You have always betrayed yourself, most miserably at those moments when you most needed the kind of fortitude that can neither be borrowed nor simulated. Yet even that is a gloss, that is too kind, for often it has not been a question of fortitude at all, but simply a matter of permitting your authentic impulses to live and grow. You have played with them as a cat plays with a mouse, and to the same end. Neither the heroism of the ascetic nor the courage of the hedonist. Bah, phrases, what have heroism or courage to do with it? If that were all you lacked! All the petty fears and hesitations, all the ignoble withdrawals! Afraid by god to swallow your own saliva.
Not a fear, exactly, either; more an avoidance and a denial. Certainly you weren’t afraid of Lucy, nor were you afraid of the delights she gave and promised, and you doubt if the hopes that were dazzled in front of you by Erma’s return and her unexpected renewed friendliness had really much to do with it. They appeared to have, and you don’t resent the idea; quite the contrary; you would accept with relief a conviction of cool practical calculation, that at least would be no weakness, nothing that a man need be ashamed of. No, it wasn’t a positive choice, even of a slender hope. It was a denial and a rejection.
You felt pretty sure you were going to marry Lucy, that day as you leaned back in the pullman chair with an unopened magazine on your lap, while the train roared its way through the flat fields towards Dayton, where she was to meet you. She had left Cleveland twelve days before, and they had been empty days for you. You tried to decide what it would be like to be married to her, and were irritated to find how elusive it was; it didn’t seem to be like much of anything. But it was clearly impossible to contemplate being without her. You were glad you had had sense enough not to go with Dick; to be up north there with them for a whole month, knowing all the time that you could have been with Lucy, would have been unbearable.
She, alone, met you at the Dayton station, and in a little dark blue roadster drove you west, into the setting sun, some fifteen miles from the city. You had not known before that she drove, and decided that she was better at it than you were. You were surprised at the extent of the farmhouse and buildings; you knew that Lucy’s father, publisher and editor of a newspaper somewhere, had at middle-age suddenly given it up and purchased a farm and begun raising thoroughbred stock, but you hadn’t expected to see anything so elaborate. On one side of the road was the house, in a grove of fine old trees; on the other, somewhat removed, a dozen or more sheds and barns and enclosures, all shining with white and yellow paint.
Of all the people you have known, you have understood Lucy’s father and mother least. They were obviously healthy and happy, on excellent terms with life, yet they gave the impression of having no contact with it, not even with those aspects that most closely touched them. Unquestionably Mr. Crofts took a strong and active interest in the rare and fine animals which filled his barns and sheds, and was uncommonly successful with them, but when you led him to talk about them he did so as if they inhabited another world and were no concern of his. He had a large library and read a great deal, but when questioned about any book he would always reply that he had read it a long time ago and had forgotten what it was about. Mrs. Crofts was the same, she said the same things in the same tone of voice. They were always together, working with the men out in the barns, riding around the fields and country roads, sometimes playing tennis on the well-kept court back of the apple orchard.
Their attitude toward Lucy was therefore nothing special, it was a part of their whole. It was plain that she wanted for nothing, she was not in any sense neglected, but there was none of that rubbing intimacy which is always associated with parenthood. She might have been a privileged summer boarder. With some nervousness you had anticipated an embarrassing reception: an over-hearty handshake and a lengthy appraisal from the father, a suggestive and emphatic friendliness from the mother, the general atmosphere of a try-out for two-year-olds. It was not so at all. You were courteously made welcome; beyond that you were strictly Lucy’s business, it was no affair of theirs. You had the feeling that if Lucy had suddenly announced to them that she was pregnant they would have said:
“Well. Indeed. What are you going to do? Can we be of any help?”
Not that anything was happening which was likely to place Lucy in that classic predicament. You rode a great deal, you on her little mare Babe, Lucy on one of the more unmanageable beasts from the general stables; you played tennis, read, picked berries, went fishing once or twice. Sometimes you were accompanied by her young brother, a silent slender lad of eleven or twelve, but usually he was somewhere out of sight and you and she were alone. Challenged, you tried to milk one of the big brown Guernseys, with Lucy holding her tail so she couldn’t flick you in the eye. The enormous bag looked as if it must hold at least ten gallons, but you couldn’t make it come.
