Choose the One You'll Marry (16 page)

“Well—I don’t know. It will probably go on in this slightly disjointed way for a good while longer,” Angus told her. “Other people will drift in and out between programs. But it isn’t terribly amusing, after the first hour, unless you happen to know nearly everyone.”

“Then let’s go—if it wouldn’t be rude.”

“Rude? No, of course not.” The casual Angus seemed to find that idea quite amusing. And certainly when they sought out their host to say goodbye, he seemed to find nothing strange in their drifting off.

Outside the studio door Angus said, “Meet me at the main entrance in five or ten minutes, when you’ve got your coat. I have to pick up something from my office.”

“Very well.”

Ruth went along to the big dressing room, which was normally used only if a chorus or a crowd of extras were required for a program. Tonight the pegs that were fixed all along one side of the room carried a motley assortment of wraps, ranging from an arty-looking lumber jacket to a handsome fur coat that Ruth felt morally certain belonged to Charmian.

Having retrieved her own modest coat, she was standing in front of the mirror powdering her nose when the door opened abruptly and Charmian herself came into the room.

Ruth was annoyed to feel her heart skip a nervous beat. But before she could even assure herself that there was no need for this absurd reaction, the other girl came straight over to her and said, “I don’t usually warn people twice, but I’m telling you here and now that unless you leave Michael alone I’ll make you very sorry indeed.”

With a tremendous effort, Ruth went on powdering her face with a perfectly steady hand.

“I thought we’d had this silly business out before,” she observed coldly. “I’ve already explained to you my relationship with Michael—”

“You
have
no real relationship with him,” Charmian cut in angrily. “It’s just a ridiculous buildup, in order to get on more friendly terms with him. You
a
nd that bogus aunt of his!” And she gave a furious laugh.

A sudden, enveloping chill touched Ruth, but sheer desperation kept her voice steady as she said, “I have no relationship with him in the family sense, of course. I never pretended I had. But my mother and his aunt—”

“She isn’t his aunt. She’s an impostor,” stated Charmian clearly and unequivocally. “And I can’t wait to see Michael’s face when I tell him so.”

CHAPTER NINE

To
Ruth—
in whom the fires of kindness and friendliness burned brightly—it was almost inconceivable that anyone could look as maliciously pleased as Charmian did now, over the sheer prospect of causing trouble to an unoffending person.

“You can’t do that!” Ruth spoke sharply. “The situation has absolutely nothing to do with you, and you have all your facts wrong, in any case.”

“I have them nearly enough right,” retorted the other girl contemptuously. “That woman is no more his aunt than I am. I don’t know why
you
want it all hushed up, unless you and she are pulling a fast one on Michael between you. But I can see it’s the last thing you want him to know. That’s a good enough reason for me to tell him, after the way you’ve set yourself up against me.”

And turning on her heel, she walked toward the door.

“Wait!”

Ruth was surprised herself at the tone of quiet authority she managed to produce. Stopping in her tracks, Charmian turned slowly to face her once more. Not from choice, Ruth saw, but from reluctant compulsion. '

“I’m not going to argue with you or—plead. I’m sure it’s of no interest to you that you’ll cause a great deal of harm if you tell tales to Michael—”

“It’s of no interest at all,” the other girl agreed almost insolently.

“Then I’ll talk your own language,” Ruth said coldly, and this time it was her tone that was faintly contemptuous. “What are your—terms for minding your own business?”

“My
terms
?” Charmian gave a short, incredulous little laugh and came back slowly across the room until she stood quite near Ruth. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“Just what you think I mean,” replied Ruth. “You keep on talking of my coming between you and Michael. You’ve more than once used the ridiculous expression ‘leave him alone.’
I
don’t know what you want me to say I’ll do in connection with him. But if you’ll—forget whatever inaccuracies you’ve discovered about Aunt Henrietta, I’ll undertake t
o
keep my relationship with Michael on a coolly impersonal footing.”

“You will?” Charmian looked so patently gratified that Ruth thought,
she’s really a stupid girl. What on earth do men see in her—beyond her looks and a certain sort of sulky charm?

She shrugged.

“If that will satisfy you.”

“Then that must mean,” Charmian said slowly, “that you’re not really sweet on Michael at all?”

