XVI

The years immediately preceding the entry of the United States into the Second World War formed the most critical and important period in the entire business career of Willis Wayde. Willis became increasingly aware that he had traveled during all that time along the narrow line that always divides business success from failure, and the wavering thinness of that demarcation still filled him with amazement. He could think of a dozen separate occasions when any deviation from his course would have led him to disaster, and a number of individuals would have rejoiced at his defeat. You could not be loved by everybody when you reorganized a firm like Rahway Belt. All you could do was recognize your enemies without being influenced by emotion and select them with thoughtful care, because it was important to select enemies as carefully as friends.

It was strange, when Willis looked backward, that the business turmoil of those years—the reorganizing of Rahway Belt, his leaving Beakney-Graham, the new plant construction with its financial problems, and the promotion of the Planeroid line—all frequently seemed simpler than many aspects of his private life. It was all very well to say, as so many men he knew kept saying, that business and home should never mix. They invariably did. They always ran together blurring outlines, no matter how carefully you might try to separate them. Although nothing was really settled after that week end at Lake Sunapee, Willis discovered that Sylvia thought a great deal had been. Shortly after this visit she bought several books on cooking and began making out his laundry list and going over his shirts and his socks whenever she visited his apartment. Thus the idea of imminent marriage came over them by degrees, making another problem on top of all his others.

There was also the problem of Lydia Hembird, who finally telephoned one evening when Sylvia was at Tenth Street. There was nothing serious about Lydia at all, which explained why Willis had never mentioned her to Sylvia. Sylvia had come up with him to the apartment after dining at Tony’s, and she had been reading a cook book to herself. He had told her that he had to go over the refinancing report on Rahway Belt. He was right in the middle of the proposed common-stock setup, which demanded more close thinking than anything else (because even if the common stock had never paid a dividend, it was the key point in any future situation), when the telephone on the writing table rang, and it was Lydia Hembird.

“Hello, Willis, darling,” Lydia said, “are you up there all alone?”

“Oh, hello,” he said, “hello.”

“Why have you gone completely out of my life, darling?” Lydia said.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been pretty busy lately.”

He saw that Sylvia had closed the cook book, and he smiled at her reassuringly, but Lydia was still speaking.

“Darling, why don’t you come up here right now?” she said.

“I’ve got to hang up,” Willis said. “I can’t talk to you right now.”

There was a frigid silence when he set down the telephone.

“I’m sorry, Sylvia,” he said. “It was only someone I used to know before I knew you were in New York.”

Sylvia was white and tense and her voice was lightly brittle.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about her?” she asked. “I’m sure I don’t want to interfere with anything.”

“Listen, Sylvia,” he said. “There isn’t anything to tell about her. She’s just someone I used to know.”

Sylvia drew a sharp, quick breath.

“Willis,” she said, “I wish you’d tell me when you think we can get married.”

Willis squared his shoulders. The subject was up again and he knew that he had been avoiding it unconsciously.

“Now, Sylvia, dear,” he said, “I’m glad you brought this up, because it’s been on my mind as much as yours.”

He could not understand why he felt so nervous, except that he was dealing with a long-term future and life and love and all sorts of other things that were hard to express.

“I’m glad I brought it up too,” Sylvia said. “It’s awfully hard for a girl to be so indefinite. You do love me, don’t you, Willis?”

“Of course I love you,” Willis said.

“Then sit here and hold my hand,” Sylvia said, “and don’t look so worried, Willis. You want us to get married, don’t you?”

It was not the way, he was thinking, to conduct a serious conversation.

“Why, of course I want us to get married, honey,” he said, and he smiled at her and patted her hand, “but I do have a lot of other things on my mind right now.”

“But, Willis,” she said, “don’t you think that this is more important?”

Willis found himself patting her hand again.

“Absolutely, honey,” he said. “It’s the most important thing in the world, and because it is, I want things to be set.”

“But aren’t they?” Sylvia said. “I don’t see why we can’t get married any time.”

“Well, naturally,” he said, “of course we could, Sylvia, but for example, I’d like to wait until we know whether I’ll be working for Beakney-Graham or whether I’ll end up out in Rahway.”

“Why, Willis,” Sylvia said, “I didn’t know you were having any trouble with Beakney-Graham. Didn’t they just give you a raise of two thousand dollars?”

“Sylvia, sweetness,” Willis said—it was always harder to explain business to a woman than to a man—“if the Rahway Belting Company would make me an offer and give me some common stock, I’d leave Beakney-Graham, because there would be a better future in Rahway.”

He could not understand why Sylvia should look troubled, but then perhaps a woman’s mind always worked differently from a man’s.

“But they sent you there to Rahway Belt,” she said.

“Of course they sent me there,” Willis answered, and he tried to keep any trace of impatience out of his voice, “but I want you and me to have a future, dear. I don’t have to stay with Beakney-Graham.”

“But, Willis,” she asked him, “do you think that’s being loyal?”

He did not intend to be impatient, but she should have seen that loyalty had nothing whatsoever to do with the situation. It simply showed that Sylvia did not know where loyalty began or ended.

