Chapter IX

As Gloria went up the street toward her own house she noticed a girl all in rusty black just ahead of her.

The girl turned in at the Gregorys' front walk. Gloria hurried to catch up with her.

"You must be the maid from the employment agency ... Ranghild Swanson?" she asked.

The girl turned and smiled. Gloria liked her instantly. She hated people who weren't pleasant to look at.

This girl with her corn-flower blue eyes and corn-colored hair was.

Together they walked up the steps of the house.

"Tell me what you can do," Gloria said when they were in the hall.

"I can do any kind of housework," Ranghild said simply. "And I'm a good, plain cook. And if you have a washing-machine I don't mind doing the laundry."

Gloria considered. This sounded too good to be true!

"And how much would you want for doing all that work?" she asked.

"Eighteen dollars a week." Ranghild's voice was firm.

Eighteen dollars! Seventy-five a month! Gloria wondered if Dick could afford to pay Ranghild that much money.... Oh, well, he'd just have to pay it!

... Other men could afford maids for their wives. There was no reason why Dick couldn't, too!

"All right," Gloria said. "Can you start work to-morrow?"

Ranghild nodded. She said she'd be at the house in time to get breakfast.... That was a blessing!

But in the meantime there was the house to be cleaned up.

As soon as Ranghild had gone Gloria took off her hat and fur coat.

She hung them in the clothes-closet under the stairs. In the corner of it stood the vacuum cleaner.

Gloria took it out. She attached it to a floor plug and ran it around the house.

Then she laid a newspaper on the floor. Into it she threw all the broken glasses and cigarette ashes she could find.

Some one had emptied a glass of gin-ginger ale all over the Spanish shawl on the piano. The silk had stuck to the wood.

And when Gloria tried to pull it away, a large piece of the gaudy embroidery was torn out. Underneath, the wood was stained and marked.

... There was a big hole burned in the blue velvet davenport. Bill Hough had probably done that with his everlasting cigarette!

The inlaid wood of the dining-room table was covered with white rings where sticky, wet glasses had been set down.

A curtain had been pulled from its pole. It lay on the floor.

The whole house was a wreck!

"Next time I give a party it'll be a barn-dance or a picnic in the woods!" Gloria said to herself. "They certainly ruined my cute little house last night!"

She forgot her own part in the revelry.

The front doorbell rang....

Mother Gregory!

Gloria could see her through the net curtains on the door.

She made up her mind not to let her in.

Then the bell rang again ... a short, commanding ring!

The girl flew to the door.

Without a word Mother Gregory stepped into the house.

She looked all around her. Then she turned her eagle eyes upon her beautiful daughter-in-law.

In her expensive dress of gray silk, Gloria held a duster in one hand, and the torn shawl in the other.

"I like your working clothes," Mother Gregory said scornfully. "Where's your apron?"

Then her voice became more gentle.

"Come in and sit down, Gloria," she said quietly. "I want to talk to you. Maggie told me about the drunken party you had here last night. But I couldn't believe all she said ... until just now! ... Gloria, do you think you're starting the right way, in this marriage of yours and Dick's?"

"I don't know what you mean," the girl replied stubbornly.

Mother Gregory leaned over and took her hand.

"You know Dick hasn't much money," she said seriously. "You know he spent all his savings getting this house ready for you. His father gave Dick the money for your wedding trip as a present.... Dick's a poor young lawyer, with his way to make. Are you helping him by giving these hundred-dollar parties? ... Maggie said you paid thirty dollars for flowers alone for it!"

"Well ... and what else did Maggie say? What other tales did she carry to you?" asked Gloria. Her tone was sarcasm itself.

Mother Gregory cleared her throat.

"She said that my son and Mrs. Hough were the only two sober people in this house last night ... except herself!" Dick's mother answered. "She said that you had to be carried upstairs and put to bed ... Gloria, Gloria, what kind of a woman has my boy married?"

Gloria said nothing. She could hear the ticking of the hall-clock in the stillness of the house.

Then the front door opened and closed. Dick stood in the doorway.

As soon as Dick came into the room Mother Gregory rose to go.

She gathered her furs around her shoulders and adjusted the veil on her imposing hat.

"I just ran in to have a little chat with Gloria," she said, smiling as pleasantly as any afternoon caller. "But I must run along, now. Perhaps you'll come along and tuck me into my car, Richard?"

Gloria watched her tall husband and his mother walk down to the curbstone. They stood talking beside Mother Gregory's car.

"About me, I'll bet!" Gloria said to herself.

Why had Mother Gregory stopped scolding her the minute Dick came into the room, Gloria wondered.

Was it because she didn't want to upset Dick and his delicate stomach by a quarrel?

Or was it because she didn't want him to know that she was interfering in Gloria's affairs ... in the running of her house?

If that was the case, Gloria made up her mind that she'd tell Dick just what Mother Gregory had said to her! ... She'd let him know that his mother couldn't come into their house and try to arrange their lives for them!

The very idea of her trying to tell Gloria whether she was to serve hard liquor or lemonade at her parties! It was none of her business!

"Your mother's just like the mothers-in-law in the funny papers," she said when Dick came into the house. "She's been trying to tell me I shouldn't have had cocktails at last night's party. Gosh, I'd hate to sit through one of her bone-dry dinners. They must be ghastly!"

Dick didn't answer her. He stood watching her futile efforts to wipe some stains from the hall mirror.