“She won’t give it down that way, you’re pinching her,” said Lucy. “Here, let me show you again.”
The creamy streams sizzled into the pail, forming a thick billowy foam.
The fishing was no good. The first time you drove to a lake, rather a pond, some twenty miles away, where there were said to be bass, and returned at nightfall empty-handed, wet and muddy and tired. The second time, less ambitious, you walked through the fields and over a wooded hill to where a small stream wound through the meadow and disappeared into a rocky ravine among some shrubbery. You worked your way down its bands for several hundred yards, trying the holes, and got two or three small bullheads.
“I don’t understand it,” said Lucy. “Just last summer it was full of sunfish as big as your hand. This is all on our land, and no one ever comes here.”
You sat beside her on the bank, idly throwing pebbles into the pool, the largest pool you had yet found. On that side the bank was grassy clear to the water’s rim; the opposite side was a high ledge of rock, crested with small trees. It was quiet and hot and drowsy there in the ravine, with nothing to be heard but the low murmur of the riffles upstream and some crows arguing far off, out of sight.
“Does your father own clear down to here? He has a lot of land,” you observed.
She nodded. After a silence she said:
“I read a book last summer that said that nobody ought to own any land.”
You lay back on the grass and looked at her. “Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know,” she frowned. “I guess I don’t believe anything about what people ought to do. I don’t see what right anybody has to tell us what we ought to do.”
“I’ve got a right to tell you you oughtn’t to pull my hair, haven’t I?”
“You have not. You only have a right to pull mine back—if you can.”
Quickly she reached down and grabbed a handful of your thick brown hair and gave it a sharp tug. You yelled and seized her wrist, and straightened up, and struggled and clinched; and locked together you rolled over and over on the grass, almost tumbling into the stream. She was nearly as strong as you. You ended sitting on top of her, holding her down, dipping your hand into the water and trickling it onto her face from the ends of your fingers, and demanding surrender.
“I like that, it’s nice and cool,” she said, lying quietly; but for some reason you got up and moved a little off and sat down again on the grass. She too sat up and patted at her hair and pulled her dress down, and then got on her knees and dabbled at the water with her hands.
“This is where I go swimming,” she said presently. “When we were younger we always used to come together, my two older brothers and I, but when Mart got old enough to go to High School he said we couldn’t do that any more unless we wore bathing suits, and I wouldn’t wear one and he wouldn’t let me go in. He would stand in the edge of the water, there, and wave a stick at me. John took his side, and I had to give in. But I wouldn’t wear a bathing suit, so I came alone after that.”
You remembered something, and suddenly said:
“This is where you were the other afternoon when I couldn’t find you!”
She nodded, as if it were of no importance, and took her hands out of the water and dried them on the hem of her dress. Flushed a little in the warm sun, and with a faint suggestion of freckles showing on her soft creamy skin, she was lovelier than you ever had seen her. You fancied her in the water, standing in the water; was her skin like that all over?
Without any consciousness you said to her, looking into her face, “You are very beautiful, like that.”
She replied immediately, returning your look:
“I like to have you think so. But what do you mean, like that?”
“I don’t know…I mean, sitting there, in the sunshine…I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful.”
She was silent. After a pause you said:
“Look here, Lucy, let’s go swimming, will you?”
“You mean take our clothes off?”
“Sure, why not? What’s the difference?”
For an instant she regarded you with a surprised glance, then her eyes twinkled; suddenly she laughed.
“Wouldn’t it be fun! I’d love to. But I guess I won’t.”
“Why not? Come on, what’s the difference? Please.”
She had stopped laughing, but her eyes were still amused.
“I don’t know. Of course there isn’t any reason, I just don’t think I will. I’m sure I’d feel silly.”
You argued and pleaded with her, but she was firm, she wouldn’t do it. You gave up, and sulked, ostentatiously, but she appeared not to notice, and again ultimately you gave in; it was impossible to maintain a bad humor with her. When she suggested taking the rods downstream, towards the willows, to try once more for some fish, you went side by side, your heads bent together over the bait-can, trying to see how many worms you had left.