“You wouldn’t say that,” he said, “if you understood the picture, Sylvia. I’m earning every cent that Beakney-Graham is paying me, and more besides. I can’t help it, can I, if I’m making a place for myself in Rahway? That’s the way the world is, and it hasn’t got anything to do with loyalty.”

He did not mean to get excited but her whole point of view was preposterous.

“You’ve got to let me attend to these things, dear,” he said, “and let me decide what’s loyal and what isn’t. What are you crying for, Sylvia?”

There was no reason whatsoever for Sylvia to sit sobbing, with tears rolling down her cheeks, when he was trying to carry on a sensible conversation.

“Oh, Willis,” she sobbed. “I didn’t mean to make you angry. It’s only that I’m so proud of you that I don’t want—I don’t want—”

“Now, there, Sylvia,” he said, and he took her in his arms. “Just let me do the worrying. Don’t forget it’s a pretty tough world, honey. Everything’s going to be all right. Old Jacoby wants to have a talk with me. He’s asked me to his house to lunch next week. Everything’s going to be wonderful.”

“Oh, Willis,” she sobbed, “of course you’re loyal.”

Loyalty was the damnedest thing. It was something that kept cropping up in business at eccentric intervals, and it kept requiring a different definition. At any rate, he had made his point and he had never had to argue in just that way with Sylvia about loyalty again. You had to do the best you could with loyalty. She had stopped crying, and he gave her a clean pocket handkerchief.

It was always significant when a business acquaintance asked you to his home instead of some restaurant. At the very least it meant that he considered you socially suitable to meet the family, and it might also be a gesture that marked the end of mere acquaintance. It signified a decline in watchfulness and a lowering of barriers. It was a time of trial and testing for both guest and host.

In spite of the months that Willis had been working closely in Rahway with Mr. Manley Jacoby, Mr. Jacoby had never invited him to his home. Mr. Jacoby had been slightly apologetic when he finally invited Willis. He had been meaning, Mr. Jacoby said, to ask Willis up to the house for quite a while, and he was sorry that he was asking him home for the first time in order to have a business talk, but things always got around the plant, and he had a few words to say to Willis which were confidential.

“I guess you know already what they are,” Mr. Jacoby said, “but at the same time I’m inviting you as a friend.”

It had sounded rather like one of Mr. Henry Harcourt’s invitations long ago.

“It’s very kind of you, sir,” Willis said. “Thank you very much.”

“Mrs. Jacoby wants especially to meet you,” Mr. Jacoby said, “and I want her to sit in on the conference.”

Willis knew by then that Mrs. Jacoby was the daughter of the late Mr. Seth Wilfred, a financier whose name was still very well known around the Oranges, and that she had inherited a very considerable sum of money at her father’s death, so much in fact that Mr. Jacoby could have retired at any time he wanted during the last few years. Willis also knew that the Jacobys had two married daughters, one living in Chicago and the other in Philadelphia. There was no reason for Mr. Jacoby to make any explanations but it was like him to have done so.

Promptly at half past twelve Mr. Jacoby put on his black alpaca coat and climbed behind the wheel of his old Buick.

“Get in, Willis,” he said. “Mrs. Jacoby thinks I ought to have a chauffeur, but I guess I’m independent in some ways. You have to be with anybody like Mrs. Jacoby. I suppose you’ve heard she’s pretty rich.”

“Yes, sir,” Willis said. “You can’t help hearing things like that.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Jacoby said. “I suppose that Jack Meister or Peters told you, and since we’re going home to lunch I’d just as soon you’d call me Manley.”

It was hard for Willis to call old men by their first names, and to stay respectful and at the same time familiar.

“Mrs. Jacoby—Edie, that is—makes me pretty comfortable,” Mr. Jacoby said. “We live in the old Wilfred house, you know, built in 1900 out of field stone sort of like a pudding. Maybe you can guess what it’s named.”

Willis tried to laugh easily. There was a purpose, he knew, behind Mr. Jacoby’s confidence, and he wanted to be particularly careful.

“You’d better tell me, Manley,” he said. The first name sounded so awkward that he was afraid he had used it too soon. “I’m no good at guessing.”

“The name is Rock Crest,” Mr. Jacoby said, and he laughed, too.

“The great thing about a stone house is that it’s always warm in winter and cool in summer,” Willis said.

“Yes, that’s a fact,” Mr. Jacoby answered, “and we have quite a view from it.”

It was a grim house, standing on a lawn decorated by canna lilies on the ridge of basalt that rose behind the Oranges. Even its porte-cochere was built of lumpy field stone, but the view was magnificent. It was a warm hazy day in mid-September, and you could see the buildings of downtown New York miles away across the marshes, rising dreamily through the mist.

“It rolls out like an Axminster carpet, doesn’t it?” Mr. Jacoby said as he climbed out of the car. “I told you it was a view.”

It was all different from anything that Willis had imagined. After the plainness of Rahway Belt, he could not help but be surprised when a manservant opened the door.

“Hello,” Mr. Jacoby said, and he looked like a small-town visitor in his black alpaca coat. “Is Mrs. Jacoby downstairs yet?”

“Madam is in the east room,” the houseman said.

Willis saw many other houses like Rock Crest later. They were too large to live in now but so firmly built that they withstood destruction. They were survivals of the hopeful income-taxless age at the turn of the century, an age which apparently had produced thousands of successful individuals who thought that the mode of life they knew would remain unchanged for centuries. It was startling now to observe the remnants of their culture, now that no one was sure how long he would live anywhere.

