts in the crash, and Mummie used to say they only came around for a handout. But Tyler's mother telephones her sisters-in-law every blessed morning in the week. What can they have to talk about that much? Maybe all that intimacy comes from the lowly origin of the Hills. Do you suppose so? After all, the grandfather started as a clerk in a general store in some hick upstate village. They must have had to lend each other a hand in the early days of the social climb. Maybe the habit stuck."
"I didn't think they cared that much about society," Natica objected. "The men, anyway. Aren't they too serious for that sort of thing?"
"They may be now. But they weren't always. Have you noticed they all married into old families? Mr. Bennett, Tyler's father, is a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant on the distaff side. At least he's always telling me so. And Stephen's mother was a Kip, and Uncle Erastus Hill married a Schermerhom. It can't all be a coincidence."
"At least they didn't go in for European titles."
"But that was earlier. That had gone out of fashion. Besides, it never worked for the men. No, the Hills are smart. They always get their money's worth."
"I guess I'm the exception to that rule."
"Well, of course they didn't choose you. As a matter of fact, my dear, you had to be cleaned up a bit. It's quite wonderful to watch their organization once they get started."
Natica was intrigued. "How did they clean me up?"
"Don't you really know? Aunt Angelica laid down the party line. Your first marriage had to be socially annulled. They spread the story that your impoverished parents had bludgeoned you into marrying the first halfway respectable male that came along, while you were hardly old enough to know your own mind. When he turned out to be a callow lout..."
"I think they even implied he was impotent. That it was really a mariage blanc. And so, when the beautiful Stephen came along ... well, what could anyone expect?"
Natica reflected, with only mild shame, that there was an element of excitement in receiving the protection of so strong and united a tribe. But was it truly united? "I'd be surprised if my father-in-law had much to do with my rehabilitation."
"Oh, they leave the character assassination to the women. Who don't, I might add, need much help."
"But aren't you and I, as in-laws, the gainers from that kind of family loyalty?"
"I'm not quite in your boat, dearie," Edith retorted, but with more amusement than resentment. "I was a virgin bride, thanks to darling Mama's eagle eye and strong chaperonage. And I may not have been quite a Stuyvesant or Schermerhorn, but the DeVoes weren't nobodies by any means, and Tyler had done a couple of deals with Daddy at the bank ... Oh, yes, I fitted into the general scheme. Don't think my ever-loving spouse would overlook the smallest item in my list of assets!"
"Now don't tell me Tyler's mercenary. And anyway, why should he be? I'm sure he adores you, Edith."
"Are you kidding? Tyler doesn't adore anything but making money. That's why they all admire him so. They think him a throwback to Grandpa Hill. And of course his lordship must have heirs to leave the bucks he makes to. That's where I come in. Do you know, he wants six kids? Can you beat it? Well, he's got one, the sacred son, and I can tell you he's going to do some waiting before Yours Truly goes through that again. I envy you Stephen. He seems to do everything you say."
"He coddles me because of the miscarriage. I don't suppose that will last forever."
"Well, gather ye rosebuds, as they say."
"I'm sure you handle Tyler more than you let on."
"If only I could! Nobody handles Tyler. To tell you the honest truth, I think I'm a wee bit scared of him."
Natica decided to reassess Edith's husband after this. Tyler Bennett was slight of build and oddly boyish looking for a man in his middle thirties of such reputed ability. His hair was crew cut; his face freckled, his small nose snubbed and his eyes were a staring pale blue. And if boyish looking, he had a boy's stubborn tenacity of purpose. At family gatherings, when he sat next to Natica, he gave the impression of faintly sneering at everything and everybody, including the sacred Hill uncles, whom he seemed to consider fortunate to have a Tyler Bennett to look after their major interests.
"Edith tells me you're a smart one," he informed her. "I'm certainly glad to hear it. This family, at least my generation of it, could do with some of that quality."
"I don't know that my record shows so much smartness. What have I got to my credit? I can hardly point to my first matrimonial venture with great pride."
