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  XV

  The room into which Sophie Carey showed Clancy was smaller than herhostess' bedroom, but, in its way, just as exquisite. It made Clancythink--with its marvelous dressing-table, divided into two parts, themirror between them, its soft rugs, its lacy covers on the bed--ofpictures in magazines devoted to the home. It brought, somehow, to afocus, certain uneasy thoughts of the past day. So that her face wastroubled when, having donned a wonderful nightgown that Mrs. Carey hadlent her, and having put over this a fleecy dressing-gown, she turned toreceive her hostess, who was similarly attired. Mrs. Carey pulled up achair and sank into it.

  "You're nervous," she announced.

  Clancy shrugged faintly. If Sophie Carey knew just what Clancy had to benervous about!

  "No; I've been wondering," she replied.

  "Wondering what?" asked Mrs. Carey.

  Clancy's forehead puckered.

  "About all this," she replied.

  She waved a hand vaguely about the little room. Sophie Carey laughed.

  "Like it?" she asked languidly. "Care to live here?"

  Clancy stared at her.

  "'Live here?'" she demanded incredulously.

  "Why not?"

  "Why should I?" countered Clancy.

  "I like you," Mrs. Carey said. "I think we'd get on well together."

  Clancy frowned.

  "Why, I couldn't begin to pay----"

  "No one said anything about paying," interrupted Mrs. Carey.

  "But I couldn't--I never accepted----" Clancy was prim.

  Mrs. Carey laughed.

  "You'll get over that, I fear. Now, as for the expense--if you feel thatway, we'll arrange what's fair."

  "You really want me?" said Clancy.

  "I told you earlier this evening that I liked success. Well, I like toprotege success. You'll be a success. You're practically one already.With Phil Vandervent interested and the Walbroughs enthusiasticallyenlisted on your side--It was rather hard on David to-night, wasn't it?"

  Clancy blushed.

  "'Hard?'"

  Mrs. Carey smiled.

  "He had an open face, poor David! It tells what is in his heart quiteplainly. Oh, well, David is a remarkable youth in lots of ways, but PhilVandervent--he's a Vandervent."

  "You don't really think, can't imagine--" Clancy paused, dazed at thepossibilities.

  "Why not? Three Vandervents have married chorus-girls. You're a lady, mydear. Phil could do a lot worse. And you could hardly hope to dobetter."

  Clancy shook her head.

  "That isn't the career I came to New York to find."

  Mrs. Carey chuckled.

  "None of us find the career we were looking for. Half the bankers in theworld planned to be authors. Half the authors planned to be bankers. Andthere you are! You'll live here?"

  The offer opened up opportunities undreamed of by Clancy. To bechaperoned, guided, protege'd by a woman like Sophie Carey! She had cometo New York intent on making financial and, secondarily, ofcourse--Clancy was young--artistic success. To have a vista of socialachievement placed before her enraptured eyes----

  "It would be pretty hard," she said naively, "to give up a thing likethis, wouldn't it? I mean--pretty clothes, a place to live in that wasbeautiful. I stayed to-night because you wanted me to. But I waswondering. I can see why girls--slide down. And I don't think it'sbecause they want what they haven't got; it's more because they can'tgive up what they have. Isn't it?"

  "It sounds convincing," admitted Mrs. Carey. She sighed. "Well, we'regoing to be friends, anyway, my dear. It was good of you to spend thenight here. I--Donald didn't drop in as he'd threatened, and I'mlonesome, and--blue." She rose suddenly. "I'm keeping you up. It isn'tfair." She walked toward the door and turned. "Do you know why I reallyasked you to stay? Because I saw that something was on your mind, mydear. And I didn't want you to do anything foolish."

  "'Foolish?'" Clancy stared at her.

  "David Randall would have insisted on taking you home. And--if he'dproposed sudden marriage, what would you have done?"

  "'Marriage?'"

  "That's what I said," said Mrs. Carey. "You're nervous, a stranger,and--I like you, little girl. I want you to have a fair chance to makeup your mind."

  "But I wouldn't have--why, it's absurd!" said Clancy.

  Her hostess shrugged.

  "My third night in New York, I went to a dance. I was terriblydepressed. And a boy had conceived the same sudden sort of attachmentfor me that David has conceived for you. Only one thing saved me frommaking a little idiot of myself--not a minister would marry us without alicense. I'm confessing a lot, my dear. Good-night," she ended abruptly.

  Alone, Clancy slipped out of the pretty dressing-gown and got into bed.She could not doubt Sophie Carey's sincerity. Yet how absurd the womanwas in thinking that she and David-- She wondered. Suppose that Randall_had_ proposed--in one of her reactions from bravado to fear. To have aman to help her fight her battle, to extricate her from the predicamentinto which her own frightened folly had hurried her! Sleepily, shedecided that Sophie Carey was a wonderful friend. Also, she decided thatClancy Deane wasn't much of an actress. If _every one_ guessed that shewas worried----

  Once, during the night, she half wakened. She thought that she'd heardthe door-bell ringing. But she slipped into unconsciousness again almostat once. But in the morning she knew that she had not been mistaken.For Sophie Carey woke her up, and Clancy saw a face that was like ablush-rose.

  "Miss Deane, you must wake up and meet him before he goes."

  "Before who goes?" demanded Clancy.

  Sophie Carey's face was like fire.

  "Don. He came last night after all--late, and he isn't going to get adivorce, because I won't let him." There was fiery pride and touchinglysoft self-abasement in her voice. "We've made it up. It was all myfault, anyway."

  Clancy, as she bathed and dressed, shook her head wonderingly. Mrs.Carey's life was almost as kaleidoscopic as her own.

