Chapter XXXVI

At six o'clock Gloria was on her way to Dick's office.

It was the first white hour of the twilight, but the hall within the building was dark.

There was a light in Dick's office. Gloria could see it through the frosted glass pane of the door. But the door, itself, was locked. Strange, she thought.

She knocked. She knocked again. There was no answer.

"Oh, bother!" Gloria said, exasperated. "I've missed him. He's gone!"

But Dick had left a light burning in his office. That must mean that he was coming back there to work, after he had had his supper.

Suddenly Gloria made up her mind to telephone Miss Briggs.

Miss Briggs would be able to tell her where Dick usually ate when he was downtown. And then she would hunt Dick up.... She hated to eat alone. And besides, she wanted to ask Dick who the "Lucie" of the letters was! She couldn't draw a peaceful breath until she knew that!

She went into a cigar store and looked up Miss Briggs' telephone number. She called it.

A woman with quavering old voice answered the phone. Miss Briggs wasn't at home, she said.

"This is Mrs. Briggs ... Miss Briggs' mother," the old voice went on. "I think Susy's working late. You could probably get her at the office.... Who is this talking, please?"

But Gloria had hung up.

She stood silent as a statue in the telephone booth.

Was Dick having supper somewhere with Susan Briggs? ... Her first suspicion of him flicked her brain for an instant. Then it was gone....

Oh, no ... not Dick! He wasn't the kind of a man who made dates with his secretary! He wouldn't do such a thing.... She put the thought aside.

Gloria was very hungry.

There was a little restaurant near by where the food was delicious. She made up her mind to go there for a bite. Then, afterward, she would run up to Dick's office and surprise him at his work.

On her way, Gloria bought a movie magazine. She looked through it, sitting at a corner table of the cozy restaurant with its shaded lamps and smell of savory food.

The waiter brought her soup ... mock turtle soup, thick and steaming. Gloria ate it hungrily. She sat back and looked around her, as she buttered a hot muffin.

She was the only person in the room who was alone.

At the other tables were little groups of two or three. Two, for the most part ... the eternal duo of a man and a woman.

"You can always tell the married couples from the ones that aren't married," Gloria giggled to herself. "The married ones usually have a newspaper to read. They never talk, and they're always glum!"

Then her eye was caught by the familiar look of a man who sat with his back toward her, in the farthest corner of the restaurant. There was something about him that made her think of Dick.... It was Dick!

Gloria stood up to go to him.

It wasn't until then that she saw that Dick was not alone.

Across the table from him sat a woman. A woman with blue, shining eyes and a mouth which might have been too large if it had not been so fine and firm ... Susan Briggs!

Gloria stared at them. Miss Briggs raised her eyes and saw her, standing there. She leaned across the table and spoke to Dick.

Gloria's first impulse was to laugh when she saw Miss Briggs and Dick at that half-hidden table in the corner of the little restaurant.

It was certainly the best laugh of the year—to catch the strait-laced Dick out "stepping" on the sly! To catch him taking his secretary out to dinner without telling his wife about it! ... It was too funny. The corners of Gloria's mouth went up in a malicious little smile.

Then Dick turned and saw her. And something in his eyes startled her with its intensity. What had he and Miss Briggs been talking about to make him look like that? Could it be that he was in love with her, after all?

All the laughter died on Gloria's lips at the thought. Was she going to play second fiddle to Miss Briggs in Dick's life? Was she going to be one of the great army of wives whose husbands are in love with their office girls? ... Well, she just guessed not! Not so you could notice it!

With fury in her heart, Gloria marched forward to the table where Dick was sitting with Miss Briggs. He jumped up and pulled out a chair for her.

"Well, this is a surprise!" he exclaimed.

"Yes—I noticed you looked surprised when you saw me," Gloria answered with sarcasm that bit.

Without a word of greeting to Susan Briggs, she sat down at the table.

"Have the waiter bring the rest of my dinner over here," she commanded Dick. "Unless you have something to say to Miss Briggs that you'd rather not have your wife hear."

She laughed unpleasantly. She took out her vanity case and dabbed a bit of rouge on either cheek. Then she raised her eyes to Miss Briggs.

"You don't have to wear rouge, do you?" she asked. "You're as red as a beet. You look as if you have a fever, right now!"

It was true. Poor Miss Briggs had flushed to a deep, unbecoming red under Gloria's words.

She looked as if she wished that the earth would open and swallow her up. And, as a matter of fact, Miss Briggs was devoutly wishing herself out of that little restaurant.

