Part 18

"Yes, Emma; you're not at all in the class with that girl you see every day on Fifth Avenue. Fifth Avenue's full of her--hundreds of her, thousands of her. Perhaps, five years ago, before I had worked side by side with you, I might have been attracted by that girl you see every day on Fifth Avenue. You don't see a procession of Emma McChesneys every day on Fifth Avenue--not by a long shot! Why? Because there's only one of her. She doesn't come in dozen lots. I know that that girl you see every day on Fifth Avenue is all that I deserve. But, by some heaven-sent miracle, I'm to have this Emma McChesney woman! I don't know how it came to be true. I don't deserve it. But it is true, and that's enough for me."

Emma McChesney would look up at him, eyes wet, mouth smiling.

"T. A., you're balm and myrrh and incense and meat and drink to me. I wish I had words to tell you what I'm thinking now. But I haven't. So I'll just cover it up. We both know it's there. And I'll tell you that you make love like a 'movie' hero. Yes, you do! Better than a 'movie' hero, because, in the films, the heroine always has to turn to face the camera, which makes it necessary for him to make love down the back of her neck."

But T. A. Buck was unsmiling.

"Don't trifle, Emma. And don't think you can fool me that way. I haven't finished. I want to settle this Fifth Avenue creature for all time. What I have to say is this: I think you are more attractive--finer, bigger, more rounded in character and manner, mellower, sweeter, sounder, with all your angles and corners rubbed smooth, saner, better poised than any woman I have ever known. And what I am to-day you have made me, directly and indirectly, by association and by actual orders, by suggestion, and by direct contact. What you did for Jock, purposefully and by force, you did for me, too. Not so directly, perhaps, but with the same result. Emma McChesney, you've made--actually made, molded, shaped, and turned out two men. You're the greatest sculptor that ever lived. You could make a scarecrow in a field get up and achieve. Everywhere one sees women over-wrought, over-stimulated, eager, tense. When there appears one who has herself in leash, balanced, tolerant, poised, sane, composed, she restores your faith in things. You lean on her, spiritually. I know I need you more than you need me, Emma. And I know you won't love me the less for that. There--that's about all for this evening."

"I think," breathed Emma McChesney in a choked little voice, "that that's about--enough."

Two days before the date set for their very quiet wedding, they told the heads of office and workroom. Office and workroom, somewhat moist as to eye and flushed as to cheek and highly congratulatory, proved their knowingness by promptly presenting to their employers a very costly and unbelievably hideous set of mantel ornaments and clock, calculated to strike horror to the heart of any woman who has lovingly planned the furnishing of her drawing-room. Pop Henderson, after some preliminary wrestling with collar, necktie, spectacles, and voice, launched forth on a presentation speech that threatened to close down the works for the day. Emma McChesney heard it, tears in her eyes. T. A. Buck gnawed his mustache. And when Pop Henderson's cracked old voice broke altogether in the passage that touched on his departed employer, old T. A. Buck, and the great happiness that this occasion would have brought him, Emma's hand met young T. A.'s and rested there. Hortense and Henry, standing very close together all through the speech, had, in this respect, anticipated their employers by several minutes.

They were to be away two weeks only. No one knew just where, except that some small part of the trip was to be spent on a flying visit to young Jock McChesney out in Chicago. He himself was to be married very soon. Emma McChesney had rather startled her very good-looking husband-to-be by whirling about at him with,

"T. A., do you realize that you're very likely to be a step-grandfather some fine day not so far away!"

T. A. had gazed at her for a rather shocked moment, swallowed hard, smiled, and said,

"Even that doesn't scare me, Emma."

Everything had been planned down to the last detail. Mrs. McChesney's little apartment had been subleased, and a very smart one taken and furnished almost complete, with Annie installed in the kitchen and a demure parlor-maid engaged.

"When we come back, we'll come home," T. A. Buck had said. "Home!"

There had been much to do, but it had all been done smoothly and expertly, under the direction of these two who had learned how to plan, direct, and carry out.

Then, on the last day, Emma McChesney, visibly perturbed, entered her partner's office, a letter in her hand.

"This is ghastly!" she exclaimed.

Buck pulled out a chair for her.

"Klein cancel his order again?"

"No. And don't ask me to sit down. Be thankful that I don't blow up."

"Is it as bad as that?"

"Bad! Here--read that! No, don't read it; I'll tell you. It'll relieve my feelings. You know how I've been angling and scheming and contriving and plotting for years to get an exclusive order from Gage & Fosdick. Of course we've had a nice little order every few months, but what's that from the biggest mail-order house in the world? And now, out of a blue sky, comes this bolt from O'Malley, who buys our stuff, saying that he's coming on the tenth--that's next week--that he's planned to establish our line with their trade, and that he wants us to be prepared for a record-breaking order. I've fairly prayed for this. And now--what shall we do?"

"Do?"--smoothly--"just write the gentleman and tell him you're busy getting married this week and next, and that, by a singular coincidence, your partner is similarly engaged; that our manager will attend to him with all care and courtesy, unless he can postpone his trip until our return. Suggest that he call around a week or two later."

"T. A. Buck, I know it isn't considered good form to rage and glare at one's fiance on the eve of one's wedding-day. If this were a week earlier or a week later, I'd be tempted to--shake you!"

Buck stood up, came over to her, and laid a hand very gently on her arm. With the other hand he took the letter from her fingers.

"Emma, you're tired, and a little excited. You've been under an unusual physical and mental strain for the last few weeks. Give me that letter. I'll answer it. This kind of thing"--he held up the letter--"has meant everything to you. If it had not, where would I be to-day? But to-night, Emma, it doesn't mean a thing. Not--one thing."

Slowly Emma McChesney's tense body relaxed. A great sigh that had in it weariness and relief and acquiescence came from her. She smiled ever so faintly.

"I've been a ramrod so long it's going to be hard to learn to be a clinging vine. I've been my own support for so many years, I don't use a trellis very gracefully--yet. But I think I'll get the hang of it very soon."

She turned toward the door, crossed to her own office, looked all about at the orderly, ship-shape room that reflected her personality--as did any room she occupied.