FOR A LITTLE WHILE, things moved smoothly in the office. Letty and Kenyon were to be married late in September, and they were to have a month’s honeymoon trip, and while Kenyon was gone, Phyllis would maintain order in the office. So they worked hard, getting things in shape so that Kenyon’s honeymoon would not have to be interrupted by a hurry call about business.
Phyllis was glad to work hard, to be so exhausted at the end of the day that she could go home and sleep. She saw Terry now and then. She learned to brace herself to listen to his praise of Eleanor. He even read her bits of Eleanor’s letters, his eyes lingering tenderly on those portions he did not read. And Phyllis clenched her hands hard and smiled with lips that felt stiff, and made herself show an intelligent and friendly interest.
She was too absorbed in her own tangled emotions to realize that Anice was being less annoying than usual. In fact, Anice seemed to have attracted a little group of her own friends with whom she frequently went to dinner or the theater or night-clubbing. Phyllis was merely grateful for the fact that once more her apartment seemed her own. For it was only occasionally that Anice was at home to dinner, and more and more, when she was, she suggested that they go out somewhere and admitted she was a little bored with cooking and housekeeping.
Late one afternoon, just as she was about to close her desk and call it a day, Phyllis’ office door opened and, startled, she looked up to see Letty standing there, immaculate and exquisitely groomed in a black-and-white frock, a tiny black hat half hidden by white flowers perched airily above one eye.
“Hello. May I come in?” she asked, all bright friendliness and gay good humor.
“Of course, please do,” said Phyllis politely, and indicated the chair beside her desk.
Letty nodded, and dropped into the chair. Phyllis sat down and Letty took out a package of cigarettes, offered one to Phyllis and held a match for both of them. And when she had shaken out the match’s tiny flame, she said coolly, “I feel, Miss Gordon, it is only fair that I should warn you that you apparently have an enemy.”
Phyllis stiffened and said swiftly, “But why should you be my enemy, now?”
Letty tipped back her pretty head and laughed.
“My dear girl!” she protested. “Surely you don’t think I meant myself? Goodness, you’re quite right. Why should I be your enemy, now that we understand each other so well?”
Phyllis looked bewildered and Letty hesitated for a moment, all laughter gone from her lovely face.
“You remember, Miss Gordon, I told you on … on that rather embarrassing night a week or ten days ago that I had had a telephone call, suggesting I drop in at the office?” she asked, and now she was entirely grave.
“Yes, of course.” Phyllis waited tensely.
“I told you it was a woman’s voice—a pleasant, musical voice?” Letty went on.
“I remember.”
Letty looked at her straightly.
“I’ve just heard it again, in Ken’s office,” said Letty quietly.
Phyllis said, startled, “You mean someone here in the office?”
Letty nodded, her eyes never leaving Phyllis’.
“I have an excellent memory for voices,” said Letty. “It’s—well, almost a hobby with me. My friends tease me about it. I’m rarely ever wrong. Just now, while I was waiting for Ken to finish some work, the telephone on his desk rang. He was busy at the other side of the room and said casually, ‘Catch that for me, will you, sweet?’ Naturally, I did, and the same voice that called me that night spoke over the phone. It was something Ken had to answer. I gave him the telephone, and when he had finished, I asked him who it was. He said, ‘Oh, a little file clerk here in the office. She was looking up a paper for me.’”
Phyllis found her hands clenching tightly on the edge of her desk, and she could not manage her voice to speak. But Letty saw the question in her eyes, and nodded.
“Ken said it was a girl named Mayhew, he thought. Anyway, he said she was your cousin and you had gotten her the position here,” Letty finished quietly.
Somehow Phyllis wasn’t really surprised. Or if she was, she was unforgivably stupid. Even Terry, when he had heard of the telephone call that had summoned Letty to the office, had instantly suspected Anice. Yet, Phyllis, little as she liked or trusted Anice, could not quite believe that the girl would do so senseless a thing from which she could hope to gain nothing for herself. Had there been any advantage to Anice in the telephone call, Phyllis would have been convinced that she had made it. As it was, seeing nothing that Anice could gain …
Letty stood up and put out her cigarette in the small copper tray that stood on a corner of Phyllis’ desk, and said quietly, “I thought you should know, Miss Gordon, that you have an enemy here, so close. After all, women can be such filthy beasts to each other. I felt it only fair that you should be warned, so that you may protect yourself hereafter—if you can.”
Phyllis liked Letty better than she had ever dreamed she could. It was sporting of Letty to come and tell her—to warn her, so that she could watch out for herself in the future. Few women in Letty’s place would have bothered; some, in fact, might even have been pleased to know that Phyllis was being spied upon.