She had come there that night alone, when Dick had asked her to work late. Five minutes after she had begun to eat, Dick, himself, had walked in. It would have been queer if he had not sat down to share her lonely meal. A friend could do no less, could he?

Miss Briggs wished now that Dick would explain the whole thing to his wife. But she knew he wouldn't. She could see that he was going to let Gloria think anything she wanted to think.

And what Gloria evidently thought was that Dick had taken Miss Briggs out to dinner ... to "show her a good time."

Miss Briggs drew a breath of relief when Gloria turned her shoulder upon her, and began to talk to Dick.

"By the way, dear," she said with sugary sweetness, "I forgot to ask you if your mother's better. Did her trip with you do her good?"

"She's much better," Dick answered. He was puzzled. He knew that the very last person on earth that Gloria cared to hear about was his mother. He knew that Gloria detested his mother.... What game was his wife up to, now, he wondered.

He soon found out. Gloria went on talking to him about things that didn't matter to her or to him, either. She kept up a flow of foolish chatter. She spun it out until the meal was almost over.

She did her best to shut Miss Briggs out of the talk. She snubbed her. She talked in a half-whisper so low that Miss Briggs couldn't have caught a word if she had tried.

Dick saw the rude and cruel thing that Gloria was doing and he came to Miss Briggs' rescue just as he would have rescued a mouse that a cat was torturing.

He leaned across the table toward her. Deliberately he tried to draw her into the conversation.

"What did Smithers want to see me about to-day, Susy?" he asked gently.

"About that Parmely injunction case," Miss Briggs answered with lips that trembled. She fumbled in her purse and pulled out a $2 bill. She laid it on the tablecloth.

"That's to pay for my dinner," she said, "and I think I'll leave you people now, and get back to my work.... Good night, Mrs. Gregory."

It cost Miss Briggs an effort to bid Gloria good night. And Gloria knew it.

"Good night, Miss Briggs," she said airily.

She smiled, with narrowed eyes. She knew she had spoiled Miss Briggs' dinner. And she was glad of it! She'd show Dick's secretary that she couldn't go dining around with him, and get away with it! She'd show her a trick or two worth knowing!

Miss Briggs got up to go. Dick rose with her.

"I wish you wouldn't rush off like this, Susy," he said. "See you later, though. Get together the data on that injunction case, will you?"

Wordlessly Miss Briggs nodded. She walked out of the little restaurant, jerkily, as if she were pulled by unseen wires.

Gloria watched her go, with an amused smile. Then she turned furiously to Dick.

"So!" she cried. "This is why you didn't want me to come downtown to eat with you! This is why you don't want to kiss me any more! ... I see it all, now! How long has this affair with Miss Briggs been going on, for goodness' sake?"

"Affair with Miss Briggs?" Dick repeated quietly. "I don't know what you're talking about. Do you know, yourself?"

Gloria stared at him.

"Do you mean to say you don't know Susan Briggs is cuckoo about you?" she asked. It would be just like Dick not to be able to see it!

"You ought to know it!" she went on. "She doesn't take the trouble to hide the fact that she's gone on you. You've only got to look at her to know!"

At that the smoldering anger in Dick burst out. He brought his fist down noiselessly on the thickly padded tablecloth.

"You ought to be ashamed of talking about a decent girl that way, Gloria," he said. "And the way you treated her just now was about the rottenest thing I ever saw...."

"What do I care?" Gloria cried wildly. "Who's Susan Briggs that I should bow and scrape to her! She needn't think she can go jazzing around with my husband, and have me treat her like a tin angel!"

Dick looked at her from under his lowered brows.

"You think I'm 'jazzing around' with Susan Briggs?" he asked shortly.

"Sure I do!" Gloria's tone was airy.

"You know I'm not," Dick said quietly. "You know I'm not the kind of man who chases women. You know I run away from them. If I'd known Susan Briggs was coming here to-night, I'd have gone elsewhere. And you know that, too!"

Gloria gave a short, ugly laugh.

"You can bet your boots she knew you were coming here, though!" she said. "I'll bet she even knows where you go to get shaved, and where you buy your collars ... everything about you! She makes a study of you.... And she came here to-night, knowing that you'd show up if she just waited long enough. And sure enough, you did!"

"I hardly ever eat here," Dick answered. "So she couldn't have guessed I was coming here, in a month of Sundays. Come on, let's go! I've had enough of this!—Do you want to come back to the office with me, or are you going home?"

"I'm not going back to the office," Gloria answered shortly. And left him.