The past and the ambitions of the late Mr. Seth Wilfred were preserved with embarrassing clarity in the rooms and furnishings of Rock Crest. His desire for display must have exceeded that of most of his contemporaries. He must have been an arrogant, self-made man of a species which could not exist today, for no self-made man that Willis had ever met would have dared to express his personality so flamboyantly. The east room, as it was called, took up two stories and must have been intended to represent a baronial hall. There was a balcony at one end which was occupied by musicians, as Mrs. Jacoby told him once, when her father had receptions for the directors of the Erie Railroad. There was also an immense pipe organ that no longer worked and a huge field-stone fireplace. There were some heads of African animals on the walls and some sentimental pictures of cows and sheep and another of French aristocrats going to the guillotine. The floors were covered with Oriental carpets and the furniture was imitation French.

“Quite a little room, isn’t it?” Mr. Jacoby said. “I thought it would surprise you. I guess you never pictured me coming home to anything like this.”

“It certainly is remarkable,” Willis told him.

“You get used to it,” Mr. Jacoby said. “But I remember the first time Edie brought me in here to meet the old man. He was in a wheel chair but I was scared. Edie—oh, there you are.”

Mrs. Jacoby was seated on a sofa by the fireplace, and her lacy beige dress gave her almost a protective coloring. Her face, which was pale and distinguished, reminded him more of an old man’s than a woman’s. Her hair was snow white, but her eyebrows were black and bushy, and her eyes were deep brown. She spoke in a precise, almost English way, because, as she told Willis later, she had been taught at a convent school in France.

“I’m delighted to meet you, Willis,” she said. “I’m calling you Willis because Manley has told me so much about you.”

“It’s a great pleasure, Mrs. Jacoby,” Willis said, and he tried to act as though he were not astonished by anything around him. It all went to show that no matter how well you knew someone in business, you could not tell how he lived until he took you home.

“You mustn’t blame Mr. Jacoby for any of this,” Mrs. Jacoby said. “He married into it quite late in life, and what could we have done except tear the whole thing down?”

“I see what you mean,” Willis said, “but everything’s very interesting.”

“Manley,” Mrs. Jacoby said, “if I send Henry upstairs for something else, will you take off that black alpaca coat? Look how nice Willis looks.”

“He’s a new model,” Mr. Jacoby said. “You know I like this coat.”

“Manley never wants to forget he’s a small-town boy,” Mrs. Jacoby said, and she looked unblinkingly at Willis. “Perhaps you’ve noticed that Manley has an independent streak. That’s why he insists on holding onto that one-horse factory. He doesn’t need to, but he likes to be independent and he can’t keep on being, with his arthritis. That’s why I asked him to bring you up here—so I could look at you.”

Willis was partially adjusted to the surroundings by then. For a short while the experience had been like falling by mistake into cold water, but now he had reached the surface. He was thinking that Mrs. Jacoby reminded him of someone in the past. He could not remember who until he thought of Mrs. Blood, but Mrs. Jacoby was more masterful. He could not help wondering why she had ever married Mr. Jacoby, who, as she said, was a small-town boy, and what accident had brought them together or what spirit of revolt had made her seek him out, but then perhaps Mr. Jacoby had been young and attractive once.

“How would it be if we had cocktails, Edie?” Mr. Jacoby said. “It might help us all to break the ice and you’d get to know Willis better.”

“Not for me, thank you,” Willis said quickly. “I don’t usually drink in the middle of a business day, Mrs. Jacoby.”

“Well, I’m going to ring for Henry, Edie,” Mr. Jacoby said. “I’m going to have a Scotch and soda.”

“As long as you take your medicine with it, Manley,” Mrs. Jacoby said. “Go ahead and have your Scotch and soda. I want to talk to Willis.”

Mrs. Jacoby walked over to a mother-of-pearl-inlaid table and picked up a sheaf of papers bound in a handsome morocco cover and Willis gave a slight start. It was the final report and recommendations by Beakney-Graham for the Rahway Belting Company.

“Now,” Mrs. Jacoby said. “We may as well sit down and we can start going over this before lunch is served. Manley tells me that you wrote most of it.”

“Yes, most of it,” Willis said, “but I was helped by other members of my company, and of course we had engineering and technical assistance.”

Mrs. Jacoby picked up a pair of heavy horn-rimmed glasses.

“I read this with great interest,” she said. “It’s a well-organized report. I told Manley to employ Beakney-Graham.”

The light from Mrs. Jacoby’s glasses glittered disconcertingly as Willis tried to think of a suitable answer.

“I had an idea that the bank had suggested our company,” he said.

Mr. Jacoby laughed in a brief and rather mournful way.

“They did,” he said, “but Edie suggested it to the bank. She wears the pants around here, or at least she tries to.”

“I wish you wouldn’t get off these tiresome jokes, Manley,” Mrs. Jacoby said. “I’ve always let you play around with that factory of yours and I’ve never interfered, except when it’s been absolutely necessary.”