That night in bed you reflected that this was the first faint disagreement, the first slight friction, between you and her. You reflected this because you felt uncomfortable and wondered why. It was so easy, so almost unavoidable, to be on good terms with her. What if you had really tried to quarrel with her about it? You couldn’t imagine her quarreling, but you couldn’t understand that either; certainly she wasn’t too cold or too insipid or too pliable. You went to sleep on the pleasant enigma.
There followed a couple of rainy days; you drove into Dayton and back, and in the evening you tried a game of chess with Mr. Crofts but found him much too good for you. Lucy was better, but he could give her a rook and beat her. This he did with an air of detachment which implied that the little wooden pieces were being moved about by accident of nature and that he found a mild amusement in wondering where they would go next.
That night it cleared, and the next day was sunny; by the middle of the afternoon it was hot, pleasantly hot, with a soft breeze stirring the air just enough to make the goldenrod buds faintly nod on their long stems. You were glad, for it was nearly the end of July and soon you would have to return to Cleveland and you wanted to be with Lucy in the woods and fields, in the sunshine. That afternoon she suggested a walk, and you strolled together to the top of the wooded hill, and from there ran a race pell-mell down to the bank of the stream in the meadow. You followed its course into the ravine, past the thicket of shrubs, and found yourselves at the edge of the pool where you had sat two days before. You were a little surprised, for you hadn’t realized you had come so far. Lucy had led you there deliberately. She said immediately and without preamble:
“I was silly the other day. Let’s go in.”
Almost before you knew what was happening she had removed her shoes and stockings and slipped off her dress and underthings and splashed into the water. Under she went, then rose to the surface and swam to the other end of the little pool, where she stood dripping, tugging at her braids of hair, the water only up to her knees.
“Aren’t you coming?” she called.
With trembling fingers you somehow got your shoelaces undone and your buttons unfastened. You placed your clothes in a neat little pile, then stood at the water’s edge, feeling extraordinarily naked. She had her hair loose now and was shaking it down over her shoulders, clear to her waist and below.
“Can I dive here?” you asked.
“Yes, it’s deep, over your head.”
In you went, but too flat, landing on your belly. You swam to the other end and came up beside her, pressing the water from your eyes.
“I forgot about my hair,” she said ruefully. “It will take hours to dry.”
“There’s plenty of sun,” you observed. “Isn’t the water warm! I thought it would be colder.”
You wanted to turn and look squarely at her, but could not; nor did you at all, really, though together you splashed in and out, and sat on the grass in the sun, and dove in again, for a long time. You had glimpses of flashing white arms and legs, firm small breasts, the lovely curve of her back. As you sat beside her you gazed at her feet, you noticed the regular shapely toes with pink translucent nails, and the way the calf slid smoothly and gracefully into the ankle. She was not in fact undressed, for as she sat there the long strands of brown hair, shaken out but still glistening with water-drops, fell around her in all directions, the clear warm wet skin shining through here and there like sunlight through a vine.
“I wish I’d brought a towel,” she said. “My clothes are wet too. We splattered them.”
You didn’t reply. You were thinking how exciting it would be, how original and natural, if you were to turn and look at her as she sat there beside you all unclothed, and say to her, “Lucy, I love you. Will you marry me?” You wondered what she would reply. You thought you knew. You said nothing.
A little later, dressed again, you strolled leisurely back toward the house through the still hot sun, by way of the apple orchard. Mr. and Mrs. Crofts were playing tennis, and you and Lucy sat in the shade of one of the crooked old trees and watched them. Abraham, the Negro cook’s little boy, appeared with a pitcher of lemonade and some glasses, and the game was suspended.
“What’s the matter with your hair?” asked Mrs. Crofts.
“It’s still wet,” said Lucy. “We went swimming.”
Mr. Crofts smacked his lips with enjoyment of the cold sour lemonade, and remarked that tennis was better exercise than swimming because it made you sweat.
A few days later, on the last day of July, Lucy drove you to Dayton to catch the afternoon train for Cleveland. Her father came along, having some errands in town. You were expected back at the office the following morning.
