“Let us hope!” said the young man, with a grin. “I’d hate to think they had anything as run-down looking as that in heaven. Well, now, Moms, I’m off. Do I look okay? If there’s any turning down to be done on this job I want to do it. I don’t want anyone to turn me down because I didn’t look nifty enough.”
The mother smiled admiringly.
“You’re all right, Paige, my lad. And I’m praying that all will go well with you.”
Paige smiled half ruefully.
“Thanks, Mother, I’m sure it will then.”
With a cheerful flinging on of his service cap he hurried away, and his mother watched him down to the street, with a prayer in her heart.
As Paige passed the corner, he caught sight of a young girl sweeping the porch of the new stone cottage, and he wondered if she could be the minister’s daughter, or was that a new maid they had hired? She was pretty, anyway, he thought from the brief glimpse he caught of her before she turned and went into the house. She had golden hair, and a blue dress with a white apron. Or was that purely his imagination? But she was probably a young girl they had hired, someone who had grown up since he left town. Silly speculation! What difference did it make anyway? He had seen her so briefly that he probably wouldn’t know her again if he met her face-to-face. Although that hasty glance had told him one thing. She was wearing no makeup, and her face looked young and fresh. Well, probably a hired maid and not even pretty if he saw her close by.
But he wasn’t interested in girls now. He was interested in jobs, and if this job that he had secured last night didn’t turn out to be the right one, he must hunt for another that was definitely the right one, without any question, even if the salary weren’t half so large.
Then he signaled a bus, swung into a seat, and thought no more about it. Except that he hoped he wasn’t going to be too close to that minister’s daughter. It would be awkward if she was tiresome or stupid. His mother had always been so closely associated with the church and all its doings, and it would be entirely natural that he would often be called upon to escort a girl like that to church doings. But he would be careful about that and not get involved even the first time, if he could help it. But of course, with an important job such as he had, he could always have the excuse of being too busy.
At the next stop a paperboy stood offering his wares. Paige bought a paper and absorbed himself in the news, and in just no time at all it seemed, he was downtown at his destination.
As he turned into the big office building, he noticed a handsome car draw up before the entrance. A smartly dressed girl got out. She spoke a word of direction to her chauffeur and turned toward the office building. He gave only a casual glance and strode toward the elevator. He was not interested in girls just now, he told himself again, especially not in a girl who rode in limousines like the one at the curb.
Of the girl he had a closer glimpse as she stepped out of the elevator, just ahead of the one in which he was riding, and he was distinctly aware of the heavy breath of expensive perfume that floated about her and preceded her as she stepped out into the hall. The only clear impression he had of her now was of excessively red lips and a velvety, artificial complexion.
Then the great marble clock that faced the elevator caught his attention, and the girl passed out of his mind. He did not even notice which way she went. It was the hour that Mr. Chalmers had set for his arrival at the office, and with long strides he went down the corridor to the door that bore the magic name “Harris Chalmers.”
He tapped on the door, and in answer to the response from within stepped inside and closed the door behind him, entirely unaware of the clicking heels that followed him down to the door.
The lady barged into the office just after him, noisily, as one who had a right, and addressed the secretary at the desk in the tones some use to address a menial.
“Hi, Jane, is Dad here yet?”
“Yes, Miss Chalmers,” answered the girl coldly. “He just came in, but he gave direction that he is not to be disturbed. He is expecting someone for conference.”
“Oh, really? Well that doesn’t mean me. If I want to disturb him I certainly will, no matter how many conferences he has. No, you needn’t announce me. I’m going in without announcement.”
The dignified secretary controlled the angry flush that started in her cheeks and turned her attention to the young man in uniform.
Paige Madison handed her the card of identification that Mr. Chalmers had given him the night before, and a look of instant recognition passed over her face.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” she said quickly. “Will you step right into the next room? You are expected.”
She turned and opened a door just behind her desk, though not the door that bore the name “The President.” But the quick-witted, petted child of fortune knew that this door meant the visitor was very special and had been granted a speedier entrance than other callers might have gained. Quickly, she stepped up beside the young man as he reached the door, and smilingly accosted him.
“Hi, soldier! You don’t mind if I go in along with you, do you?”
Paige looked down at her with courteous haughtiness, took one step back, looked from her to the secretary who was escorting him, and said calmly, “That would be something that is scarcely within my province to grant.” Then he stepped ahead of her into the next room, and the secretary closed the door.
And that was the beginning of Paige Madison’s acquaintance with the daughter of Harris Chalmers, his new employer. It was probably not a diplomatic way to further his own interests, but somehow the young man, for the moment, did not care. If his job depended at all on getting in right with this girl, perhaps it would be just as well not to have it.
As he stood for a moment alone in the room to which he had been sent, he thought he heard the echo of angry voices. Or was it only one angry voice, and another quiet and controlled? That last would probably be the secretary’s voice. Then the door opposite to the one by which he had entered opened, and Harris Chalmers, quiet, self-assured, heartily welcoming, greeted him with friendly hand outstretched.
