Chapter XXXIV

Nelly took Melissa to luncheon at a tidy little place called The Roof-Tree Inn, where over a cup of tea and a salad they discussed at length Melissa’s insurrection and its consequences.

Nelly was mildly sardonic about the Marchesa.

“Granny ... h’m’m!” said she. “I wondered a bit at the time--just how deep Granny went. But seeing as it was none of my affair--Murdock was so frightfully pleased with her--you, so frightfully close about it all....”

“I couldn’t,” said Melissa, eating quantities of bread and butter with a delightful sense of freedom. “I couldn’t explain anything without explaining everything ... and just at the moment I was really--”

“Pretty well under the old girl’s thumb. So I gathered,” said Nelly dryly. “The way you and she beat it back to New York the minute Luke’s cable came. That was none too subtle, now--was it?”

“None of it was very subtle,” admitted Melissa, flushing. “I felt sometimes as if everybody must know exactly the sort of game we were playing....”

“One thing saved you,” said Nelly gravely. “Not at all an uncommon game. Good many other ladies playing it all the time.” She laughed abruptly and reaching across the little table patted Melissa’s hand. “Don’t you care, old dear! You’ve bucked her off, now--which is the chief consideration. You’ll be on your own, henceforward--and thank God, fasting!... You say Roderick went straight to her with the news when you wouldn’t have him?”

“I asked him to tell her, at once,” said Melissa.

“And she swooped down on you--directly?”

“Yes--but--you can’t altogether blame her. She’s spent a good bit on me....”

“She’s gotten a good bit out of you, too, I’d say--in the way of belated excitement, for her necessarily innocuous old age. No--I wouldn’t let that worry me--the matter of value received, in her case. I’d say you’d been manna in the wilderness. Darned clever of her to have contrived it! Thing to consider now is--where to find you a job--and how soon?”

“I’m starting out this afternoon--to look for one.”

“Good enough,” said Nelly, pouring herself a second cup and reaching for her cigarette-case. “However--why waste time in a general drive? I’ve been thinking it over, since you telephoned this morning, and I think I know just the thing....”

“Nelly--you’re too good to me!”

“Rot!” said Nelly pleasantly. “I’d like to make an honest woman of you. I’m getting a big kick out of it. How’s this?... Are you a pretty fair typist?”

“Rather more than fair,” said Melissa, looking back at her, unsmiling.

“Shorthand?”

“Of course.”

“What did you say your last position was? Before the gilded cage and the drugged bird-seed?”

“I was in a publishing office.”

“Can you give them as reference?”

Melissa frowned. “I don’t suppose I could--you see, when the Marchesa offered to do what she did--I just--walked out on them.”

“Not so good, h’m’m?”

“No--I’m quite sure they were annoyed. The junior partner was rather keen on my doing his letters and all that.”

“I see. Well--” said Nelly thoughtfully, “I’ll use what drag I’ve got for you. Ever hear of Neith and Brooks ... the playbrokers?”

Melissa said she never had. She sat forward in her chair, tense with an eagerness which she couldn’t bear even Nelly to see.

“Brooks is rather a friend of mine,” said Nelly. “I happen to know he’s looking for some one. Had dinner with him the other night. He talked a lot of shop. I might be able to get you in there. It’s just a chance. I’ll take your word for it that you’re good.” She had taken out a card and was scribbling something on it with a stubby pencil from her bag--she glanced up at Melissa keenly.

“As a typist--I’m good,” said Melissa.

“They probably won’t want you to take over the management of the office at once,” Nelly assured her. She skidded the card across the table. “Give that to old Brooks--with my love. He may come through and he may not. It’s worth trying. Sure you’re through with the other thing?”

“Quite sure,” said Melissa. “I thought I had made you see, Nelly....”

“Only kidding,” said Nelly briefly. “I believe you. Couldn’t be bothered--if I didn’t. One thing I don’t get ... you went into it with the idea of collecting an eligible young man ... correct me if I’m wrong....”

“No--you’re not wrong. That was why I did it.”

“And you had--well--conservatively speaking--four good chances--and threw ’em all out ... is that right?”

“Quite right,” said Melissa. “That is--with Austin.... I merely supposed....”

“You could have had Austin,” said Nelly calmly. “He told me all about it one night on a particularly good party. He was hooked. You had only to pull him in. Naturally when you didn’t--he got away ... never mind Austin ... what I’m getting at is--why the change of heart? If you wanted less than a year ago to marry--why don’t you want to, now? What’s happened in the meantime to stand you up on your own two feet? Are you trying to tell me that the mere fact that none of these men was the mythical _One_ Man.... I’d like to believe you, my dear--but it’s difficult! Luke alone--Luke’s a knock-out.... No woman in her senses would say no to him--unless there were somebody else, perhaps....”

Melissa locked her hands together upon the table. “There _was_ somebody else,” she said, “or it would have been Luke.”

Then she told Nelly what she hadn’t quite meant to tell because it made so implausible a story--with the picture gone--and not even Kathleen for witness.... When she had finished, Nelly was silent for a moment or so, then shrugged and snapped her fingers and laughed. As Melissa had expected.

“You _are_ an old dear!” she said. “It’s a sweet story ... but are you absolutely certain it isn’t a hang-over from that beastly illness you had? Remember you were out of your head for days. Or so they told me whenever I telephoned. You might have dreamed it, then ... mightn’t you?... Influenza does queer things to the old bean....”