Willis was glad to see that the houseman was walking toward them across that enormous room, carrying a silver tray and a decanter and tumblers, all of heavy cut glass, because the interruption gave him a moment to think over the situation.

“Manley,” Mrs. Jacoby said, “be sure to take your medicine first, and I’ll have some Scotch too. Are you sure you won’t change your mind, Mr. Wayde—I mean Willis?”

“If you’ll forgive me, I’d rather not,” Willis said. “I’m afraid a lot of that report must have been dull reading, Mrs. Jacoby.”

He was interested to see that Mrs. Jacoby drank her Scotch neat, following it by a little water as a chaser.

“I wouldn’t say that any reports are light reading,” Mrs. Jacoby said, “but my father trained me to manage my own affairs. Oh, I know what you’re thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything, Mrs. Jacoby,” Willis said, and he tried to look through the reflection on her glasses.

“You needn’t be polite,” Mrs. Jacoby answered. “I know just what men think when old women say they handle their own affairs. They think they’re being silly. Well, I’m not silly.”

“I’m sure you’re not, Mrs. Jacoby,” Willis said quickly. “I’m sorry you thought I was thinking any such thing.”

“Maybe you weren’t, then,” Mrs. Jacoby said. “Manley says you’re very quick.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Jacoby said. “He’s smart. Don’t underrate him, Edie.”

“My father—that’s Mr. Seth Wilfred, you know—always said never underrate anyone until you knew him,” Mrs. Jacoby said, “and I don’t know you well enough to underrate you yet. I want this first meeting of ours to be frank. I’ve personally managed all my father’s interests since his death. I got out of the market in August, 1929. I got back in again in the summer of ’32. I have my own offices upstairs.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Jacoby said. “Edie’s a very able woman, Willis.”

“Now, Manley,” Mrs. Jacoby said, “I wish you’d step outside for a minute, but as long as you won’t you’ll have to let me do the talking.”

Mr. Jacoby laughed again, in a short, resigned way.

“I brought the young man here,” he said, “for you to talk to him, didn’t I?”

Since his days at the Harcourt Mill, Willis had seen a good many rich men, and he was beginning to judge their abilities and weaknesses, but he was not so familiar with the wealthy and independent woman. These people, he had always supposed, were under the care and guidance of lawyers, bankers, and investment counselors, as Mrs. Blood and Mrs. Henry Harcourt had been. Although he could see that Mrs. Jacoby was different, he still could not define the difference. He could only listen carefully, but the difficulty was that she talked partly like a woman and partly like a man.

“Now you know as well as I do,” Mrs. Jacoby said, “that Manley here hasn’t got much business sense.”

Willis found himself laughing nervously.

“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” he said.

“I didn’t say you would,” Mrs. Jacoby told him, “but you know it and Manley knows it too. You have ideas in your report that I’ve known all along. Manley has surrounded himself with second-rate people. He has vision but no business sense.”

Willis glanced at Mr. Jacoby and was surprised to discover that he was smiling.

“Now, Mrs. Jacoby,” Willis began, “I’m not in any position …” but Mr. Jacoby interrupted him.

“Now, you see, Edie,” he said. “I told you he was good.”

“You don’t need to tell me anything,” Mrs. Jacoby said. “I want to get right down to facts. I’m worried about Manley, Mr. Wayde—I mean Willis. He’s always liked that factory. He owned it when I married him. I want him to keep it if he likes it, but he’s got to have someone to help him. I think it’s time for you to make him our proposition, Manley.”

Mr. Jacoby coughed loudly.

“Edie’s right,” he said, “and we’ve got to have her on our side. She’s got the money, and it looks as though we’re going to need some.”

“Never mind that,” Mrs. Jacoby said. “Make him the proposition, Manley.”

“All right,” Mr. Jacoby said. “Edie and I want you to be executive vice president of Rahway Belt. We want you to take over so that we can have time to go to Arizona and places like that. We’re not getting any younger, and there aren’t any young men in the family except our sons-in-law, both of whom are doctors. This may sound sudden to you but Edie and I have been all over it. We want to sort of take you into the family. Are you sure you don’t want a drink?”

“Well, yes,” Willis said, “perhaps I wouldn’t mind a small one.”

He had been right not to have refused that final proffer of a drink. His acceptance finally set the tone for everything.

“Thank you, Manley,” he said, as Mr. Jacoby handed him the glass. He had been right in calling Mr. Jacoby by his first name, as Mr. Jacoby had suggested, but he also had been right in speaking slowly and shyly.

“Would you mind telling us,” Mr. Jacoby asked, “what your salary is at present?”

“Why, no,” Willis said. “It’s ten thousand dollars,” and he smiled at them. “Just at present.”

“That is the figure I guessed,” Mr. Jacoby said.

He paused. Somehow people always paused before they made an offer.

“You and I get on all right. You’ll be executive vice president down there and I’ll back you all the way. You’ll get twelve thousand dollars a year and thirty-three per cent of the common stock.”

Although it was the percentage that Willis had planned to ask for, he had never thought that Mr. Jacoby would go so far immediately.

“That’s quite a lot,” Willis said slowly—“the stock, I mean.”

“The idea,” Mr. Jacoby said, “is to fix it so you won’t refuse.”

Willis waited a moment. It was no time to be too eager. In fact the size of the offer made him suspicious.

