Part 39 (1/2)

”Katherine left here yesterday. She's in town.” Then, at the look in her face, ”She was here when I telephoned you yesterday. Late yesterday afternoon she had one of her fantastic notions. She insisted that she must go into town. It was too cold for her here. Too damp. Too--well, she went. And I let her go. And I didn't telephone you again. I wanted you to come.”

f.a.n.n.y Brandeis, knowing him, must have felt a great qualm of terror and helplessness. But she was angry, too, a wholesome ingredient in a situation such as this. The thing she said and did now was inspired. She laughed--a little uncertainly, it is true--but still she laughed. And she said, in a matter-of-fact tone:

”Well, I must say that's a rather shabby trick. Still, I suppose the tired business man has got to have his little melodrama. What do I do?

H'm? Beat my breast and howl? Or pound on the door panel?”

Fenger stood looking at her. ”Don't laugh at me, f.a.n.n.y.”

She stood up, still smiling. It was rather a brilliant piece of work.

Fenger, taken out of himself though he was, still was artist enough to appreciate it.

”Why not laugh,” she said, ”if I'm amused? And I am. Come now, Mr.

Fenger. Be serious. And let's get back to the billions. I want to catch the five-fifteen.”

”I AM serious.” ”Well, if you expect me to play the hunted heroine, I'm sorry.” She pointed an accusing finger at him. ”I know now. You're quitting Haynes-Cooper for the movies. And this is a rehearsal for a vampire film.”

”You nervy little devil, you!” He reached out with one great, irresistible hand and gripped her shoulder. ”You wonderful, glorious girl!” The hand that gripped her shoulder swung her to him. She saw his face with veins she had never noticed before standing out, in knots, on his temples, and his eyes were fixed and queer. And he was talking, rather incoherently, and rapidly. He was saying the same thing over and over again: ”I'm crazy about you. I've been looking for a woman like you--all my life. I'm crazy about you. I'm crazy----”

And then f.a.n.n.y's fine composure and self control fled, and she thought of her mother. She began to struggle, too, and to say, like any other girl, ”Let me go! Let me go! You're hurting me. Let me go! You! You!”

And then, quite clearly, from that part of her brain where it had been tucked away until she should need it, came Clarence Heyl's whimsical bit of advice. Her mind released it now, complete.

”If you double your fist this way, and tuck your thumb alongside, like that, and aim for this spot right here, about two inches this side of the chin, bringing your arm back and up quickly, like a piston, the person you hit will go down, limp. There's a nerve right here that communicates with the brain. The blow makes you see stars, and bright lights----”

She went limp in his arms. She shut her eyes, flutteringly. ”All men--like you--have a yellow streak,” she whispered, and opened her eyes, and looked up at him, smiling a little. He relaxed his hold, in surprise and relief. And with her eyes on that spot barely two inches to the side of the chin she brought her right arm down, slowly, slowly, fist doubled, and then up like a piston--snap! His teeth came together with a sharp little crack. His face, in that second, was a comic mask, surprised, stunned, almost idiotic. Then he went down, as Clarence Heyl had predicted, limp. Not with a crash, but slowly, crumpingly, so that he almost dragged her with him.

f.a.n.n.y stood looking down at him a moment. Then she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She walked out of the room, and down the hall. She saw the little j.a.p dart suddenly back from a doorway, and she stamped her foot and said, ”S-s-cat!” as if he had been a rat. She gathered up her hat and bag from the hall table, and so, out of the door, and down the walk, to the road. And then she began to run. She ran, and ran, and ran. It was a longish stretch to the pretty, vine-covered station. She seemed unconscious of fatigue, or distance. She must have been at least a half hour on the way. When she reached the station the ticket agent told her there was no train until six. So she waited, quietly. She put on her hat (she had carried it in her hand all the way) and patted her hair into place. When the train came she found a seat quite alone, and sank into its corner, and rested her head against her open palm. It was not until then that she felt a stab of pain. She looked at her hand, and saw that the skin of her knuckles was bruised and bleeding.

”Well, if this,” she said to herself, ”isn't the most idiotic thing that ever happened to a woman outside a near-novel.”

She looked at her knuckles, critically, as though the hand belonged to some one else. Then she smiled. And even as she smiled a great lump came into her throat, and the bruise blurred before her eyes, and she was crying rackingly, relievedly, huddled there in her red plush corner.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was eight o'clock when she let herself into her apartment. She had given the maid a whole holiday. When f.a.n.n.y had turned on the light in her little hallway she stood there a moment, against the door, her hand spread flat against the panel. It was almost as though she patted it, lovingly, gratefully. Then she went on into the living room, and stood looking at its rosy lamplight. Then, still as though seeing it all for the first time, into her own quiet, cleanly bedroom, with its cream enamel, and the chaise longue that she had had cus.h.i.+oned in rose because it contrasted so becomingly with her black hair. And there, on her dressing table, propped up against the brushes and bottles, was the yellow oblong of a telegram. From Theodore of course. She opened it with a rush of happiness. It was like a loving hand held out to her in need.

It was a day letter.

”We sail Monday on the St. Paul. Mizzi is with me. I broke my word to you. But you lied to me about the letters. I found them the week before the concert. I shall bring her back with me or stay to fight for Germany. Forgive me, dear sister.”

Just fifty words. His thrifty German training.

”No!” cried f.a.n.n.y, aloud. ”No! No!” And the cry quavered and died away, and another took its place, and it, too, gave way to another, so that she was moaning as she stood there with the telegram in her shaking hand. She read it again, her lips moving, as old people sometimes read.

Then she began to whimper, with her closed fist over her mouth, her whole body shaking. All her fine courage gone now; all her rigid self-discipline; all her iron determination. She was not a tearful woman. And she had wept much on the train. So the thing that wrenched and shook her now was all the more horrible because of its soundlessness. She walked up and down the room, pus.h.i.+ng her hair back from her forehead with the flat of her hand. From time to time she smoothed out the crumpled yellow slip of paper and read it again. Her mind, if you could have seen into it, would have presented a confused and motley picture. Something like this: But his concert engagements?...

That was what had happened to Bauer.... How silly he had looked when her fist met his jaw.... It had turned cold; why didn't they have steam on?

The middle of October.... Teddy, how could you do it! How could you do it!... Was he still lying in a heap on the floor? But of course the sneaking little j.a.p had found him.... Somebody to talk to. That was what she wanted. Some one to talk to....

Some one to talk to. She stood there, in the middle of her lamp-lighted living room, and she held out her hands in silent appeal. Some one to talk to. In her mind she went over the list of those whose lives had touched hers in the last few crowded years. Fenger, Fascinating Facts, Ella Monahan, Nathan Haynes; all the gay, careless men and women she had met from time to time through Fenger and Fascinating Facts. Not one of them could she turn to now.