"You got out of it, didn't you? And without landing on the buttered side. I'd call that pretty smart."
The bluntness of this apparent reference to her improved financial state took her aback. But she thought it better to offer him an out. "You mean that I substituted a happy marriage for an unhappy one?"
"That's it, exactly. You certainly didn't think I meant the money?" His chuckle was almost insulting. He allowed his pale stare to flicker over the great porcelain centerpiece on the Angus Hills' dining table in which Orion was being rescued from shipwreck by dolphins. "Though speaking of money, if you're as smart as they say, how would you like to join your husband in my office? We could find a place for you."
"As a secretary, you mean?"
"Don't be silly. Why would you want to be a secretary? We could train you as a portfolio manager."
She wondered if he were mocking her. "But I don't know the first thing about stocks and bonds!"
"Who does? Brains and no preconceptions is all I ask. You could learn."
"You use women in jobs like that?"
"I use some. I don't look below the waist if the bean's okay. Hetty Green made as big a fortune on the market as Jay Gould."
"You tempt me. I'd love to get my teeth into something serious after I'm a bit more settled. But why should you need more than one member of our branch of the Hills in your office?"
"I'll be frank with you, Natica. The one I have right now is not much good to me. What I need is a kind of principal assistant to help me with the Hills. Someone who is also a member of the family. You see, they may think I'm a whiz, and I am, too, but they're always leery about my taking risks. Every time I go into a new venture, I need a bunch of family consents. Even from the trust beneficiaries. You could be a great help here, once you knew the business. Janine and Susan, for example, might listen to you, whereas I tend to scare them off."
"I don't think Stephen would much take to the idea of my marching downtown with him in the morning."
"Hell, you could work at home. I'd send up up everything you need, including a steno. Don't let Stephen talk you out of something that's fun just because he can't do it."
She marveled at how much contempt he could put into one flat sentence. "Give Stephen time. He may learn to like the business."
He didn't deign to comment on this. "I tell you what. Think it over. There's no hurry. I'll send you a batch of reports on different things I'm thinking of going into, and you can read them at your leisure. What can I lose? And what can you? You've got nothing else to do."
She bridled. "That's not quite true. Edith has suggested I go on the Carnegie Hill Settlement Board with her, and Mrs. Hill has—"
"Don't give me those stupid ladies' boards," he interrupted rudely. "If you're worth anything at all, you're too good for them. One board meeting every quarter where the paid director flatters the old girls and gets his padded budget okayed." Here he raised his voice to a mocking falsetto in crude parody of a lady chairman. " 'Will someone move to adopt the budget? Second? All in favor? Contrary-minded? Any new business to come before the meeting? Then do I hear a motion to adjourn? Good. And now, girls, I hear there's the most divine new place to lunch near Park at Fiftieth.'"
Natica had to laugh. "Well, you can certainly send me those reports. I promise to read them, anyway."
"Do that. And let me give you a tip. Don't let Edith waste too much of your time. She's the laziest white woman east of Central Park."
"Woman! I thought you didn't look below the waist."
"Where brains are concerned, that is. With Edith there's no other place to look."
***
Tyler did send her the reports, some dozen of them, by hand delivery directly to the apartment, and she spent several mornings reading them with care. She found that with the aid of a dictionary of commercial terms she could understand them readily enough, and she began to think that Stephen's cousin might not be wholly wrong in envisaging a role in his business for her. For the first time since she had worked for Rufus Lockwood she was using her brain, and she found an exhilaration in it that made an afternoon discussing "Should America remain neutral?" with her sisters'-in-law Current Events Club seem singularly fruitless. Perhaps she could develop a flair for the stock market. Had she not been almost a school administrator under Lockwood? But she thought it politic not to tell her husband of her new interest. It would be time enough if she decided to take the job.
One morning she determined to fulfill her honeymoon resolution of visiting the entrance hall of the Standard Oil Building, and she took the subway down to Bowling Green. She roamed pensively through the gray foyer, avoiding the people hustling to and from the elevators, and gazing up at the large carved names in the medallions, pausing as long as she comfortably could under the "Ezra Hill."