“Thank you,” said Phyllis very quietly, a note of complete sincerity in her voice. “You’ve been more than kind.”
Letty wrinkled her pretty nose and made a gay little gesture.
“Oh, think nothing of it,” she said lightly. “It’s only that I thoroughly despise malice and feminine cattiness. The cards are pretty well stacked against women by the essential nature of things. If we can give each other a bit of a helping hand along the way—well, we should be happy to do it.”
She turned away, and as she reached the door, Phyllis said impulsively, “Mrs. Lawrence, there’s something I think perhaps I should tell you.” She broke off, confused, scarlet.
Letty turned to her and smiled, waiting.
“It’s just that I’d like you to know that—that—well, that you needn’t ever be worried about … my designs on Mr. Rutledge, because I haven’t any—not anymore.” Phyllis made herself finish the little speech despite the burning color in her face and the confusion that clogged her voice.
“Oh, bless you, my dear, I’ve known that ever since that momentous night,” said Letty promptly, and smiled warmly. “I pride myself that I do know a bit about character. You’re the type that might go overboard in the grand manner, but not the type to sneak and connive and indulge in undercover illicit love affairs. If you’d been really in love with Ken, you’d have gone after him openly and told me to go to blazes, and you’d probably have landed him! But you were just emotionally disturbed from working so closely with him for so long. Ken is a darned attractive man—I realize that myself. But you wouldn’t sneak hours with him in the office and be messy!”
“Thanks,” said Phyllis humbly.
“You’re welcome!” said Letty, and laughed a little and went out.
Phyllis sat back at her desk, her mind simmering with the thing that Letty had told her. So Terry’s instant suspicion had been right. It had been Anice who had telephoned Letty. Phyllis was still puzzled. If, by having Letty come in and catch Kenyon and Phyllis in an illicit situation, Anice had hoped to capture Kenyon for herself, Phyllis would have been able to understand that without any difficulty. But just for pure malice … She was appalled.
“How she must hate me,” she told herself, and shivered a little.
She went back in her thoughts to that night. She remembered Anice’s expression when she had greeted Phyllis with pretty solicitude—had there been a look of smugness, of malicious laughter in her eyes? Had she been suspicious of the sort of scene Letty might have discovered? Had she been merely curious as to whether Kenyon and Phyllis were working? She could have had no real reason to doubt that.
Phyllis was conscious of her dully aching head and her physical exhaustion as she let herself into the apartment a little later. There were sounds from the kitchenette that indicated this was one of the nights when Anice had elected to stay in and make dinner.
Even as the thought crossed Phyllis’ mind, Anice appeared at the door of the kitchenette, a gay little apron tied about her slim waist, a kitchen fork in her hand, which she waved gaily at Phyllis.
“Smell that heavenly smell? Darling, it’s a steak, the first one I’ve seen in months—in a market, that is. I’ve been fed a few in restaurants, but not many,” she chattered gaily. “It’ll be done in two shakes, so scoot along and get washed up and ready.”
Phyllis started to speak, but Anice was back in the kitchenette, and Phyllis decided wearily that it might be as well to wait until after dinner to talk to her. She had decided on the way home that the inevitable scene couldn’t possibly end in anything except Anice’s departure.
She cold-creamed her face, washed her hands, slid into a cool spun-linen housecoat and smoothed her hair. She came back into the living room just as Anice proudly bore in the steak, broiled to a turn, deposited it on the table, and stood back to survey it proudly.
“Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it gorgeous?” she demanded happily. “Sit down, Cousin Phyllis, while I get the salad and the rolls. And there’s apple pie—à la mode—even if it is a bakery pie and drugstore ice cream.”
Phyllis watched her curiously as she brought in the mixed green salad in the gaily decorated wooden bowl, and drew up her chair. Phyllis was tired and she hesitated to bring about the unpleasant scene she anticipated. And so she waited until they had finished eating and were dawdling luxuriously over the apple pie. At last the unpleasantness could be avoided no longer, and so Phyllis pushed back her plate, selected a cigarette and through its frail blue smoke looked narrowly at Anice.
“Mrs. Lawrence stopped in at my office this afternoon,” she began.
For the barest instant a faintly wary look touched Anice’s face, but the next second it was gone and she was saying eagerly, “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? But of course with the kind of clothes she can afford—”
“Do you remember the last time I worked late, Anice, and someone telephoned Mrs. Lawrence?” asked Phyllis, and at the tone in her voice Anice looked at her with sudden sharpness.
“You told me about it.”
“This afternoon Mrs. Lawrence recognized the voice that called her, and came to tell me,” Phyllis finished quietly.
Anice looked down at her plate for a moment and then up at Phyllis, and her blue eyes were cool, wary and a little contemptuous.