“I’m very much flattered of course,” he said. “I didn’t know you thought so highly of me, Manley.”

He noticed that Mrs. Jacoby had taken off her glasses.

“It’s my stock you’re getting, not Manley’s,” Mrs. Jacoby said, “it’s never earned me one red cent, and I want Manley to be happy.”

It was no time to hurry, and Willis took a deliberate sip of his Scotch and water.

“I think it’s very generous of you,” Willis said. “There’s only one thing that makes me hesitate.” He smiled a little sadly. It was like saying he never took a drink in the middle of a business day, and he could see how closely they both were watching him. “Another firm sent me here, you know. I’m not sure it would be loyal, under the circumstances—”

He allowed his voice to trail into silence, and he had a momentary thought of Sylvia.

“Now just a minute,” Mr. Jacoby began, “just a minute.”

Willis raised his voice slightly, and as he did so he felt a glow of self-righteousness and a warm spot in his heart for Beakney-Graham.

“It may sound a little old-fashioned,” he said, “but I’d like to finish my thought, if you don’t mind. There’s a girl I want to marry. I wish she were here with us now, because I know you’d like her, Mrs. Jacoby. She’s the daughter of a Harvard professor. I met her in Cambridge when I was at the Harvard School of Business Administration. She and I were talking about loyalty only the other night. I don’t know whether Sylvia would think it was loyal of me if I were to leave Beakney-Graham.”

Willis had that quick feeling of triumph that comes of having said exactly the right things. Mrs. Jacoby was smiling at him.

“Manley always told me you were high-minded,” she said, “but he never told me you were thinking of getting married.”

“That’s because he never told me either, Edie,” Mr. Jacoby said.

Willis laughed diffidently.

“It’s been a secret up to now,” he answered. “You’re the first people I’ve told, in fact. You’re older than I am and I’d value your advice. I wouldn’t want either of you to think I’m disloyal.”

He was glad that he had thought to ask their advice, because Mr. and Mrs. Jacoby began advising him simultaneously.

“You’re not under any contract with them, are you?” Mrs. Jacoby asked.

“Oh no,” Willis said, “no contract, but just the same it bothers me.”

“And since when,” Mr. Jacoby asked, “can’t anyone leave a job and take another?”

“I know,” Willis said. “But Mr. Beakney’s been especially kind to me. You know what a fine straightshooter he is yourself, and I have some very close fine friends in the office. We’re a pretty hand-picked crowd in Beakney-Graham.”

“Now listen, Willis,” Mr. Jacoby said. “It’s time you thought about yourself and this girl you’re going to marry. What is her name?”

“Sylvia,” Willis said.

“Sylvia,” Mrs. Jacoby repeated. “I want you to promise to bring her here, and I think fifteen thousand would be better than twelve, Manley.”

“It isn’t the money,” Willis said. “I only wish I felt right, Mrs. Jacoby.”

“Now, Willis,” Mrs. Jacoby said, “this is common sense. It’s time you thought of Sylvia and any little ones who may be coming along.”

Willis was always glad that he had threshed out the matter of loyalty with Mr. and Mrs. Jacoby, because it had started them off on the right foot, and he had Sylvia to thank for it, although she had only seen the picture in a rather schoolgirlish way; and what he had done was for her future as much as his. Nevertheless, sometimes when he had a sleepless night, he would recall his final conversation with Mr. Beakney. He was still sorry that things had ended there with a certain amount of ill-feeling. His interview the next morning was frankly tough, among the worst he had ever encountered up to that date, but, if you had to go through with something, you had to go right through.

Willis had done his morning setting-up exercises as usual, the “Daily Dozen” designed by the late Walter Camp which he had found long ago in a popular magazine, and he had always liked the title—“Take a Tip from the Tiger and Stay Young.” Willis had recently been through an optional annual physical examination, which he had passed with an A rating. His eyesight was 20/20, his weight was right, his arches had not fallen, and his heart, blood pressure, and muscle tone were excellent. After a cold shower he had put on his new gray flannel suit, because he wanted to look as smart as possible. He had even taken fifteen minutes before he had gone out for his breakfast of orange juice, a three-minute boiled egg, and raisin bran, to read from William Penn in the Harvard Classics. It had been difficult to concentrate, with half his mind on what he was going to say to Mr. Beakney, but there was no reason to break routine.

He had exchanged pleasant greetings with everyone at Beakney-Graham just as though it were only another September day, and had all his thoughts well organized when Mr. Beakney was ready to see him.

“I thought you were out at Rahway,” Mr. Beakney said. “Is anything wrong out there?”

Everything was fine at Rahway, Willis had told him. Then he had given Mr. Beakney the whole picture concisely, without pulling any punches, and he had ended on a note of how grateful he would always feel to Mr. Beakney and everyone in the office. He would never forget what they had done for him but he hoped that Mr. Beakney would put himself in his position and understand his situation. He was always very sorry that Mr. Beakney had not understood.

“Well,” Mr. Beakney said, “so that’s it. You’ve been sucking up to a silly old man and his silly old wife while you were on our payroll.”

“I’m sorry you look at it that way, sir,” Willis had told him. “They’ve made me an offer and I’ve accepted it.”