"And here I stand," she whispered to herself, "his granddaughter-in-law. I wonder what he would have thought of me."
She went from there to the Wall Street offices of Bennett & Son, which she had never seen, on the chance that she might find Stephen free to take her to lunch.
The Bennett space had consisted initially of a series of large paneled rooms in which the three sons and son-in-law of Ezra Hill could get away from their wives and daughters, cut their coupons and contemplate prudent charitable enterprises, but when son-in-law Bennett in more recent years, aided by his energetic son Tyler, had formed a corporation for investment purposes, he had kept leasing additional space until the original suite had been isolated like an ancient Romanesque chapel in a Gothic cathedral. Natica, conducted by a secretary to her husband's small office in the new part, noted as she passed, through open doors, two of his uncles secluded in dusky interiors reading newspapers at their desks. The Bennett area had more bustle; there was a large room with bare white walls cluttered with metal desks for telephoning men and a ticker tape machine in the middle. Her glancing eye recognized that Tyler wasted little of the family money in decoration. Other than a statue of a bull and bear fighting and a pompous portrait of Ezra Hill in the foyer there was hardly a picture in the place.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Hill, Stephen must have gone out," the young woman informed her. "Perhaps he went for a cup of coffee."
"Then he can't be far. I'll wait for him in his office if I may."
"Farther than you think, Natica," came a strangely familiar voice, and she turned to find Grant DeVoe standing in the doorway of the adjoining office. "He'll have to go down to Sloppy Joe's on Water Street. My brother-in-law permits no such levities as a coffee wagon in these august precincts. It might for as much as five minutes distract the mind from the chase of the dollar."
The secretary, seeing her charge taken care of, departed.
"I'm so glad to see you, Grant!" And indeed she was. The pleasure of finding herself on equal terms with the children of her family's old landlord had not yet worn off. Grant had hardly changed at all. His somehow tentative stance, his restrained smile, his cautious friendliness, seemed of a piece with an attitude of not committing himself until assured of a favorable reception. "I had no idea you were working here. I thought you were representing your father's bank somewhere on Long Island."
"I was. But Daddy decided I'd better learn the market with Tyler. He thinks the world of his brilliant son-in-law."
"Everyone seems to."
"Exactly. So here I am."
"It's the same with Stephen. I was hoping he'd take me to lunch."
Grant looked at his watch. "I doubt he comes back in time. Sometimes he doesn't come back at all."
"You mean he has an appointment outside the office?"
"Or an appointment with the Marx Brothers. He's become quite a movie fan."
She looked at him suspiciously. Had he decided that she was an old friend with whom candor was safe? Or was his sarcasm the evidence of his resentment of her too sudden rise to fame and fortune? Or did he simply want to tell her that her husband, like himself, was only the reluctant tool of Tyler Bennett?
"You imply that Stephen's heart is not in his work?"
"Well, I don't believe he was cut out to be a money man. Why should he be? If I had a fraction of what he has, you wouldn't find me in this joint."
"I thought the DeVoes were very well off!"
"My old man may be. But he doesn't believe in sharing the wealth."
"What would you do then if he died and left you your share?"
He studied her as if to determine how serious she was. "Would you really like to know? I think I'd like to keep kennels. I've always been very fond of dogs."
And she suddenly remembered that he had been. The day he had taken her sailing in Smithport there had been a chow with him, too big and restless to be taken on the small boat, which had been tied up at the dock while they were out and pathetically joyous in greeting Grant on their return. It now struck her that all of his snobbishness might have been a fear of people, a fear of committing himself beyond any of his immediate circle.
"Why don't you tell your father? He might just blow you to it."
"He? Never." He paused. "You don't think it's a silly thing to want to do?"
"Not at all. Why isn't a dog as good as a bull or a bear?"
He laughed. "So long as Stephen has pooped out, how about my taking you to lunch?"
"How nice. I'd love it."