Nothing had happened, and you couldn’t understand it. What did you want, what were you waiting for? You said to yourself that Lucy was interested in her music, that what she wanted was a career, but you knew that was twaddle. She had said it was her vacation too and hadn’t practiced once while you were there, and had scarcely mentioned it. You wondered if she really had any talent and guessed probably not, though you knew nothing about it. At all events, it was plainly inevitable that you would marry her. There was no special hurry, she was only nineteen. Six years younger than you, that was just right. In the meantime, you would be lonely in Cleveland, during the six weeks that would elapse before she returned.—But why, after all, had nothing happened? You had kissed her just once, that day last spring when you spilled the coffee. How many wasted opportunities! Perhaps she didn’t expect to be married, didn’t want to be. She had unsuspected wisdoms and maturities.—But no, it was plainly marriage. A curious father-in-law and mother-in-law they would be—well-off apparently, and no one to be ashamed of. Different from that awful uncle and aunt in Cleveland.
Was Lucy in love with you? Yes. No. What would she say if you asked her, do you love me? Probably that she didn’t know, and then if you asked her to marry you she would say at once, yes, of course I will. Were you in love with her? Yes—oh yes—hell, you didn’t know. All you knew was that nothing seemed to happen; there in the train, toward the end of the journey, you felt all at once tired out and used up. You decided you would write her a letter, and ask her, and have it done.
At the office next day you found yourself surrounded by difficulties. Dick was not due to return for another two weeks, and various questions which ordinarily he would have decided, were put up to you. You suspected malice in this, for in fact the extent of your authority was questionable and had never been clearly defined. It appeared later that in the Pittsburgh deal, Jackson had deliberately set a trap for you.
In the course of the afternoon Dick’s secretary entered and handed you a letter.
“I’ve attended to most of Mr. Carr’s private mail,” she said, “but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about this. I’ve sent a wire to Mr. Carr, but he may not get it for a week.”
The letter was from Erma, mailed in Vienna. She said she was leaving for America, and after spending a week in New York would continue to Cleveland and probably spend the fall and winter there. Would Dick, like a good brother, give the necessary orders to have the house got in readiness? She was sick of hotels.
The next morning there was a telegram, saying that she would arrive on Thursday. You immediately drove out to Wooton Avenue to see that your instructions of the day before were being executed.
One of your most vivid memories of Erma from the early days is that August morning in the dingy old Cleveland railroad station. She came down the board platform like a fairy princess in lace and flowers borne on a breeze, surrounded by porters loaded with bags and parcels. You had expected to see a crowd, but apparently she had notified no one but Dick.
She waved from a distance and called, as you hastened forward:
“Bill—how nice of you!”
You explained that Dick was out of town. She kissed you on the cheek, and you felt yourself blushing.
“I’ve got to kiss someone,” she declared, “do you mind? Anyway, you look so nice you should be kissed. I think Americans are better-shaved than Europeans, they always look a bit stubby. Dick ought to be ashamed of himself, off in the woods when I come home. Heavens, I’ve been away over a year!”
She was gorgeous, distracting, overwhelming, with her dark red close-fitting traveling dress, her dark red shoes with incredibly high and pointed heels, her dark red velvet hat, and above all the air and perfume of strangeness that clung to her. You told yourself that she was the real thing, she was different from those smart and assured girls who always made you feel at once inadequate and contemptuous.
You rode out to the house with her and spent some time explaining the arrangements you had made, regretting that the time had been too short to see them all carried out, and finally you stayed and lunched with her before returning to the office. That afternoon you sat at your desk and thought that if you had married her you probably would have gone to Europe too.
When Dick got back you heaved a sigh of relief; things at the office were getting too thick for you. He plunged into the midst of it with a boldness that fairly took your breath when you remembered how much he had had to get from you, only two years before. You were worried about the Pittsburgh deal, as was everyone else who knew about it. There was a meeting the evening after his return, lasting far into the night.
The next morning you were summoned to Dick’s office. When you entered he was alone, walking back and forth with his hands in his pockets, looking sour.
“Bill,” he said abruptly, “what the hell did you mean by that letter to Farrell? It showed our hand, and they’ve double-crossed us. It’s the biggest thing we’ve had a crack at for two years, and we’ve lost it. I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others last night, but by god, I don’t understand what you were thinking about.”
You had known this was coming, and you had resolved to keep entirely calm and show no indignation.
“It’s not as simple as it looks,” you replied, “though I suppose it does fall on me. Look here.”