Then Mr. Beakney had talked about loyalty, but he could not get away from the basic single fact that Willis was under no contract to stay with Beakney-Graham.

“Let me ask you just one question, sir,” Willis said. “Haven’t you ever done what I’m doing yourself, in your own career, Mr. Beakney?”

He did not like the look that Mr. Beakney gave him, but it was better than any answer.

“I never thought you’d do this to me,” Mr. Beakney said. “I had other ideas about you.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Willis said. “I’ve given it a lot of thought, but I guess this is something that everyone has to do sometime.”

“Maybe,” Mr. Beakney said. “I fear it would be a waste of time for you and me to argue over ethics, Willis.”

“I’m sorry you don’t approve, sir,” Willis said.

“That’s neither here nor there,” Mr. Beakney said. “I fear you’ve grown up to be too much for us to handle. Well, that’s the way things go.”

“I wish you wouldn’t put it that way, sir,” Willis said, “because I’ve always enjoyed working for you.”

“All right,” Mr. Beakney said, “let’s not have any more last words. I’ll only say you’re graduating, and I’ll make just one more remark which maybe is a compliment. I’d hate to run up against you in a controversy ten years from now.”

This meant a lot coming from someone like Mr. Beakney. There was no wonder Willis always had a warm spot in his heart for Beakney-Graham.

The next few months of his life were among the busiest and happiest that Willis had ever known, since there was nothing as exhilarating as one’s first taste of tangible success and achievement. He only realized later that success had its dangerous aspects, especially early success. Class presidents and football heroes, he had finally come to learn, required careful and suspicious watching. They were like the potted hyacinths and daffodils that he sometimes bought for Sylvia in midwinter—spectacular, but they often yellowed around the edges once you brought them home. The same was true with bright young men who had come along too fast. They were tired because of premature effort, or else over-confidence had made them arrogant. At best the cards were stacked against someone who made good too young. Willis could see now that he had once been in this same dubious category. He could no longer wonder, as he once had, that Mr. Beakney had made no effort to keep him. In fact Mr. Beakney must have been relieved to have let him go—gray suit, trimmed hair, polished Oxfords, sharp mind and everything—because he had come along too fast for the age of twenty-nine.

What really saved him was marrying Sylvia Hodges. It was the most fortunate thing that had ever happened to him, meeting and marrying a girl like Sylvia. Sylvia had better taste than he, better manners and a more cultivated mind. She knew so many things he did not know that he could not help but be very proud of her. Though he was aware of his inadequacies when he was with her, somehow she never made him jealous.

They were married in Cambridge in October, 1936. There was always a first time for everything. Willis had no idea of the immediate complications. He had not thought of his father and mother as traveling all the way from the West Coast to the wedding until Mrs. Hodges wrote him that she had asked them and that they were coming, and then he had to get them rooms and a room for himself at the Hotel Commander in Cambridge. Then Mrs. Hodges had posed another problem. He had envisioned a small house wedding with no one but the family, but Mrs. Hodges wanted them married in the Unitarian Church off Harvard Square. Laura would be the maid of honor, and Sylvia was selecting bridesmaids. Consequently Mrs. Hodges wanted to know at once whom Willis would invite to be best man and whom he would want for ushers.

Willis never realized until he read Mrs. Hodges’s letter at Rahway Belt that in all his years in New York there had not been much time for friendship. Under other circumstances, he could have asked Joe McKitterick and one or two others from Beakney-Graham, but his having left rendered this impossible. This lack of friendship, which had never troubled him before, he felt was something he could not confess to Mrs. Hodges and least of all to Sylvia. He finally felt obliged to resort to bald misstatement when he answered Mrs. Hodges’s letter. He simply had to say that the few people he most wanted were unable to leave New York in the middle of the business week, that his father could be best man but that he would have to dispense with ushers.

He had thought that getting married would involve only a day in Cambridge, but instead Mrs. Hodges wrote that he must be there several days ahead to see about the license and to attend a few small parties which her friends and Sylvia’s were giving; and then there was the wedding trip, to which he had given no thought at all, but Sylvia had said that they must go somewhere. This was all very difficult, coming on top of everything he had to do at Rahway Belt, and yet as Mr. Jacoby pointed out, after all it might only happen once.

If Willis had no friends of his own, at least he wanted to appear in a proper light. His Ford runabout, which had seemed so desirable only that spring, was not what he wanted any longer and he turned it in for a new green Buick sedan before he motored up to Cambridge. He never forgot Sylvia’s expression when she saw the car in front of the house on Craigie Street. Sylvia always did find it hard to understand that you were rated in a business way by the car you drove and by your golf score. People you met in a business way always had to measure you by something.

Sylvia ran down the path to meet him in the late afternoon when he arrived at Craigie Street. He remembered her brown skirt and her white shirtwaist and the rustling noise of her feet among the autumn leaves. Now that she was back in the family she did not look like the girl he had known in New York, and when she kissed him in a shy way, because everyone was watching them, he felt like a distant relative.

“Why, Willis,” she said, “where’s the Ford?”

Where was the Ford indeed? He was very glad that he could surprise Sylvia at a time like that.

“Why, I turned in the Ford, dear,” he said. “This is an improvement, isn’t it?”