But on the way out of the office Grant's plan was frustrated. They met Tyler in the corridor and stopped to greet him. Good manners required Grant to ask him to join them, as good manners should have required Tyler to decline. But that was not what happened.
"As a matter of fact, Grant, I'm expecting a call from your old man a little before one. It's about the Marston deal, which is really more your matter than mine. He wants someone to read him the tax covenant, which you'll find on top of the pile on my desk. Only a paragraph—Marcie will show it to you. And I'll take Natica to lunch. She won't mind, will she? It's all in the family."
Grant turned to Natica with a sour little smile. "As you see, I've been outranked. Another time, maybe."
When he had gone, Natica was left staring at her substituted host. "Well, I must say, that was pretty cool."
"Oh, come on, he won't die over it. I wanted to talk to you, anyway. We can go to my club. It's just across the street."
Amid green walls covered with Audubon prints Natica gazed from the window by their table over the panorama of the harbor. She had found it was idle to protest his treatment of Grant; Tyler simply wouldn't listen. He wanted to know if she had read his reports, and when he learned that she had, he delivered a short lecture on four textile mills in Massachusetts acquired by the Hills three decades before and now considered a poor investment which should be liquidated. He discoursed in his dry but lucid fashion on costs of production, declining sales and bitter labor agitation. She followed him with close attention.
"So what do you do?" she asked at last. "Dump the whole thing and swallow the loss? Grin and bear it? I suppose it's some comfort it's so small a part of the empire."
"But I hate to lose any part of it! My job is to make it grow."
"You're like a Roman Caesar. No matter how wide your domain you keep your ears tuned for the tiniest barbarian rumble on the remotest frontier."
"Well, look what happened when they stopped."
"It's true." She thought for a moment. "I suppose there is an alternative."
He leaned forward. "And what is that?"
"It was in those papers. You know it, of course."
"Tell me."
"It was in the report of the man who pointed out the advantages of moving that business south. Everything is cheaper there, particularly Negro labor, and there wouldn't be any union trouble, at least for a while. Most of the machinery could be transported and all the expert personnel. The expense could be made up in four years of a profitable operation."
Tyler nodded in approval. "And with a spreading war and the need for uniforms we could do it in two. But how would our gracious aunts and some of our bleeding-heart cousins take to the idea of an antilabor policy vigorously enforced? Which would be the only way to make it work."
She smiled. "You're testing me, aren't you? You want to find out how well I read all that stuff?"
"I don't deny it."
"Well, it's all there in the proposal. If you keep out labor organizers by paying your workers more than organized labor gets in a southern state, why should even liberal-minded shareholders object? And anyway, our 'gracious aunts' would never interfere in a labor question. They leave those things entirely to the men. And as for the bleeding-heart cousins, I can't think of any but Bill, Uncle Fred's son, who voted for Roosevelt because he's a fellow philatelist."
"Stephen isn't interested in politics."
"Look, Natica. Of course, I gave you those reports as a test. There were five proposals as to what to do with those mills, and you picked the only feasible one right off. Come on down and work with us here. I'll give you an office and a girl. You can have a salary if you like, but I don't take one myself. Who needs income, to give it to Uncle Sam? Capital gains are the thing, and those you will have, my friend. We're bound to get into this war, and the industrial boom that will follow is going to blow away the last traces of the depression the son-of-a-bitch New Dealers have been making such hay out of. How about it?"
"Stephen would hate it," she said pensively.
"Stephen is going to hate your doing anything better than he does, I'm afraid, Natica. I'm going to have to be brutally frank with you for your own good. Do you mind?"
"Go ahead. I can take it."
"Then here it is. You've married a born loser. I've known my cousin considerably longer than you have, and I've observed him. If you see things his way, you're going to lose along with him. Now you may say, what the hell, I'm rich, aren't I? I'll always have the good things of life. But that's where you're wrong. Everything Stephen has is in an iron-bound trust that will go to his children when he dies, and if he has none, back to the Hills, in equal shares, as the lawyers say, per stirpes. Not a bloody cent to the widow! That's how the Hills do things."