“I see you’re on time, Lieutenant,” he said cordially. “Come into my inner office and we can get right down to work on the details of which we spoke briefly last night.”
Paige followed his new boss into the luxuriously appointed office beyond, where quiet conservative elegance reigned, and an air of righteousness. He had scarcely sat down when another door on the other side of the room opened sharply and the girl he had left in the outer room breezed in triumphantly, with a grin toward the poor soldier boy that would have thoroughly snubbed any young service man who cared.
“Hi, Dad!” called the girl cheerfully, with a note in her voice that utterly belied the quiet dignity of the room. It flung a challenge to the atmosphere her father had intended to create.
The father turned with an annoyed look and frowned at her.
“Reva!” he said in his harshest voice. “How did you get in here? I thought I gave special instructions to Miss Dalworth that no one was to be admitted here until my morning conferences were over.”
“Oh you did, Dad! Your Dalworth pussycat did her best to keep me out, but you can’t think I would stop for that, can you? Besides, Dad, it’s important, what I need to talk to you about, and it won’t take long. And I can’t wait, really, Dad! It’s quite important! You see, I went to the bank this morning to cash a check I needed at once, and Mr. Reyburn at the bank was very stuffy about it. He said I had already overdrawn my allowance for this month and he had no authority, without a word from you, to let me have any more. You see, Dad, this is a debt of honor, and I simply must pay it at once. I certainly will be glad when I’m eighteen and this time of servitude will be over for me. It’s ridiculous that I’m hampered so, financially.”
There was a weep in the end of each word as she pleaded, and the father frowned heavily again.
“I haven’t the time to look into this now, Reva. Come back at twelve
o’clock, and I’ll try and give you five minutes.”
“I can’t do it, Dad. I’m going out to Rosemont to lunch, and I expect to meet the girl I owe this money to. I told her I’d bring it today. She’s leaving at midnight for a trip to California, and she’s making all kinds of a clamor for her money. I simply have got to pay her, Dad. It’s a debt of honor, you know. And it won’t take you a second, either. I’ve made the check all out for you, and all you’ve got to do is to sign your name. Please, Dad—”
“We’ll settle this tonight before dinner,” he said in a low voice as he handed her the check. “And now, clear out, and don’t bother me again this morning.”
“But aren’t you going to introduce me to your soldier boy?” pouted the girl, as she turned unexpectedly toward Paige.
“Oh, yes, why yes,” said the father impatiently. “Of course. This is my daughter, Reva, Lieutenant Madison. And Reva, Mr. Madison is going to be our new assistant.”
The girl turned and gave Paige a prolonged stare and treated him to a half-contemptuous smile of derision, with a promise in her eyes of future annoyances, until she had him just where she wanted him.
“Oh, yes?” she drawled. “I didn’t realize you were somebody important. Well, so long, Dad. See you tonight, and thanks for the check.”
She walked noisily across the room and slammed out the door, and her father, apparently embarrassed, turned to rummage in a drawer of his desk.
“Young people are unpredictable these days, I find,” he sighed with an apologetic tone. “What do you think, young man? What would set the world right today?”
Paige lifted an amused impish grin to his unobserving boss’s back.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said idly, “perhaps a year or two of real war experience might set most of them right. War takes a lot of ideas out of most fellows. It might do that for the girls, too, if they really tried it.”
Mr. Chalmers turned a startled glance of inquiry toward the young man, and answered slowly, “Well, I don’t know but that you’ve got something there, Madison. Of course, I wouldn’t want my girl to go out to battle, but at that, it might set some of her crazy notions straight. And now, shall we get to work? Here is a list of some matters I want to bring to your attention at once and that will give you a general survey of what I am expecting of you.”
Paige settled down to study the list and to listen to the instructions of his mentor, trying meanwhile to rid himself of the feeling he had of distrust of this man. What was it that gave him that impression?
And in between, his thoughts reverted to the daughter. Was that girl a sample of what the home girls had become while their brothers were off fighting? If so, he wanted none of them.
Then his mind jerked back to the phraseology of some of the papers given him to consider and sign. There were tricky sentences here and there that he wanted to consider further before signing, and he noted down their phrasing and location.
Cautiously he went through them slowly, not hurrying, and becoming more and more aware that he was being keenly watched as he progressed. Well, what of it? If there was anything phony in all this, now was the time to discover it and to bring it out into the open, before he was committed to anything.
“Well?” said the older man at last, with a shade of impatience in his voice, as Paige came to the final paper and laid it thoughtfully down upon the rest before him on the table. “Do you find it all perfectly understandable? Are you ready to sign them?”
The younger man lifted clear, troubled eyes.
“I’m not quite sure,” he answered gravely. “Perhaps I am not used enough to such phraseology to quite understand its import. For instance, the third paragraph of this first paper.” His eyes quickly searched out the sharp little check his pencil had made as he read the papers over. “Do I understand that there is no leeway given a man who fails in a payment at the required date, except the regular three months? I have in mind a man who has always been honorable in all his business dealings, and does not take ventures that he cannot reasonably expect to fulfill. Just suppose such a man were taken suddenly very ill, with a long, tedious recovery that might take all his available funds. Do I understand that there would be no provision for him to catch up and recover his property when his health was restored? Would he lose at a blow all he had already paid?”
