Find the Woman Page 8

  VIII

  Clancy's ideas of studios had been gained from the perusal of fiction.So the workmanlike appearance of the room on the top floor of SophieCarey's house on Waverly Place was somewhat of a surprise to her.

  Its roof was of glass, but curtains, cunningly manipulated by not toosightly cords, barred or invited the overhead light as the artistdesired. The front was a series of huge windows, which were alsoprotected by curtains. It faced the north.

  About the room, faces to wall, were easels. Mrs. Carey turned one rounduntil the light fell upon it.

  It was a large canvas, which Clancy supposed was allegorical. Threefigures stood out against a background of rolling smoke above a scene ofdesolation--a man, a woman, and a child, their garments torn andstained, but their faces smiling.

  "Like it?" asked Mrs. Carey.

  "Why--it's wonderful!" cried Clancy.

  "I call it 'Hope,'" said Mrs. Carey.

  Clancy stared at it. She got the painter's idea. The man and his wifeand their child, looking smilingly forward into a future that-- Sheturned to Mrs. Carey. She pointed to the foreground.

  "Isn't there more--smoke--trouble--there?"

  "There is--but they refuse to look at it. That, after all, is hope,isn't it, Miss Deane? Hope founded on sheer blindness never has seemedto me a particularly admirable quality. But hope founded on courage isworth while. You really like it?"

  Clancy turned again to the picture. Suddenly she pointed to the figureof the man.

  "Why, that's Mr. Randall!" she exclaimed.

  "Yes. Of course, it isn't really a likeness. I didn't want that. Imerely wanted the magnificence of his body. It is magnificent, isn't it?Such a splendid waist-line above such slender but strong thighs.Remarkable, in these days, when, outside of professional athletes, theman with a strong upper body usually has huge, ungraceful hips."

  Mrs. Carey picked up a telephone as she spoke, and so did not observethe blush that stole over Clancy's face. Of course, artists, even womenartists, spoke unconventionally, but to discuss in such detail the bodyof a man, known to both of them was not mere unconventionality--it wasshocking. That is, it was shocking according to the standards of Zenith.

  Clancy listened while her hostess spoke to some one whom she called"Sally," and who must be Miss Henderson.

  "You said you wanted some one, Sally. Well, I have the some one.Prettiest thing you ever looked at.... The business? As much as you do,probably. What difference does it make? She's pretty. She's lovely. Noman could refuse to rent an apartment or have his place done over if sheasked him.... Right away. Miss Deane, her name is.... Not at all, oldthing."

  She hung up and turned beamingly to Clancy.

  "Simple, isn't it? You are now, Miss Deane, an interior decorator. Atleast, within an hour you will be." She wrote rapidly upon the pad bythe telephone. "Here's the address. You don't need a letter ofintroduction."

  Dazed, Clancy took the slip of paper. She noted that the address writtendown was a number on East Forty-seventh Street. Little as she yet knewof the town's geography, she knew that Fifth Avenue was the greatdividing-line. Therefore, any place east of it must be quite a distancefrom Times Square, which was two long blocks west of Fifth Avenue. Shewould be safe from recognition at Miss Sally Henderson's--probably. Butshe refused to think of probabilities.

  "I don't know how to thank you, Mrs. Carey," she said.

  Sophie Carey laughed carelessly.

  "Don't try, my dear. Don't ever learn. The really successful person--andyou're going to be a great success--never expresses gratitude. He--orshe--accepts whatever comes along."

  She crossed her knees and lighted a cigarette.

  "I couldn't follow that philosophy," said Clancy. "I wouldn't want to."

  "Why not?" demanded Sophie Carey.

  "It doesn't seem--right," said Clancy. "Besides," she added hastily,"I'm not sure that I'll be a success."

  Mrs. Carey stared at her.