You took from your pocket the telegrams that had come, the day you returned, and copies of Jackson’s previous letters. Dick read them through, while you explained that they had not been shown to you until after your own had been sent.
“Where were they?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t go to the files myself.”
“Are you accusing Jackson of deliberately—”
“No. I have no proof of anything. It may have been only carelessness. Those are the facts.”
Dick started to reply, but you went on hastily:
“I know there’s no excuse for it, I should have known better, but the truth is they had it already so balled up that I was desperate. The first bid had been recalled, and that looked bad to begin with. Why did Jackson send a new man down there? Why didn’t he go himself? He says the new man was a pal of Mellish’s, as if that would do any good.”
Dick looked thoughtful but unconvinced. You knew that he suspected you of a grudge against Jackson.
“That letter was terrible, Bill,” he said, “there’s no getting around that. God, it was dumb. But you’re right, it was mismanaged all the way through. I said that last night.”
Nothing more came of it. For some time you fancied that Dick was a little off with you, but after all he was friendly enough, as friendly as he was with anyone. What did come of it was that you began to keep an eye on Jackson, which was not difficult since you still had free access to all departments. The only person you discussed it with was Schwartz, who agreed that there was something underneath it somewhere; Jackson wouldn’t deliberately stir up such a mess just to spite you.
Late one afternoon, about a week after Erma’s return, called to the telephone, you heard her voice. It was raining, she was lonely, she needed intelligent conversation, would you come out for a tête-à-tête dinner?
You would.
It is difficult to recapture the impression that Erma made upon you then. Certainly you were flattered by the attention she gave you; just as certainly you were not in love with her. You always tell yourself that, with Mrs. Davis, with Millicent, with Lucy—then you have never been in love? No, has anyone? Some people seem to feel differently about it—oh to hell with that! You were at least willing to accept Erma’s cordial gestures, partly perhaps because you knew that any one of the smart assured young men would have given a good deal to be invited to dine with her alone.
She was very nice to you that evening; she can be nicer than anyone else when she wants to. The dinner was perfect, and you both drank enough wine—just enough. Afterwards you sat in the little room beyond the library, with the windows open on the garden, and she played and sang some chansons populaires, which you had never heard, and later came and sat on the divan by you and told you about things in Europe—people and cities and rivers and the shore of the Mediterranean. You felt that you had little enough to tell her in return; but you might as well be fair to yourself, as a matter of fact you have always talked very well when there was nothing at stake. She has always enjoyed, and still does, your maliciously embroidered accounts of captains of industry leading their embattled forces of pale bookkeepers and pretty stenographers to the conquest of a foolish and bewildered world. You do, after all, know fairly well what’s going on; it’s only when you presume to take a hand in it that you become an idiot.
You sat on the divan that evening, and talked, and listened, and admired Erma’s firm white arms and graceful neck and her pretty fluttering nervous gestures. She had not yet cut her hair; it was a soft yellow mass on top of her head, a little loose and escaping here and there from the nest.
She had just finished telling you of a young Frenchman who had followed her twice across Europe, dying of love, suddenly reaching his emotional climax in Cannes with a request for a loan of ten thousand francs, when all at once she stopped and looked at you and said:
“There’s one thing I’ve admired you for a lot. Do you remember that we were once engaged to be married?”
It was without warning, but you managed a smile.
“No,” you said, “were we?”
“And you’ve never even told Dick, at least I don’t suppose you have—”
“And when I—well—overlooked it, you just overlooked it too.”
By now your smile was quite all right.
“I couldn’t very well yell at you, hey, you dropped something—and I was too bashful to pick it up and hand it to you.”
She kissed her finger and then touched your lips with it.
“You’re a darling. I hate explanations. Of course, it may be that you were glad to be out of it.”
“Unspeakably. I was going to be a great writer and was afraid it would take my mind off my work.”
She pretended to shiver a little. “Ugh. Don’t. That sounds as if it were decades ago. Good heavens you’re only twenty-five and I’m twenty-seven. We were both too young.”
“Twenty-six next month.”
“Yes? We’ll have a party and make everybody bring you a present.”
You didn’t reply to that; Lucy was due to return a few days before your birthday, and you and she had planned a farewell autumn trip to the canyon at Cuyahoga Falls.