"But that's not true of my mother-in-law," Natica protested, appalled. "She has money of her own. I know, because she bought us our apartment. And she's always telling me how poor the Kips were."
"In Aunt Angelica's day they still made marriage settlements. But if one was made for you, my dear, Tyler Bennett is ignorant of it, and Tyler Bennett is ignorant of precious few things that go on in this office."
"No, I'm sure none was made. They couldn't have done it without my knowing, could they?"
"And wouldn't, believe me. Of course, Uncle Angus, who owns what he has outright, could make any disposition of it he wants. But what will he want where you're concerned? I'm not telling any secrets out of court when I tell you how bitter he was about the whole Barnes divorce business. And he has pretty much the same opinion of his son, Stephen, that I have. He's never going to leave him anything out of trust. No, Natica, you'd be wrong to count on a fortune or even a decent maintenance, if you survive Stephen. The only way you'd ever see a penny of Uncle Angus's dough is through your children. So if you don't come to work with me and make your own fortune, you'd better start filling that nursery!"
"Well, that's certainly putting it straight on the line."
"Which is where I like to put things."
Natica put Tyler's offer—without, of course, his warning—to Stephen that very night. It went even worse than she had anticipated. She had waited until he had finished his first cocktail before outlining the proposal. She had considerably softened the edges of it, implying that most of her work could be done at home and that she would really be acting as a kind of supplement to himself. But Stephen's face had at once contracted into the white stare she had first seen in the restaurant the night of her miscarriage.
"So Tyler's taken you over, too."
"Too?"
"First Mother, then he. Between the two of them, they ought to be able to turn you into the Hill they've despaired of making › me.
"Would you mind telling me what you're talking about?"
"Oh, they're smart, the pair of them. One's all rosily female and the other all dryly male. But they know just what they're about, and what a crushing team they are! They'd just about given me up. A dreamer, an idler, a half-man who babbled about books and pictures. And who finally went into teaching, the ultimate refuge of those who can't 'do.' And then, to top it all off, he gets himself involved in a stinking scandal and is fired from a school of which his own father is a trustee! It's the end, isn't it? But wait a moment. Hold your horses. Isn't it just possible that something can be salvaged from the bloody mess? Hills don't lightly give up anything. Witness those textile factories you were talking about. So let's have a look. Just who is this scarlet woman who seduced our weakling? Could there be anything to her? Well, for heaven's sake, if she doesn't have a brain! And some force of character, to boot. Considerable force of character, wouldn't you say? Maybe the Angus Hills have a man in their branch of the family after all."
Natica felt her throat beginning to constrict with an ominous wrath. "Keep it up, Prince Hamlet. It's a fine monologue."
"Is that all you can say? Well, riddle me this. When you start working for Tyler, is there any point my continuing to go to the office? Or shall I stay home and play bridge with Janine and Susan?"
"It's better than going to the movies."
He stared. "The movies?"
"Isn't that where you were today? Grant said you might be."
"You were down in the office?"
"Of course I was. That's where I had my talk with Tyler. I came down to see the lobby of the Standard Oil Building. To see the names of the original partners carved up there in all their glory. With Ezra Hill among them. I was so proud! And then I came over to see if his grandson, my beloved husband, could spare an hour to take me to lunch. And where was he? Off to the Marx Brothers. If it had been to read Karl, that might at least have been worthy of Ezra. The pioneer of one generation can be the rebel of the next. But to chuckle at Groucho!"
Stephen had covered his face. Behind his hands he seemed to be stifling a sob. "Oh, Natica, don't! I didn't know you could be so cruel. Poor Tommy!"
She gasped. "You call me cruel! Why, I never..." And then she knew she had to stop. Her world was teetering. She had the will and the fury to say irreparable things. She might even have the power to destroy him. She clenched her fists and took several deep breaths. "Look, Stephen. Let's quit this. I'm not going to work for Tyler. We're going on the way we've been going."
"Go ahead," he moaned. "Go ahead and work for him. You might just as well, now."
"Never. The discussion is over."