"Here, give me that duster!" he said finally. "You shinny upstairs and make the beds. I'll clean up, down here.... I'm the world's best parlor maid, if you only knew it!"

Gloria stood watching him for a minute or two.

In his own way, Dick was quite good-looking, she thought.

He was tall and thin. And there was an eager look in his face ... in the quick movements of his body ... that made him seem splendidly alive.

... Of course he wasn't handsome, like Stan Wayburn.

Gloria knew every detail of Stan Wayburn by heart. The cleft in his chin, his polished black hair, his ice-blue eyes ... and his thrilling way of looking at you.

Dick came toward her across the living-room, shoving the vacuum sweeper ahead of him as he came. He left broad dusty streaks on the rug behind him.

Gloria laughed.

"Gosh, but you're doing a bum job of house cleaning!" she said. Dick dropped the sweeper and caught her in his arms to kiss away her laughter.

"No! No!" Gloria cried. With all her strength she pushed him away from her and ran upstairs....

Stan Wayburn had held Myra in his arms just that way last night!

... The very thought of him was like a knife twisting in her heart.

What was there about Myra Gail that made all the men fall in love with her, Gloria wondered.

Myra, with her sullen gray eyes, wasn't even pretty. She talked very little in her drawling, husky voice. She did not try to please any one, particularly.

It must be her clothes that made her so alluring ... that turned the trick, Gloria decided.

For there was no doubt that Myra had wonderful clothes. She bought them in Paris.

... Gloria stopped making beds and opened the door of her clothes-closet.

With a new scorn she surveyed the dresses hanging there. A few weeks ago when she had bought them for her trousseau she had thought them beautiful.

Now she saw that there were too many ruffles on them, too many buttons, too much fringe. Even the colors were wrong! ... They should be subtle greens and dusky grays like Myra wore ... instead of bright blues and frantic reds.

Well, was there any reason why she shouldn't have clothes like Myra's if she wanted them?

Of course, if she asked Dick for them he would be sure to say he couldn't afford them for her. But she wouldn't ask him! ... She would simply go and buy them!

After all, it was no crime to have a few becoming clothes, was it?

... She would buy a dress of cream and amber to match her skin and hair!

She would buy black velvet to set off the pearly whiteness of her neck and arms! ... And a scarf of real lace like foam along the edge of a wave!

She would beat Myra Gail at her own game! Stan would never look at Myra again!

Not when he saw Gloria with her loveliness dressed as it never had been dressed before!

She wished that it were Monday morning instead of late Saturday afternoon ... so that she could go downtown and begin to shop, then and there!

By the time Gloria had made the twin beds and had hung a neat row of face towels in the bathroom, it was dark.

Downstairs she could hear the faint rattle and clatter of dishes. She supposed that Dick had finished straightening the house in his slapdash man's way, and was washing the glasses from last night's bout.

She fluffed up her hair, dabbed her nose with a powder puff, and started downstairs.

Halfway down the flight of steps she stopped. From the kitchen came the rich odor of broiling ham.... Dick must be getting supper!

Gloria had a sudden feeling of distaste for the house with its reminders of last night's hilarity. She wanted to get out of it ... to go somewhere ... to a restaurant ... anywhere.

... Above all she wanted not to be alone all evening with Dick.

She ran into the kitchen.

Dick had on one of Maggie's gingham aprons. He was standing before the stove brandishing a toasting fork.

"Oh, take that thing off!" Gloria cried. "I hate to see a man in an apron, fussing around the kitchen. It doesn't look manly!"

Dick took off the apron and handed it to her.

"Well, if my wife doesn't know how to cook, and won't try to learn to cook, I can't starve, can I?" he asked. "Somebody's got to get our supper...."

"I don't suppose it's occurred to you that there are restaurants in this town?" Gloria asked saucily. "And anyway it's Saturday night ... we ought to go out and bat around a bit."

She turned out the gas under the broiler.

"Going out to eat is just twice as expensive as eating at home," Dick said. "And, gosh, I'm tired after staying up nearly all last night. I'm all in, as a matter of fact.... Come on, Gloria, be a sport, for once, and say you'll have a fried ham sandwich at home!"

"Not a chance!" Gloria cried. "I didn't have any lunch to-day, and I'm as hungry as a bear. So hitch up the car, old thing, and we'll drive downtown for supper.... And maybe we'll get wild afterward and go to a movie, eh, wot?"

She ran upstairs, whistling as she went.

Dick stood alone in the bright untidy kitchen.

He was still shaky from his attack of "flu" earlier in the week.

His head and his eyes ached. He was tired to the point of nausea.

He wondered how he could sit through a restaurant meal and a moving picture show afterward....

He put on his hat and went out to the garage to start the car.

Upstairs in her room Gloria was pinning on a black lace hat she had bought in Montreal during her honeymoon.

Ah, she had not gone wrong on that hat! It was perfect.

It cast faint shadows under her eyes, and brought out the ivory of her skin.

She was twice as beautiful in that hat as in any other hat she ever had on her head! And why? ... Because it had cost twice as much as any other one that she had ever owned.

Oh, there was no getting away from the fact that anybody could be good-looking who had good-looking clothes! ... and when you had beauty to start with as she had ... well, you were just plumb crazy if you didn't insist upon beautiful clothes to bring it out! They were your due.... They were her due ... Gloria's! ... And, by jinks, she would have them!