“Oh?” she said politely.
“It was your voice, Anice,” said Phyllis flatly.
For just a moment, Anice hesitated, then she folded her arms on the table and looked squarely at Phyllis and said coolly, “Of course it was. You were an awful fool not to have realized that from the very first, Cousin Phyllis.”
There was insolence, frank and unconcealed, in her voice, and for a moment it took Phyllis’ breath away. She stared at Anice, and after a moment she asked, “You admit it?”
“Why not?” Anice’s delicious shoulders went up in a little disdainful shrug. “Why should I deny it? I only did what I felt was my duty!”
There was an unbearably self-righteous smugness about her.
Phyllis controlled her rising anger with an effort.
“And why should you feel it your duty, Anice—” she began, before Anice flashed forth at her sharply.
“Because I am sick to death of your rottenness,” she struck out. “And because as long as you sleep around with a man who is unattached like Terry MacLean, it’s not so bad, but when you start holding assignations with a man who is engaged to another woman—and in his office, where decent people have to work—well, that’s going just a little too far. I felt it was only right that Mrs. Lawrence should know about it. And I’m proud that I had the courage to call her.”
Phyllis’ anger was no longer under control.
“Courage!” she sneered. “It must have taken an awful lot of courage to make an anonymous phone call! Almost as much courage as to send a poison-pen letter.”
Anice studied her, and for once she made no effort to control her expression. Contempt, impudence, disgust rode high in her lovely, flushed face and her flaming eyes.
“When a person is rotten and low and filthy,” she accused Phyllis, “then the only way to fight them is by being rotten yourself. And that’s one of the things I’ve hated about being forced to live with you. You can’t touch filth without being smeared yourself.”
“Then I know you’ll be happy to stop living with me,” said Phyllis swiftly.
“You’re darned right I will,” Anice told her hotly. “I’ve hated every minute I’ve had to watch you—smoking and drinking and being lascivious with every man who’ll give you a second glance. I’ve stayed, because I felt it was my duty! Because I thought maybe I could help you to stop being rotten. Because I thought maybe if I set you a good example, you might get ashamed of yourself and try to straighten up. But I see now that there’s no hope for you whatever and I refuse to go on living in a pigsty just to try to help somebody.”
“Why, you—” Phyllis strangled with fury.
Anice was on her feet.
“Save your oaths and your blasphemy for someone who will appreciate them, Cousin Phyllis,” she said sharply. “I’ve had about all I can take from you. I’ve always been a nice girl, decent and respectable. I’ve never had to refuse to look people in the face; I’ve never slept with a man in my life.”
“Perhaps it might improve your disposition if you did, Anice—you sound a bit neurotic,” said Phyllis gently.
As though that had been a blow that sent her reeling and that left her speechless, Anice stared at Phyllis while every drop of color left her face. And suddenly she looked pinched and ill.
“That’s the vilest thing you’ve ever said to me, Cousin Phyllis,” she said at last, huskily. “I know now what you would do if I stayed. Instead of my helping you to reform, you’d pull me down to your own level. You’re wicked. You can’t bear to see anybody nice without trying to destroy them.”
Phyllis said, disgusted with Anice’s melodrama, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Anice, try to behave like a sane human being, just once.”
“Don’t you mean like a cheap little trollop—like you, in other words? Thanks, I’d rather be myself,” said Anice, her voice shaking, and turned toward the bedroom. “I’m leaving—now, tonight. As soon as I can change. I’ll come back tomorrow, after you’ve gone, for my things.”
The bedroom door banged behind her and Phyllis put her face in her hands, feeling weak and a little sick.
She looked up a little later as the bedroom door opened and Anice emerged, dressed and hatted, and carrying a small overnight bag.
Phyllis said wryly, “I’m sorry there isn’t any snow, Anice—it would add a nice touch to your departure.”
“Go on being cheap and cynical, Cousin Phyllis; it doesn’t bother me in the least,” snapped Anice.
She looked so young and childish that in spite of herself Phyllis was touched with compunction.
“Have you enough money, Anice?” she asked quickly. “I can let you have some until payday.”
“Money men have paid for the privilege of sleeping with you?” Anice’s venom, too long held back in the interests of settling herself solidly in the apartment, spilled over. “Thanks, no. I’d rather starve—only fortunately I don’t have to. I’ve got plenty of money—a lot more than you’ve got. I’ve got more than four thousand dollars in the bank.”
Phyllis’ eyes widened a little.
“Congratulations,” she said dryly. “You’ve done much better than I expected, on a salary of twenty-five dollars a week.”
Anice sneered, “Oh, I didn’t save it. I got it for the house—remember, Grannie’s house? The one you felt sure you were going to get?”