“Oh, of course—in such a case—if there were hope of his getting back his earning ability, an exception might be made in his case,” answered the calm, assured voice of the rich man. “But, you understand, one has to be very clear in these statements and not leave any loopholes for an easygoing man to slip out of paying. However, if you object to that phrase, a few words more or less could be added, qualifying the statement. Just make a note of that and I’ll see that it is changed.”
“And here again,” went on the young man, “in the fourth paper there is a questionable sentence. I would not like to attempt to try to sell something to a man in the face of that third sentence.”
Mr. Chalmers bent, frowning, over the paper, and read the sentence carefully.
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “I can see what you mean. But that, too, can be changed. In fact, I’ll have my lawyer go over the whole thing and get this matter made entirely clear. I can see you are a conscientious young man, and perhaps not thoroughly conversant with the language necessary to be used to make a contract like this binding in court, but of course that does not mean we will not be careful to give every man his rights, even if it means in some cases being a little hard on ourselves. But suppose I take these papers to the lawyer, and you come back this afternoon. You and I can go over them again and see if you find any possible objection then, before you sign. And were there other places that troubled you?”
“Yes, here, and here, and here.” Paige fluttered over the papers and left no doubt in the mind of his new employer that he was a keen young man who could not be easily hoodwinked, and must therefore be treated accordingly.
And at last Paige went on his way thoughtfully, wondering just what was coming of all this, and whether he had been an utter fool to make this stand. Yet he knew in his heart that he was still troubled over the situation, without in the least being sure what it was that made him feel so doubtful.
Chapter 2
Well,” said Priscilla Brisco, the suburban dressmaker, placing the last three pins of her mouthful carefully between her thin lips and talking skillfully between pins, “I see Mary Madison has got her son back from the Philippines at last, poor thing! I hope to goodness she’ll be happy for a while. I just hated to see that sweet, patient look in her saintly loving eyes. I always felt condemned for any frets I had whenever I saw her. Me, with no children, not even a distant nephew left to go!”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Harmon, the Madisons’ next-door neighbor, who was having a dress refitted, “she is a good woman, and she did feel her boy’s going a lot. He was such a good boy. But I don’t know but I’d feel more worried about him now he’s home. He’s bound to be somewhat changed now he’s been out in the world, away from that sheltered home his mother and father made for him. They simply can’t expect him to stay the way they brought him up, of course. They’ll probably find out a number of things about their mistakes now he’s home. I suppose he’ll have an awful time now finding a job, like so many of the returned servicemen.”
“Oh, no, I don’t believe he will,” said Miss Brisco, shifting a pin to the other corner of her mouth. “Hadn’t you heard? He has one already! Yes, isn’t it wonderful? An important job with Harris Chalmers. Yes, that’s definite. I had to stop at the Chalmerses’ house last night to get a frock I promised to alter for Mrs. Chalmers, and I had to wait in the hall for the maid to go upstairs and get it, and I heard Mr. Chalmers telling about it. And he said they were going to have young Madison over for dinner Saturday night.”
“You don’t say so! Over for dinner! Are you sure? Then that must mean that Mr. Chalmers has really taken up the young man. Well, that’s something to
be proud of. Mr. Chalmers is an outstanding man. He’s very prominent in our church, and very benevolent. Well, now it will be up to Paige, whether he can make good. And of course Mr. Chalmers has a daughter, very pretty and smart, and quite worldly. If Paige can just make up to her, his fortune will be made.”
“It sure will,” said the dressmaker, extracting the last pin from her mouth and fixing it firmly in the seam she was taking up.
“But then,” she went on with speculative lips free to converse thoughtfully, “there again will be something for his mother to worry about. That Chalmers girl wouldn’t be at all the style of Paige’s saintly mother. But then I suppose she must expect that in these days of modern young people, there are girls everywhere, and he’s probably been thrown with a lot worse across seas where he’s been. Oh, I guess she’s an all-right girl, only, of course, she’s not at all religious, and his mother is. But then, after all, they may not take a notion to each other. That Chalmers girl can have anybody she wants. She’s good looking and wealthy.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Harmon, “Paige Madison is very handsome, of course, and that goes a great way with a girl. With almost any girl. I guess if she wants him, she can have him. He certainly seems to have landed on his feet.”
“Well, it’s all as you look at it,” said the dressmaker dubiously. “I’m just afraid his mother won’t look at it that way.”
“She’d be an awful fool if she didn’t,” said the neighbor. “Now, about this dress. When do you think you can have it done? I’m thinking of going away next week, and I’d like to take it with me.”
And so the talk drifted to other matters, and presently the dressmaker took herself away with the big bundle she was supposed to finish in two days. But Mrs. Harmon stood by the window and looked out across the two lawns that separated her from her neighbor’s windows.