After all, he did not want to say in so many words that a fifteen-thousand-dollar-a-year man did not drive a Ford.

“Oh, dear,” Sylvia said, “I loved the Ford.”

“You’ll love this a lot better,” he told her, “once you get behind the wheel. I’ve been babying it along, but after two hundred miles more we can run it as fast as we like. I can’t wait to knock off those two hundred miles.”

“Oh, darling,” she said, “I hope people won’t think we’re throwing our weight around when they see us driving it.”

“Why, sweetness,” he said, and he slammed the car door casually, “it’s only a Buick. You wait till we get a Cadillac before you start to worry.”

“Oh, darling,” she said, and she linked her arm through his, “we’ve all been waiting for you all afternoon, and your father and mother are here, and you’ve got to go down right away to see about the marriage license. Tom will take you. And you’ve got to see the presents. What do you think Mr. and Mrs. Jacoby sent us?”

“What?” he asked, and it was a lot more important than the Buick. Sylvia laughed in an embarrassed way.

“An enormous silver soup tureen, like a pyramid, and I don’t know what we’ll ever do with it.”

It did not matter what they did with it. It was very kind of Mr. and Mrs. Jacoby.

Getting married, Willis often thought, was like moving without any preparation into a foreign country about whose customs one knew nothing. From the moment he had stepped out of the Buick to the time Sylvia and he finally drove away in it from the wedding reception, he was a stranger in a strange land. Everything was on an entirely different basis from what it had been before, because the Hodgeses were trying to make him a member of the family, and even his father and mother were like strangers. They were all waiting for him in the house at Craigie Street, and he was surprised to have Mrs. Hodges kiss him. Then his mother kissed him, then Laura, and then Tom’s wife, Mary, who told him they might as well get it over with now that he was going to be an in-law just like her. Sylvia wanted to see him alone for a minute and so did his mother, because he was her boy and she hadn’t laid eyes on him for four years, and he hadn’t seen his father yet. No one seemed to know what had happened to Alfred Wayde and Mr. Hodges. They had simply disappeared.

Mrs. Hodges wanted Willis to see the presents right away, but Tom said Willis had to go to the city hall to see about the license before the whole place closed.

“If he doesn’t get to City Hall today, he won’t get married on Wednesday,” Tom said.

This was plain fact, but Willis found that Sylvia was pulling him into Mr. Hodges’s study.

“Willis,” Sylvia said, “what are you going to get married in?”

“In a church, aren’t we?” Willis said. “At least that was the last idea.”

“I mean clothes,” Sylvia said, and Sylvia looked strained and nervous.

“Well, won’t a dark suit do?” he asked.

“No,” Sylvia said. “Mother wants you and your father to wear cutaways.”

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Willis said. “Nobody wore them at Lake Sunapee.”

“It’s just Mother, darling,” Sylvia said. “She’s all worn out. You and your father will have to go and rent them, with silk hats.”

“Silk hats?” Willis repeated. “I don’t know whether I can get my father to do it.”

“He’s got to,” Sylvia said. “And, Willis, have you got the ring?”

“Gosh,” Willis said, “I forgot about the ring.”

“You forgot it?” Sylvia said, and her voice broke tragically. “I suppose getting married is more serious for a girl than it is for a man. Do you want to marry me or don’t you?”

“Now, sweetness,” Willis said. “Of course I want to marry you, or I certainly wouldn’t have bought the Buick.”

“Willis,” Sylvia said, “if you mention that Buick again, I’ll scream—I really will. That Buick hasn’t got anything to do with anything.”

“It’s only sort of a symbol, dear,” he said, “sort of like the ring.”

“You come here to get married,” Sylvia said, “and all you think about is a motor car.”

He knew it was a time to be patient and understanding and that girls were apt to be upset at such a time, but the trouble was he did not know what he ought to understand.

“You haven’t even asked to see the presents,” Sylvia said.

It certainly was a time to be gentle and understanding, and he supposed all girls were nervous, and he could not blame Sylvia, because he was growing nervous too.

“Now listen, honey,” he said. “What’s all the trouble anyway?”

At any rate the question changed her mood.

“Oh, Willis, darling,” she said, “I know I’m impossible. I’m sorry, dear.”

“There, there,” Willis said, and he put his arm around her. “It’ll be all right when this is over. What sort of a ring would you like, honey? I saw sort of a cute platinum one the other day with little orange blossoms carved on it.”

“Oh, God!” Sylvia said. “Why didn’t you think of chromium?”

“Why, sweet,” Willis said, “why chromium?”

“Because it’s all over that Buick,” Sylvia said, and she hid her head against his shoulder. He could not tell whether she was laughing or crying, but at any rate he began to laugh himself.

“I was just thinking of something striking, sweetness, that would go with the diamond,” he told her.

“Oh, Willis,” Sylvia said. “Just put your mind on a plain gold band. I’ll go to Boston with you tomorrow.”

He was relieved to see that she was growing calmer.

“Willis,” she said, “have you done anything about the bouquet?”

“What bouquet, sweetness?” Willis asked.

“Oh, God!” Sylvia said. “The bunch of flowers the girl carries to the altar. The man is supposed to buy it.”