After that you received many invitations from Erma—teas, dinners, dances—and you accepted most of them, but you were careful; you had been scorched once by that tricky flame and were shy of it. She was obviously enjoying her position and prestige in Cleveland, and it was reflected on you; it was often you who were chosen to take her in to dinner or sit by her in the theatre. You exerted yourself to be amusing and you achieved in fact a certain modest reputation and standing; people who had scarcely noticed you as one of Dick’s business associates began to find you desirable and to be careful to include you. You and Erma were rarely alone together. She was friendly, intimately cordial, that was all; she said you were the only person in Cleveland who could both dance and talk.
One afternoon she telephoned to ask you to come to dinner, early; she emphasized it, early; and when you arrived and had been shown into the library she entered almost at once and explained:
“Dick’s coming. He phoned and especially wanted to come, so I suppose he intends to talk about business. I regard you as my business adviser, and I confess I’m a little overpowered by darling Dick’s Napoleonic dash, so I want you to be here too.”
You were aghast.
“Good god, Erma, I can’t do it. You mean he doesn’t know I’m here?”
“Of course not. It’s a pleasant surprise.”
“But I can’t. Anyway it’s silly. Dick’s perfectly all right; anything he suggests will be all right. Don’t you see I can’t do it? Don’t you see how impertinent and impudent it would seem to him?”
Her eyes tightened a little; that was the first time you saw them do it. Her voice was raised.
“Impudent!” she exclaimed. Then she laughed. “I don’t need you to withstand Napoleon, Bill dear; it won’t be necessary and if it is I’ll attend to it. But I’m ignorant, and you know things. Really I insist. We can tell him you dropped in for a handout, or that we’re living together to see how we like it, or anything you want.”
When Dick arrived a little later he didn’t bother to conceal his surprise and annoyance at seeing you. Nor did he trouble to lower his voice when he said to Erma:
“I thought you said you’d be alone.”
“I’d forgotten about Bill,” she said carelessly. “He often comes out to relieve my loneliness. If it’s really so confidential—”
No, Dick said, it didn’t matter.
It was the first time the three of you had been alone together since the summer of your second visit. At dinner you talked of that, and of Dick’s fishing trip, and of other inconsequential things. You were relieved that Dick had speedily forgotten his annoyance at your presence; seemed, indeed, as dinner progressed, to become more than usually genial.
“I’m surprised that you can get Bill out to this end of town so often,” he said to Erma. “Who does he leave to guard his shepherdess? Not that she needs it.”
Erma glanced at him, and at you. “Have you got a shepherdess?”
“What, haven’t you met her?” asked Dick. “I don’t know where he found her, but he brought her to a couple of dances last spring, and she darned near started a riot. Young and sweet and good. Old men sighed for their lost youth. We all offered to buy food for her, but Bill had taken away her appetite. She wouldn’t even go for a buggy ride except with Bill. That’s why he turned down the fishing trip; she invited him down to the farm to help her with the flocks. You really haven’t seen her? She’s entirely worth looking at.”
He turned to you. “You haven’t fried and eaten her?”
You explained that Lucy had remained for the rest of the summer and wouldn’t return to Cleveland for another week or so.
“And I thought you told me all your secrets,” said Erma reproachfully, “and here you have a beautiful shepherdess that I never even heard of.”
“It’s no secret,” you said shortly, “and I haven’t got her.”
“The hell you haven’t,” said Dick with his mouth full of ice cream.
After dinner you wanted to leave and were busy devising a suitable excuse, when you caught a glance from Erma which said plainly that she read your intention and that you might as well discard it. You went with them into the library, and coffee and cigarettes were brought. You felt resentful and uncomfortable, especially when Dick moved to a chair next to Erma and began telling her his errand.
The recent death of old Meynell, the lawyer, he explained, made necessary a new arrangement regarding Erma’s stock. During his and Erma’s minority all of the stock had been controlled by a committee under a trust agreement, with Meynell as chairman. On Dick’s twenty-first birthday half of the stock had been turned over to him; but when Erma had reached her majority two years earlier her half had gone under her control, but a proxy for it had been given by her to Meynell, at the lawyer’s own suggestion. When Meynell died the proxy of course died with him.