“I’m not sweet on Michael at all,” Ruth repeated categorically. And immediately she was aware—frighteningly aware—of a sort of warning bell, sounding far back in her consciousness.

Charmian gave a queer, relieved sort of laugh.

“Well, either you’re telling the truth—or you’re an extraordinarily good liar,” she remarked in a less unfriendly tone than any Ruth had heard from her so far.

“I’m telling you the truth when I say I’m not at all romantically interested in Michael,” Ruth asserted obstinately. “And I’ll promise to—what’s your expression—keep off the grass, so far as you’re concerned.”

“Words are cheap, of course,” Charmian said warningly. “But I’ll accept what you say for the moment, and forget—temporarily—what Angus told me about Michael’s aunt.”

“And told you quite an incorrect story, as it happens,” Ruth interjected dryly. “He knows that himself now. But we won’t go into that. It’s agreed, then, between you and me that you refrain from making mischief between Michael and Aunt Henrietta, and I remain on strictly impersonal terms with Michael.”

“Yes. But remember that you have to back up your words with deeds.” Charmian narrowed her eyes very slightly. “If I catch you monopolizing Michael again—”

“You will not
catch
me doing anything with Michael,” Ruth assured her disdainfully. “And in any case, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I shall be going north again on Tuesday morning, and I have no idea when I’m likely even to see Michael again.”

This news seemed to reassure Charmian far more than any undertaking. She became as nearly genial as it was possible for her to be, and she laughed in a way that made Ruth see for a moment that she might be a very different person if she wanted to please.

“Well, that’s fine,” she said “Maybe it’s just as well we had this talk. You and I understand each other now.” Although the words stuck in her throat, Ruth agreed that perhaps they did. Then Charmian went away, and Ruth ran a slightly trembling hand over her hair, glanced into the mirror once more, to make sure that she showed no visible signs of the crisis through which she had passed, and went to join Angus.

“Hello—I thought you’d got lost,” he remarked. “Or wandered into a program by mistake.”

“Nothing so exciting,” she assured him lightly. “Charmian came in while I was getting my coat, and we—got talking.”

“Really? I wouldn’t have thought you two had a great deal to say to each other,” Angus said, as he piloted her out to the car. “You haven’t got much in common, have you?”

Ruth supposed they had practically nothing in common—except Michael. And as she noted that exception she was conscious of an unexpected little pang for which she could not account.

“No. I can’t say we have much in common,” she agreed. “In fact, I found myself wondering what
you
and she ever had in common, Angus. Were you really very much in love with her once?”

“Funny you should put it that way.” He smiled as he leaned forward to start the car. “That exactly describes how it seems to me now. I suppose most men get that kind of fever once, over some girl or other. And then it’s over—like an illness.”

“I see,” said Ruth, and with a touch of friendly cynicism, she reflected how rapid his convalescence had been.

Perhaps he guessed at her thoughts, because he gave her a boyish smile and remarked,
“
It’s nice to be well again.”

“
It must be. But—she remains a dangerous person, Angus.”

“
Charmian does? Do you think so? She isn’t one who goes in for rancorous regrets, you know. She got tired of me. I don’t think she’d hold it against me that I got over her.”

Ruth blinked her long lashes at this somewhat brutal candor.

“
I didn’t mean particularly in the sense of her being affronted by your—recovery. I think she’s just dangerous in herself.”

“She isn’t clever enough to be really dangerous,” replied Angus, a trifle ungallantly.

“But she’s completely unscrupulous.”

“Oh, come—” he laughed “—don’t be too hard on her. You’re jealous of that gorgeous hair of hers.”

Ruth held her breath and silently counted ten.

“You’ll hardly believe it,” she said mildly, “but I’m completely unjealous about everything to do with Charmian. All that I’m concerned with is that she has some garbled version about the Aunt Henrietta story, and she’s quite prepared to make trouble over it, if the mood takes her.”

“Oh, my darling girl!” Angus gave a mock groan. “Don’t tell me we’re back on Aunt Henrietta again.”

“I’m sorry.” Ruth flushed slightly. “Only she said something rather—catty about the story you told her, and she’s such a natural troublemaker that it made me nervous. I just thought that—if you got the chance to do so quite naturally—you—you might let her know there was no special mystery, after all.”

