As the party broke up, in the general confusion of good nights and plans for future meetings, Scott saw Bill Elliott lean close to Kate and heard his low-voiced, “Until tomorrow, then.”
Kate smiled warmly at him and nodded. And Scott was startled to realize the depth of resentment he felt at their obvious interest in each other. Yet as he put Kate into the car and went around to climb in beside her, he reminded himself sharply that he had no right to resent anything at all.
As he drove toward the country, she relaxed and sighed happily.
“Thank you for the party, Scott. It was fun. They’re nice — some of them, anyway,” she said contentedly, smiling at some secret memory.
“Especially Bill Elliott?” he suggested, and could have kicked himself for saying it.
Kate stiffened and turned her head to look curiously at him.
“Now that you mention it, yes. Bill Elliott in particular. He’s very agreeable, quite interesting, and fun,” she told him tartly.
His jaw set but he said nothing. And after a moment Kate began talking of the people she had met at the party and her liking for them. When they reached River’s Edge she bade him good night, saying gratefully, “It was nice of you, Scott, to introduce me to the crowd. I can see now that it was all my own fault, thinking they were stand-offish and stiff. And I’ve decided they don’t dislike Yankees, after all. Liss thinks they’re ‘cute.’ Can you bear that?”
“Only just,” Scott admitted. “When am I going to see you again?”
“You’re coming for lunch Sunday, aren’t you? I’ll see you then,” said Kate, and before he could protest she told him good night again and went into the house.
Driving back to town, he was puzzled by his own feeling of depression. It had been a fine evening. Chloe’s friends were fun; they had welcomed him warmly. If they made him feel old, simply because of their gay denial of any responsibility, that was his fault, not theirs. In point of years he was probably about the same age as Bill Elliott, who was thirty at the very least. Chloe, twenty-one or -two, though she looked and acted like seventeen, was Kate’s age. Liss seemed older, but it was probably the two disastrous marriages that made it seem so. The others ranged somewhere between Chloe and Bill in age. Scott could not erase his sense of responsibility, of devotion to his profession, enough to feel gay and young and irresponsible. And he was grateful for the fact. He couldn’t think of a more boring way to live than footloose, without responsibility, without some aim in life.
As he parked the car in the small garage in back of Miss Mowbray’s cottage, he thought of Chloe and his pulse stirred. She had been so disappointed that the evening should be allowed to die young. There had been invitation, provocation in her deep blue eyes as she tried to convey a message to him, even while she was protesting Kate’s determination to leave.
Chloe was exquisite and alluring; but Kate was beautiful and cool and poised and would be a most difficult conquest. The man who won his way to Kate’s affections would have his work cut out for him. It wouldn’t be easy — but what a reward! He grew slightly dizzy thinking of it. And for a moment it was as though the two girls, Chloe with her corn-silken shining hair, her deep violet eyes, and her soft curved mouth, Kate with her red hair, her gray, smoky long-lashed eyes, stood before him side by side — as though he had his choice of them and found it a most difficult choice to make.
Suddenly the absurdity of that struck him and he laughed aloud.
It would be a couple of years at the very least, perhaps three, before he could hope to be earning enough to take care of a wife and the family he would, of course, want. So any thought of laying siege to the heart of either Chloe Parham or Kate Ryan was definitely out of the question.
Having reached that sage decision, he got out of the car and walked to the house, letting himself into his apartment as quietly as he could, so as not to disturb his landlady….
When Kate came down to breakfast the following morning, Jane was alone at the breakfast table having a final and lingering cup of coffee.
“Himself has already departed for the day?” she asked lightly as Jane smiled at her.
“Seeing to the new clinic building,” said Jane, and added, “well, was it fun last night?”
A neatly uniformed maid put a beautifully iced grapefruit in front of Kate, smiled a shy response to her greeting and went out.
“Hum, yes, quite a lot of fun,” Kate answered thoughtfully. “They are friendly and pleasant and agreeable. I liked them all.” She broke off and dug a spoon into her grapefruit.
Jane, eyeing her with amused comprehension, said quietly, “Except?”
Kate flushed but met Jane’s eyes straightly.
“I could easily learn to dislike Chloe Parham quite a lot,” she admitted honestly. “Of course, that could be jealousy, I suppose.”
Jane’s eyebrows went up just a little.
“Jealousy?”
Kate looked up at Jane with a sheepish, wry look. “Don’t bother to say it. I am ashamed. I’m the very worst kind of cat. But the way Chloe moved in and took over Scott last night was something to see. She and her gang were waiting for us at the movies, and I was shoved in a station wagon with the rest of her crowd and she and Scott were making tracks for his car, parked a block away.”