Phyllis shook her head. “I never wanted the house, and you couldn’t possibly have gotten so much for it.”
“Oh, no? I got five thousand for the house,” said Anice boastfully, flinging the fact in Phyllis’ face now that she reasoned Phyllis wouldn’t dare ask for any of the money.
“Five thousand. Anice, either you’re lying or it was blackmail,” said Phyllis firmly—and was startled at the look that sped over Anice’s face, before Anice dropped her eyelids above her betraying blue eyes.
“I’m not lying,” she said briefly. “And anyway, it’s none of your business, is it?”
“No,” said Phyllis with frank relief. “From now on, nothing that concerns you is any business of mine, and I hope you will remember to return the compliment.”
“Oh, you needn’t worry,” said Anice icily. “I have every intention of forgetting I ever knew you. I’ve been mortified to death at the office because people knew we were related. All of them knew about you working ‘after hours’ with Mr. Rutledge. Oh, don’t think they don’t gossip about you—they all despise you as much as I do!”
Phyllis set her teeth hard for a moment.
“If you feel that way, I wonder you have stayed so long here—” she began. Anice once more threw the answer at her.
“I felt it was my duty, as long as there was the slightest chance of getting you to reform,” she said haughtily.
“Well, there isn’t. If you are an example of a nice girl, Anice, I prefer to be a bad one,” Phyllis told her curtly. “You’re mean-minded, malicious, spiteful, narrow, bigoted—”
“Of course it would seem like that to you, now that you’ve thrown away your own decency,” sneered Anice.
“I hate to seem melodramatic, but after all, why not?” said Phyllis, and walked to the door and held it open and nodded toward the hall. “Goodbye, Anice, and good luck—all of it that you deserve, which I’m afraid is precious little.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me, Cousin Phyllis.”
“I shan’t. I’m quite sure you will fall on your feet, like a kitten,” said Phyllis dryly.
Anice tossed her head, her eyes blazing.
“Well, at least I won’t end up in the gutter, like a streetwalker,” she said, and walked out.
Phyllis all but banged the door behind her, and then went about opening all the windows and drawing the curtains back, with the feeling that the apartment needed ventilating badly. The whole place seemed impregnated with Anice’s hatred and malice and Phyllis was a little sickened at the thought that the girl had been there all summer, nursing such evil, ugly thoughts.
Even as she cleared the table and put the place to rights, Phyllis’ spirits rose. It had been as nasty a scene as she had contemplated, but it was over. And her apartment was her home once more and she was blessedly alone. As though the place had been new, and she had been seeing it for the first time, Phyllis went through it, touching her possessions, wrinkling her nose a little at the sight of Anice’s things which the girl had not had time to remove.
Phyllis had a sudden urge to telephone Terry and tell him the news; to ask him to come over. But when her hand was on the telephone, common sense swept over her, and her spirits were dampened. Terry would come, she knew, and Terry would stay. He would feel she expected it. Her face burned at the thought, for always heretofore Terry had been the one who had wanted to stay; the one who had pleaded, and held her tightly until her blood sang in response to the demand in his own. But that had been before Terry had met Eleanor Adams. If she called Terry now, he would be embarrassed; he would feel she was making a claim on him, based on the past. Being in love with Eleanor, he would want to break with her, but he was gentle and kind and he would hate to hurt her. The affair might linger, if she seemed to want it to. Even after he was married, Terry would have a fondness for her—well, not fondness, maybe, but a sort of sense of obligation that would make him respond to her call. She shivered at the thought.
Terry knew that she had been a virgin when first he had loved her; he knew that no other man had had her. Terry had wanted to marry her, and like the silly fool she had been, she hadn’t realized that the feeling she had for Terry was love, and that the feeling she had had for Kenyon had been a purely physical attraction….
Yes, Terry would always answer her summons out of a feeling that he “owed” it to her. Gradually, they would quarrel and something cheap and sordid would develop and Terry’s happiness with the lovely Eleanor would be ruined.
Even with her hand on the telephone, over which she knew she could summon Terry to her without delay, she stood rigid while all these thoughts flashed through her mind. And she knew that never again could she turn to Terry, never again know the exquisite delight of his lovemaking, never again have the happiness of his arms about her, his mouth on hers.
When Terry had belonged to her utterly, when Terry had wanted nothing in the world so much as to marry her, she had thought herself in love with Kenyon, and she had accepted Terry’s love to assuage her need for Kenyon. But now that Terry was lost to her forever, she knew the bitter truth: that all along it had been Terry, that it would be Terry for always. And the thought brought a bitterness of desolation, and she was wracked by heartbroken sobbing.