And she meant it. She refused to say another word on the subject. They ate their dinner in silence, and afterwards, as he sat moodily on the sofa drinking scotch after scotch, she pretended to read a novel as she contemplated their future.
***
The next day at noon she lunched with Aunt Ruth in a corner of the Clinton school cafeteria, as far away as they could get from the chattering girls.
"I thought you should hear the last scene in the melodrama to which I have so long treated you," she concluded to her soberly listening relative. "But it's not just for your entertainment, if indeed, poor Auntie, you find any in it. I've got to have another point of view. I can't afford another mess in my life. At least not yet. I'm only twenty-four. Almost the age when Keats died, already among the English poets.'"
"Let's leave Keats out of this. Has this really changed your feelings about Stephen?"
"I don't know. I have an awful sense that those feelings may be somewhere between anger and contempt. How dare he be so unhappy with all he's got?"
Aunt Ruth's smile was a bit grim. "Meaning yourself, dear?"
"No! I mean his money, damn it all, his social position, his serried family, his good looks, his opportunities. Think of those things, Aunt Ruth. And he has the nerve to mope!"
"God sends manna to those who have no teeth. Maybe it's his way of hinting what those things are really worth."
"Oh, of course I know there's no point in berating him for not having my tastes. The real point is that somehow I've got to pull him through. It's not just a question of moral obligation, though I suppose that may exist."
"I'm glad you admit that."
"Now don't get stuffy with me, please, Auntie. It's too serious for that. My only use for morality is if it makes for the good life. And it certainly isn't the good life to be always making people unhappy. I've failed with one husband, and it's far too soon to fail with another. What am I going to do about Stephen?"
"How long do you suppose it will be before he can get the kind of school job he had at Averhill?"
"Who knows? And there's even a question in my mind whether he really wants to teach anywhere but Averhill. He seems to have a fixation about the place. It was there he found God and there he lost him. He may imagine it's the only place he can find him again. An Eden he's been kicked out of."
Aunt Ruth reflected. "I suppose the war might take care of the problem. If we get into it, that is."
"Yes, a nice short war where he could be very brave and not be killed might be just the thing. It could make him feel manly and superior to Tyler Bennett, who would be sure to wiggle out of military service. But wars aren't made to order, are they? And even if they were, one wouldn't dare order one, for he just might be killed."
"Which would never do?"
"Oh, Auntie, you really do think I'm a fiend. But of course it would never do. I suppose we could travel. South America is still available. But I don't want to strike the note of the honeymoon again."
"How about a farm?"
"Can you see me on one?"
"I think, my dear, I can see you any place you put your mind on. But I have a better idea. Why don't you buy a bookstore? You could run it together."
Natica's first reaction was that it was surprising she hadn't thought of this herself. "Really, Auntie, you're like the Lady from Philadelphia in The Peterkin Papers. What can you do when you've put salt instead of sugar in your coffee? Pour another cup of coffee! A bookstore might be just the thing. You don't happen to know of one for sale, do you?"
"As a matter of fact, that's why I thought of it. Lily Warner and her sister want to sell their shop on Madison Avenue and Sixtieth. They're getting on and it's a bit too much for them. And they have a wonderful clientele. I think they dictate what half the social register reads."
"I know that store. It's one of those places that makes you want to read. And they welcome browsers. I wonder what they're asking for it."
"Does it matter?"
"Oh, yes. Stephen, like all people who never think of money, spends all his income and more, and he can't touch the principal unless the bank consents, and it rarely does." And then she suddenly recalled what Tyler had said about the wives of the earlier generation receiving settlements. "But there's always Mrs. Hill, God bless her!"
She went straight from lunch to the pink palazzo and had the luck to find her mother-in-law in. When she came home that evening she not only had Angelica's promise; she had obtained a month's option to buy from the Warner sisters.
Stephen looked at her with astonishment.
"But I thought you wanted to work with stocks and bonds!"
"What I really want is to do something with you."
At this he actually hugged her, something he hadn't done in weeks. "I can't fight you both, darling. You and Mother. The bookstore it is!"