“Is he?” Willis said. “I didn’t know that, honey, but just you leave it all to me.”

“Just don’t tell anyone I had to tell you,” Sylvia said.

“Now, sweetness,” Willis said. “I’m sorry I’m so dumb, but I haven’t been married very often.” It was a pretty good joke and he had to laugh at it. “Just you wait till you see the bouquet I’ll get you. It will be solid orchids.”

“Oh, God!” Sylvia said. “Oh no, not orchids.”

He was glad that Tom interrupted them. If they didn’t go for that marriage license they would never get it.

“And we’ll take your car,” Tom said. “It’s like a motor hearse. I’m dying to ride in it.”

It might not have been a very good joke but it did put things on a lighter level.

“Come on,” Tom said, “and you’re coming too, Sylvia. Where did you get that suit, Willis?”

“Brooks Brothers,” Willis said. “What’s the matter with it, Tom?”

“I’m only admiring it,” Tom said.

Sylvia turned on Tom sharply. There was no doubt she was very nervous.

“You’d better admire it,” Sylvia said, “and maybe if you stop being a friend of the Little People, you can afford one like it some day.”

There was so much happening that Willis could never get events into chronological succession. He was constantly smiling and chatting with friends and relatives of the Hodgeses’ whom he did not know. Sylvia was always saying in amazed tones that she surely must have told him who they were. Although he took pride in sorting out names and faces, it actually took years and several christenings before he got the Hodgeses’ connections straight.

So this was Willis Wayde, they were saying. They had heard so much about him that they were very glad finally to see him. Sylvia had always been a wonderful girl. In case he did not know it, he was very very lucky to have found a girl like that. He knew he was very lucky, he answered. They were going to live in Rahway, New Jersey. They had not found a house yet, but they would stay in his apartment in New York until they got settled. Yes, he kept saying, it would be great fun to go house-hunting and buy furniture and things. Yes, he and Sylvia would motor around New England for two weeks, but they had no definite idea just where they were going.

Even his parents treated him sometimes like a stranger. His mother was shy with him at first. She had been worried, she said, as any mother would be, when Willis had written her that he was engaged to a girl she did not know. It was wonderful to discover that Sylvia was just the daughter-in-law she had dreamed of having—a good, sweet, sensible, intelligent girl, whom she seemed to have known always. Her family were all lovely people, too, particularly Professor Hodges. She had never thought that a professor in a great university like Harvard would have such democratic manners or that she would understand nearly everything he said. She told Willis all this when they were finally alone in the hotel.

“You’ve grown up so, Willis, that I hardly know you,” she said. “Doesn’t Willis look handsome, Alfred?”

“Yes,” Alfred Wayde said. “He’s been polished off, all right. How about a touch of rye, Willis?”

“Now, Alfred,” Mrs. Wayde said, “I wish you’d ever been polished.”

“Anyway you’re getting me into a monkey suit,” Alfred Wayde said, “just because Willis is getting married.”

He was referring of course to the cutaway he was going to rent. Ever since he had heard of it he had not been able to get it off his mind.

“Now don’t keep complaining about it,” Mrs. Wayde said. “You know you’re proud of Willis.”

“Why, yes,” Alfred Wayde said, “I’d like to see this Jacoby who’s giving him fifteen grand a year.”

“Mr. Jacoby wouldn’t have given it to Willis if he wasn’t worth it,” Mrs. Wayde said, “and you know it, Alfred.”

“Sure I know it,” Alfred Wayde said, “and I’m proud to have a boy who can shake money out of anyone.” He stopped and looked at Willis in a way that made Willis move uneasily.

“I’m proud of you all right, son. Here you are, not thirty, with motor cars, golf sticks, everything. There’s only one thing bothers me about you, son.”

“Well, tell me what it is,” Willis said. “A lot of things bother me about myself, as a matter of fact.”

Alfred Wayde filled a pipe and lighted it. He looked older and heavier than he had at the Harcourt Mill, and all his motions were more deliberate.

“Now, son,” he said, and his voice was warm and gentle, “I know you’ve got to get along like all the rest of us. Boys like you have to try to be something they’re not in order to get ahead, and if you try hard enough, no doubt you’ll be what you want to be. You’re marrying a real nice girl. She’s a little thin for my taste, but no doubt she’ll flesh out. There’s only one thing bothers me.”

He stopped and lighted his pipe again.

“Just don’t get too smooth,” he said, “or you’ll turn into a son of a bitch. A lot of people do before they know it, son.”

“Alfred,” Mrs. Wayde said, “you ought to be ashamed.”

“I’m sorry,” Alfred Wayde said, “I apologize if I offended you, son.”

“You didn’t,” Willis said, “and I know what you mean, and you said it before to me once. Do you remember?”

“That’s right,” Alfred Wayde said, “up at Harcourt. I didn’t mean to be repeating myself. And the Harcourts sent you presents, didn’t they? Old Mrs. Henry and the Brysons, and Bill and Bess. It was nice of them, considering.”

“Yes, sir,” Willis said, “it was very nice of them.”

“Well,” Alfred Wayde said, “I’m going to bed now. My feet hurt in these new shoes.” He pushed himself out of his chair, walked slowly across the hotel sitting room, and slapped Willis on the shoulder.