Jane said swiftly, “I don’t blame you for being annoyed. That was very rude of Scott.”
Kate laughed ruefully. “Poor Scott was helpless. The only way he could have avoided the gal was to give her a sock in the jaw, grab me by the arm, and flee for his life.”
Jane said swiftly, resentment still in her eyes, “Then you must have had a horrid time left adrift like that among strangers.”
Kate shook her head. “The odd part of it was that I wasn’t among strangers. I felt I’d known them all for ages before we even got to the place where the party was being given. There was quite a guy driving the station wagon. Name of Bill Elliott.” And now there was soft color in her cheeks, and she finished with a pretense of briskness, “You’ll be meeting him around. Matter of fact, he’s coming out tonight. We’re going to make another effort to see that movie.”
Jane laughed. “Where’s the party tonight?”
“I probably won’t know, but I have a strong hunch that Scott will,” said Kate, and her eyes flashed. “I have an idea that nothing will happen to prevent Bill and me from seeing the movie in quiet and peace, and returning home at a decent hour.”
Jane said frankly, “Poor Scott!”
Kate shrugged. “From what I could see last night, we can save our sympathy. He seemed to be suffering no pain at all,” she responded. She and Jane were quiet, carefully avoiding each other’s eyes….
And while this scene was taking place at River’s Edge, Chloe Parham was sitting up in bed, a breakfast tray across her knees, a thoughtful expression in her lovely eyes as she sipped coffee.
There was a gentle tap at the door and it opened to admit her mother, pretty and plump in her pink morning dress, a little frown of anxiety between her brows.
“Dora said you were awake, darling, and that she’d brought your breakfast, so I came in to say good morning.” She studied her child almost as though unsure of her welcome.
Chloe nodded curtly, and went on sipping coffee.
“Was it a nice party last night?” asked Mrs. Parham uneasily.
Chloe grinned, a small, secret grin, and nodded.
“Oh, yes, fun. Liss always does things up nicely,” she drawled. “And you’ll be interested to know, Mother, that Kate Ryan was there.”
Mrs. Parham stiffened and her eyes went wide.
“Kate Ryan? Who in the world invited her? Surely not even she would crash a party like that uninvited,” protested Mrs. Parham.
“I invited her,” said Chloe coolly. “Liss and Kate took quite a fancy to each other. So that worked out all right. And we’re all going out to River’s Edge for Sunday brunch.”
“What? Chloe, you can’t.” Mrs. Parham’s anxious voice broke off beneath the look Chloe gave her.
“Why can’t I? After all, isn’t it pretty silly for us to go around pretending we are heartbroken because that big Irish fool paid twice as much as the old place was worth?”
Mrs. Parham eyed the girl with exasperation and there was a faint trace of color in her cheeks. “How’s Bill?” she asked after a moment.
Chloe looked mildly surprised, as though unable to follow her mother’s thought processes. “Bill? You mean Bill Elliott? Fine. He seemed quite taken with the Ryan creature, by the way,” she drawled coolly, and put the breakfast tray aside and slid out of bed.
Mrs. Parham sat open-mouthed, staring at her.
“You mean you’re going to sit idly by and watch her take Bill away from you?” she burst out incredulously.
Chloe turned to stare at her in elaborate surprise.
“Bill? What on earth would I be wanting with Bill?” she protested sweetly.
Mrs. Parham was genuinely angry.
“The fact that he is practically the only genuinely eligible young man in town — ” she began hotly.
“Not any more. Scott Etheridge is here now, remember?” said Chloe gently.
“Scott Etheridge! A penniless young doctor who won’t be able to afford a wife for years and years.” Her mother was furious.
“Oh, I think with a little push here, a bit of pull there, and the right kind of devoted girl friend, he can cut quite a few corners and get ahead very fast.”
“Chloe, there are times when I honestly can’t even begin to understand you. And times,” Mrs. Parham finished bitterly, “when I’m quite sure I don’t even want to!”
“It’s very simple,” said Chloe coolly. “Bill bores me to death. Oh, I admit I’d probably have married him if Scott hadn’t come along. But now that he has — well Scott’s exciting. He could be a lot of fun. And the wife of a successful young doctor — ” She made a little gesture of dismissal, and suddenly her lovely mouth was a thin ugly line, and her eyes flashed. “Do you think for one moment that when I’ve got a perfect chance to make Kate Ryan squirm, I’m not going to take it?”
And without waiting for her mother’s answer, she stalked into the bathroom and banged the door like a badly spoiled child.