“You don’t mean you think I’m--not sane?” cried Melissa in horror.

“Heavens no! Don’t be absurd! But you might have gotten an idée fixe at that time--and not shaken it off, afterwards. D’y’ see? Or more likely still ... look here! People change from year to year. A bit more weight--a bit less hair--and ... there goes Romeo--here comes Babbitt! The picture may have been taken in Mr. Delano’s tenderer youth ... before the clumsy hand of Time....”

Melissa shook her head. A sense of utter futility numbed her. She felt that she had made her last attempt to explain to any one, however sympathetic, the change in herself and the reason for that change.

She said quietly: “It wasn’t Delano. It couldn’t have been.” But she stood as she said it and picked up bag and gloves so as to avoid any further discussion. “Well, Nelly ... if you think there’s a chance ... I’ll call on Mr. Brooks this afternoon ... and thanks, a lot!”

“Good luck!” said Nelly.

They parted on the sidewalk with a handclasp that was, for Melissa, at least, curiously comforting.

She thought, as she rode up Fifth Avenue on top of a bus--Neith and Brooks had an office in the West Thirties--what luck it was for her, having Nelly as counselor.

Odd, that out of the whole ten months in surroundings which allowed her all the chance in the world to meet and attach the sort of people she wanted, she should have come through with one friend ... and that a woman!

“But Nelly,” thought Melissa, watching the tall buildings slide past beneath a sultry blue sky ... “is not in the least like other women. She’s honest. And she’s free.”

So was Melissa free--once more. Free to be as honest as she liked--or was able. Something like a cry fluttered in her throat. Her eyes filled suddenly with tears. She blinked them away and set her teeth on her lip.

“What a fool I’ve been! To let that horrible old woman use me like that ... a doll she put together ...” the phrase had always rankled ... “whether I get this place or not ... I’ll get some place, somewhere ... it’s going to be good, earning what I eat--and wear--once again! Owning my own soul....”

She left the bus at Thirty-first Street and walked over to the address which Nelly had given her. When she stood before the black-lettered door of Neith and Brooks, her heart was thudding in her breast and her hands were clenched on the little gray leather bag she carried but her head was well up and her voice was clear; the same contralto which had first procured her an engagement at reading aloud to the Marchesa ... how long, how long ago!

“I have a card to Mr. Brooks, from Miss Rivers,” said Melissa. A non-committal young person took it in to him.

After ten minutes in the outer office, Melissa was admitted.

Mr. Brooks proved not too alarming. A large, rangy, tweed-suited gentleman with a slightly husky voice and roughish brown hair. He looked Melissa over at some length and twisting Nelly’s card between his fingers admitted that he was looking for some one with a fair amount of speed and a more than fair amount of intelligence.

“Girl that’s been taking my letters for over five years, leaving this week to get married,” said Mr. Brooks morosely. “I’m a creature of habit. Get used to one stenographer and hate to make a change. Nelly Rivers says you’re good.”

Melissa only bowed.

“Y’ look intelligent enough,” continued Mr. Brooks impersonally.

Melissa bowed again.

Mr. Brooks was interrupted by the telephone at his elbow. He held a brief and rather temperamental conversation with some man at the other end of it who wished to know--apparently--when he could have lunch with Mr. Brooks, and discuss a play.

“Call me up next Friday--” said Mr. Brooks in slightly irritated conclusion and returned to Melissa. He was interrupted at about two minute intervals, thereafter, in the course of a rather meandering interview, in which Melissa nevertheless fancied she discerned on his part keen appraisement and cool swiftness of decision.

She felt she should like to work for Mr. Brooks. And said so, surprisingly to herself, “I will do my best,” said Melissa earnestly.

“Well--like to do Nelly a favor--and have a good deal of respect for her judgment. Give you a trial,” said Mr. Brooks. He added details of salary and working hours.

As Melissa went out, he was once more hunched over the telephone, exclaiming with extraordinary vehemence.... “For God’s sake, man--I’m full up the rest of this week. Call me about Tuesday and I’ll take it up with you, then....”

Life, as Mr. Brooks’ stenographer, Melissa decided, going down in the elevator, would not be empty of purpose. Nor of interest.

Except for Nelly she might never have heard of Mr. Brooks--might merely have made the weary round of office after office, clipping advertisements from the Help Wanted columns of the _Times_, being turned away here and put off there, being asked to leave her address ... and knowing exactly what that meant. After days of waiting ... nothing at all!

Nelly had bridged all that--with a card and a scribbled word.

Melissa went back to the studio, flushed with gratitude.

She told Nelly everything over a rather patchy but sufficiently appetizing dinner of sausages and scrambled eggs which Nelly got together in the tiny kitchen just off the bathroom,--and Nelly hugged her and laughed.

“Fine for Brooks! I thought we could land him. Now make good or bust--will you?”

“I’ll do my best,” promised Melissa once more.

“Because, you see,” said Nelly casually--“I may be opening next month in a musical show he’s interested in....”

“Oh, Nelly--”

“And I don’t want to give myself a black eye--in the meantime.”

She wouldn’t let Melissa thank her. She began to sing through the sputter of her cookery--in a rich legato--

“Down near the end of a wandering lane, that runs by the cares of
day--
Where conscience and memory meet and explain their quaint little
quarrels away.
A misty air-castle stands there in the dusk....”

Melissa sat with one foot tucked under her on the chair by the kitchen window listening, her dark eyes wistful.