  She put on the gray foulard and descended, shortly, to the dining-room.There she met Donald Carey. Weak-mouthed, its selfishness was partlyhidden by a short mustache, blond. If Clancy hadn't heard something ofhim, she'd not have known, at first, the essential meanness of hisnature. Undoubtedly he had helped himself from one of the decanters onthe sideboard, for his nerves were well under control, and Clancygathered, from his own somewhat boastful remarks, that he'd beenintoxicated for the better--or worse--part of the week.

  Last night, Sophie Carey had been so attracted by Clancy that not onlydid she wish to protege her but wished to support her. Her offer, lastnight, had meant practically that. But events had transpired, Mrs. Careywas no longer, in effect, a widow. She was a married womanagain--pridefully so. Her air of dependence half sickened Clancy. Awoman of prestige, ability, and charm, she was a plaything of themomentary whim of the man whose name she bore. Last night independent,mistress of her own destiny, this morning she was an appanage. And howcould Sophie Carey respect this weak sot?

  But she had more to think about than the affairs of Sophie Carey, nomatter how those affairs might affect herself. Few persons, no matterhow temperamentally constituted, are nervous on first waking in themorning. They may be cranky and irritable, but not nervous. So Clancy,who had no irritation in her system, was calm until after breakfast.Then she began to fret. This was the day! Assistant District AttorneyPhilip Vandervent would receive an answer to his telegram to FanchonDeLisle. He would learn that the real name of the woman who had borneFanchon's card of introduction to the office of Morris Beiner was ClancyDeane. Her arrest was a matter of--hours, at the outside.

  She felt like one condemned, with the electric chair round a turn in thecorridor. Of course, she assured herself, the police must believe herstory. But even if they did, gone was her opportunity for success. Shewould be the distasteful figure in a great scandal. Her breakfast was anunsubstantial meal. But her hostess did not notice. She was too intenton seeing that her husband's coy appetite was tempted.


  Suddenly, Clancy felt a distaste for herself--a distaste for beingprotege'd, for having a patroness. Sophie Carey had taken a liking toher. Sophie Carey had wished to do this and that and the other thing forher. Now Sophie Carey was by the way of forgetting her existence. Sheaccepted the offer of her hostess' car to take her home, but gave vaguereplies to Sophie's almost equally vague remarks about when they mustsee each other again. It had been kind of Mrs. Carey to invite her tospend the evening, but it had been a little too much like playingDestiny. Suppose that Randall had proposed and that Clancy had, in amoment of fright, accepted him. It would have been her own business,wouldn't it?

  She was almost sullen when she reached Washington Square. Up-stairs inher dingy room, she fought against tears. She had voiced a great truth,without being aware of it, last night, when she had said that what madegirls slide down-hill was the having to give up what they had, not thedesire for possession of those things which they'd never had.

  She almost wished that Sophie Carey had not weakly surrendered to herhusband's first advances. Clancy might have been installed in the studiohome on Waverly Place, half-mistress of its comforts, its charms--aparasite! That's what she had been by way of becoming within a week ofher arrival in the city where she had hoped, by the hardest sort ofwork, to make a place for herself. Well, that was ended. Why the factthat Sophie Carey had taken back her errant husband should have affectedClancy's attitude toward life and the part she must play in it is one ofthe incomprehensible things of that strange thing which we call"character."

  Yet it had done so. Perhaps, after all, because it had shown Clancy howlittle dependence must be placed on other people. Not that she felt thatSophie Carey would not be friendly to her, but that Sophie Carey'sinterest would now be, for a while, at any rate, in the husband to whomshe surrendered so easily. And by the time that Sophie had rid herselfagain of Donald Carey, Clancy would have been forgotten.

  Forgotten! As, clad in the storm-overshoes that were necessities inZenith, she braved the drifts of Washington Square on her way to the'bus, she laughed wryly. Forgotten! Possibly, but not until her name hadbeen blazoned in the press as a murderess----

  Sally Henderson was not at the office when Clancy arrived there. Shetelephoned later on that the storm was too much for her, and that shewould remain at home all day. She told young Guernsey to instruct Clancyin the routine matters of the office.

  By one o'clock, Clancy had begun to understand the office machinery.Also, she was hungry, and when Guernsey announced that he was going outto luncheon, Clancy welcomed the cessation of their activities. She hadbeen too apathetic to wonder why she had not heard from Zenda, and wasamazed when, just as she had buttoned her coat, the girl clerk summonedher to the telephone.

  "Miss Deane? This is Zenda talking. I got your letter. Can I see youright away?"

  Clancy vaguely wondered where Zenda had procured her working-address.She had mentioned it this morning, after changing her dress, to Mrs.Gerand, but Mrs. Gerand had been a bit frigid. Mrs. Gerand did notapprove of young lodgers of the female sex who spent the nights out.Clancy didn't believe that Mrs. Gerand had heard her. However, inasmuchas Zenda telephoned, the landlady must have heard her lodger's businessaddress.

  "Yes," she answered.

  It was the beginning of the end. Zenda would believe probably about herconnection with Fay Marston and Weber, but he'd perhaps know thatFlorine Ladue had been in Beiner's office. She shook her head savagely.As on Wednesday, when she'd read of Beiner's murder, she'd been unableto think clearly, her brain now wandered off into absurdities.

  For it didn't matter about Zenda. Philip Vandervent had wired FanchonDeLisle. What did Zenda matter? What did anything matter?

  "Can you come over to my office, Miss Deane?"

  "Yes," she replied.

  "I'll be waiting for you," said Zenda.

  She hung up the receiver. She shrugged her shoulders, and, telling thetelephone clerk that she was going out to luncheon, left the office.