“We’re never likely to discuss the subject again,” Angus assured her dryly.

“No, I know. But—if it did come up—just to please me, Angus—would you
please
let her know that there’s nothing queer or—or mysterious about Aunt Henrietta that needs hiding?”

“Perjure my immortal soul, just to please you, you mean?” He grinned at her.

“Nothing of the sort! Just let her know the uninteresting truth, instead of the garbled story she’s got hold of at the moment.”

“The truth?” He looked teasing and reflective. “But, like our old friend Pilate, I’m not at all sure I know what the truth is.”

“Oh,
Angus
—” Suddenly all the strains and stresses of the evening had brought her very near tears.

“My sweet darling!” He stopped the car and, putting his arm around her, kissed her trembling mouth. “I’ll tell Charmian any sort of story you like, so long as it will make you happy.”

“I don’t want you to t-tell her a story. I want you to t-tell her the truth.”

“As you see it?” He kissed the tip of her ear.

“Yes.” She nodded, with her face half-hidden against him.

“Then I will, at the very first opportunity,” he promised easily. “Don’t cry, my darling.”

“I’m not crying. I just got a bit—worked up.”

“I love you when you’re worked up,” he assured her. “I wish you’d say you love me a little, even when I tease you.”

She gave a tremulous little laugh.

“I like you very much when you
don’t
tease me.”

“And with that I have to be satisfied for the moment?”

“Yes.
I
think so.”

“All right,” he said good-humoredly, as he started the car again, “but don’t try my patience too often by wasting your best smiles and glances on that big self-satisfied bore, Harling.”

“Michael? He’s
not
a big self-satisfied bore!”

“Dear, according to my scale of values, he is. Don’t, I beg you, insist on enumerating his virtues at this moment. I’m simply not in a receptive mood.”

Ruth laughed, a little vexedly, and with difficulty refrained from rushing into a defense of Michael. Perhaps it was asking too much that Angus should think any more highly of Michael than Michael did of Angus. And with a slight sigh, she abandoned any attempt at discussion.

But as she did so, she had the uncomfortable feeling that Michael had been poorly served at her hands during the last half hour. First of all, she had actually promised Charmian that she would not be particularly friendly towar
d
him, and now she was letting Angus get away with the idea that he was a “big self-satisfied bore” when he was, Ruth reflected indignantly, nothing of the sort.

So it had to be, however. And—possibly because he had been allowed to have the last word on a vexed subject—Angus was perfectly charming after that, and Ruth had a delightful evening with him.

He brought her home quite late, and she was glad to see that, except for one light burning in the hall, the rest of the apartment was in darkness. No heart-to-heart talks seemed to be required of her that evening, and she went to bed and to sleep thankful for the fact.

Next morning
at breakfast, Michael did ask her what she had done with the rest of her evening. But the question went no further than conventional interest, and she was able to make quite airy replies, although there now rested on her conscience, like a lump of lead, the very unworthy bargain she had struck with Charmian.

What else could I do,
thought Ruth unhappily.

But she wished Michael would not be quite so nice and amusing and kindly. She positively longed for him to do something that would entitle her to think,
thank goodness I’m not going to have to see much more of him in future.

Instead, however, he took her and Aunt Henrietta out into the country for the day—to make up for the missed drive yesterday, he told Ruth, with a quizzical glance—and the whole expedition was so well arranged and so entirely enjoyable that she was left, at the end of the day, thinking how understandable it was that Aunt Henrietta wanted nothing to spoil their delightful relationship.

She’s lucky,
Ruth reflected soberly.
She can go on enjoying him. I’ve promised to put an end to all this, once my visit is over. I’m going to hate saying goodbye.

For a horrible few minutes she was gripped by a queer, inexplicable panic. Illogical though it might seem, she had the feeling that, in lightly abandoning her friendship with Michael, she had not only been guilty of a sort of treachery, but also of the most tragic stupidity.

One shouldn’t do things like that,
she told herself, absently rubbing cheeks that felt suddenly cold.
It’s
—
it’s like tempting fate. What on earth induced me to make such an offer to Charmian?

But she knew quite well what had induced her. The urgent, vital necessity of finding something
—
anything—that would prevent her from wrecking Aunt Henrietta’s precariously held happiness.