“The stock should be represented at the next annual stockholders’ meeting,” Dick went on, “and that’s really the point. Of course, you can attend the meeting yourself if you want to, there isn’t anything technical about it, electing directors and so on. What I wondered was if you would give me a proxy and let me vote your stock along with mine. That would be simplest. If you happen to be in Japan or Singapore you couldn’t very well attend the meeting yourself.”
Erma sat comfortably sipping black coffee and blowing cigarette smoke in the short little puffs that were already a habit with her. She hardly seemed to be listening.
“If I give you my proxy you’ll vote the whole thing, won’t you?” she asked when Dick had finished.
“Of course. I own the other half.”
“How long is a proxy good for?”
“As long as you want to make it. Usually there is no stated term. You can recall it whenever you want to, or make a new one.”
Erma took a sip of coffee and a puff on her cigarette. What was she teasing him for, you wondered idly.
“It would be fun to attend the meeting myself, if it weren’t in that dirty hole,” she said. “Why don’t we get some decent offices somewhere?”
“It wouldn’t be so very amusing,” Dick replied, “no one there but me and a lawyer and a stenographer. Of course, do that if you want to, provided you’re here.”
“No, I guess I’ll make a proxy, it sounds more important. Only I think it would be piggish for you to vote the whole thing, so I’ll give my proxy to Bill, if he’ll promise not to elect the shepherdess a director.”
You glanced at her; naturally thought she was joking. Dick also glanced at her.
“You’d better make me promise too,” he grinned. “I might even want to make her President.”
“I mean it,” said Erma. “Bill, consider yourself my faithful proxy. Don’t betray your trust, or I’ll scratch your eyes out.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Dick. “There’s no point to that.”
You were flustered; you felt yourself blushing.
“Really, Erma,” you protested, “you’re putting me in a false position—”
“I don’t see anything false about it,” she declared. “It seems to me very sensible. You two can run things just as you want to, and two heads are better than one, and you are much more apt to keep me informed of things than Dick would be. Anyway, no matter how it’s done Dick will run the show, won’t you, Dick darling? This just happens to appeal to me. I like the idea of your going up to him and saying, see here, old man, this won’t do, we’ll have to get new pencils for the export department, my proxy violently dislikes green pencils.”
“You’re a damn fool,” said Dick.
But she really did mean it; she stuck to it, airily but inexorably. Dick, once convinced that she was in earnest, seemed to be not at all disturbed—rather amused with maybe a touch of irritation at her levity. The point once decided he made the arrangements for getting the proxy signed; you and young Ritter, from the law office, were to come out to the house the following afternoon. You sat for the most part silent, hardly knowing what to think or say; what was Dick thinking, you wondered. Did he in fact feel restrained and humiliated? If so, you were in a delicate and dangerous position; you would be every moment suspended on the fragile thread of Erma’s good will. But with Erma insisting and Dick accepting with outward good grace you were helpless.
When Dick finally rose to go and asked if he could drive you downtown, Erma said no, she wanted to have a conference with her proxy. And then all she did was sit and smoke cigarettes and tell you of the battles she and Dick had had as youngsters; but when you at length crossed to her chair to say goodnight she held out her hand and said:
“I don’t know if Dick really thinks I’m a damn fool, but I’m not. He’s a brilliant and remarkable person, but it won’t hurt him any to feel that there’s somebody around with the right to ask questions. What a rotten job for you! I know it, but I’ll stick by you.”
You walked all the way home, in the mild September night, feeling alternately humiliated and elated. You knew that Erma had sized you up for an intelligent and faithful dog, and particularly you resented her light assumption that you would accept the function without having consulted you. You felt, fearfully, that you had been manoeuvred onto the edge of a precipice; how did Dick really feel about it? After all, as Erma had said, Dick would run the show.
But one thing was a fact: at twenty-six, not quite twenty-six, you held the voting power for one-half the stock of a ten million dollar corporation. You would be elected a director. You would write Jane tomorrow and tell her about it, sort of casually. You would be on equal terms with Dick—but even your fancy balked at that. You laughed aloud at yourself as you swung along on the sidewalk under the maple trees, not with any special bitterness—no, you would scarcely be on even terms with Dick, not if you had a hundred proxies.
But no bitterness for him.