In the evening Angus claimed her once more, and took her to a concert, given by a famous visiting orchestra, under an equally famous conductor.

It was all very beautiful and impressive, but during quite a lot of the time Ruth sat there thinking about her own affairs. And we have a very strong suspicion that quite a number of the people around her were doing exactly the same thing.

First she thought about Angus, and how charming and engaging he always was, and she wondered if she were truly in love with him, and whether she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. The music made her feel sentimental, so that she remembered the enchanting way he kissed her, and she glanced surreptitiously at his grave, handsome profile and hoped he would kiss her again when he said good-night to her.

Like that, he looked faintly melancholy and as though he had long ago come to terms with life—a responsible, almost a noble person, and Ruth lingered enjoyably over the reflection.

But then the strong vein of common sense that she had inherited—curiously enough, from her slightly scatterbrained mother—began to put that portrait slightly out of focus.

Angus might look grave and responsible when he was sitting there listening to music. But the fact was that he was nothing of the sort. Other virtues he might have, but not a great sense of responsibility. Not, Ruth supposed reluctantly, even entirely what one meant by reliability. Not like Michael, for instance
...

And then she thought about Michael, during the whole of the strong, exciting, almost dynamic last movement of the symphony that the orchestra was playing. Somehow the music fitted him, and she reflected that Michael was a very unusual person indeed.

If I saw a great deal of him, I think I’d be very fond of him,
she told herself, with what she really believed to be calm objectivity. But further than that she did not permit herself to go.

Afterward she went out to supper with Angus. But he took her home early, saying that he wanted her to be fresh for the program on the morrow.

“You make me feel like a prima donna, instead of someone who only has about half a dozen sentences to say,” she protested with a smile.

“But I want those half a dozen sentences presented superbly,” he told her. Then he kissed her good-night, but a trifle absently, so that Ruth could not help feeling that it had not
quite
come up to the expectations that she had entertained, as she sat beside him in the concert hall.

That’s life, my dear,
she told herself, as she went into the apartment. And she had enough humor to laugh a little about it. But it also served to remind her that one could not always, so to speak, have soft music and provocative kisses. Even Angus—the most romantic of cavaliers—had to be considered in the light of practical, everyday demands.

The next day
Ruth found that what she called the prima
-
donna treatment was also meted out to her by Aunt Henrietta and Martin, who both seemed to be of the opinion that anyone making any sort of public appearance required special care.

Breakfast was brought to her in bed—to her amusement and a little to her disappointment, because she had come to enjoy that brief time that she shared with Michael at the breakfast table.

Only once more,
she thought, before she could stop herself.
And that will be tomorrow, when
I
shall have to be hurrying to catch a train, I suppose.

But Martin, full of the solemnity of the occasion, was setting down an attractive-looking breakfast tray, impossible to ignore, and observing gravely, “You need to keep up your strength, miss.”

“Do I, Martin? Whatever for?” Ruth smiled and struggled into a sitting position.

“Well, miss, public performances take it out of one, I understand,” Martin said. “It’s the nerve strain, I daresay.”

Ruth said no doubt it was. But, for a victim being offered up on the altar of public entertainment, she showed a remarkable degree of interest in food.

“Madam said you were to take it quietly this morning and just get up when you felt like it,” Martin explained. Then she went away, leaving Ruth to enjoy the unwonted luxury, which took on an added attraction as she reflected that this was Monday morning, and that she should, by right, be hurrying along, probably through the rain, on her way to work at the Excelsior Hotel.

If
I
married Angus I wouldn’t have to do that anymore, of course,
she reflected idly.
I expect he’d want me to do some occasional work at the studios—but that would be fun rather than work.

She lingered over the pleasant prospect, while she sipped her coffee. Then, being practical and sensible by nature, she remembered that, in the circumstances she was contemplating, her job would be to rustle around and provide Angus with a good breakfast.

No lying in bed for the devoted young wife,
she thought, buttering toast lavishly.
I’d probably be consoling him for disappointments and frustrations in his work, and listening to his grumbles about next week’s program.

But that, of course, was what one was supposed to
like
doing for the man one loved. And Ruth could not help thinking it was a significant and sobering fact that somehow the prospect seemed faintly boring.