  "Why not?" she asked sharply. "God gives us brains; we use them. Godgives us strength; we use it. God gives us good looks; why shouldn't weuse them? As long as this is a man-ruled world, feminine good looks willassay higher than feminine brains. If you don't believe it, compare theincomes received by the greatest women novelists, artists, doctors,lawyers, with the incomes received by women who have no brains at all,but whose beauty makes them attractive in moving pictures or upon thestage. Beauty is an asset that mustn't be ignored, my dear Miss Deane.And you have it. Have it? Indeed you have! Didn't our hitherto immuneDavid become infected with the virus of love the moment he saw you?"

  Clancy looked prim.

  "I'm sure," she said, almost rebukingly, "that Mr. Randall couldn't havedone anything like that--so soon."

  Mrs. Carey laughed.

  "I'll forgive you because of your last two words, my dear. They provethat you're not the little prig that you sound. Why, you _know_ thatDavid is extremely interested. And you are interested yourself.Otherwise, you would not be jealous of me."

  "Jealous?" Clancy was indignant.

  Mrs. Carey smiled.

  "That's what I said. When you recognized him in the painting-- My dear,I'm too old for David. I'm thirty-one. Besides, I have a husband living.You need not worry."

  She rose, and before Clancy could frame any reply, threw an arm aboutthe girl's shoulders and led her from the studio. Descending the twoflights of stairs to the street door, Clancy caught a glimpse of alovely boudoir, and a drawing-room whose huge grand piano and subduedcoloring of decoration lived up to her ideals of what society knew ascorrect. The studio on the top floor might be a workroom, but the restof the house was a place that, merely to own, thought Clancy, was to beassured of happiness.

  Indeed, after having left Mrs. Carey and boarding a cross-town car atEighth Street, Clancy wondered that Mrs. Carey did not give theimpression of complete happiness. She was famous, rich, sought-after,yet she seemed, to Clancy, dissatisfied. Probably, thought Clancy, sometrouble with her husband. Surely it must be the fault of Mr. Carey, forno woman so sweet and generous as Sophie Carey could possibly be atfault.

  For a moment, she had been indignant at Mrs. Carey's charge of jealousy.But the one salient characteristic of Clancy Deane was honesty. It was acharacteristic that would bring to her unhappiness and happiness both.Just now, that honesty hurt her pride. For she had felt a certainrestlessness, uneasiness, that had been indefinable until Mrs. Carey hadnamed it. It had been jealousy. She had resented that this rich,beautiful, and famous woman should assume a slightly proprietary airtoward David Randall. Clairvoyantly, Clancy knew that she would never_really_ love Sophie Carey. Still, she would try to.

  At Astor Place, she took the subway, riding, according to instructionsthat Mrs. Carey had given her, to the Grand Central Station. Here shealighted and, a block west, turned up Madison Avenue.

  If it had not occurred to her before that one found one's way about mosteasily in New York, she would have learned it now. With its avenuesrunning north and south, and its cross-streets running east and west,and with practically all of both, save in the far-down-town district,numbered, it was almost impossible for any one who could read Arabicnumerals to become lost in this, the greatest city of the Westernhemisphere.

  She found the establishment of "Sally Henderson, InteriorDecorator--Apartments," a few doors east of Madison Avenue.

  A young gentleman, soft-voiced, cow-eyed, moved gracefully forward togreet her. The cut of his sleeves, as narrow as a woman's, and fittingat the shoulder with the same pucker, the appearance of the waist-lineas snug as her own, made Clancy realize that the art of dressing men hasreappeared in the world as pronouncedly as in the days when they woregorgeous laces and silken breeches, and bejeweled-buckled shoes.

  The young gentleman--Clancy later learned that he was named Guernsey,and pronounced it "Garnsey"--ushered her into an inner office. This roomwas furnished less primly than the outer office. The first room she hadentered seemed, with its filing-cases and busy stenographer poundi
ngaway at a typewriter and its adding machine and maps upon the wall, aplace of business. But this inner room seemed like a boudoir. Clancydiscovered that the outer room was where persons who desired to rentapartments were taken care of; this inner room was the spot where thosedesirous of the services of an interior decorator were received.

  Miss Sally Henderson sat at a table upon which were samples ofwall-paper. She was tall, Clancy could tell, had what in Zenith would betermed a "skinny" figure, and her hair, of a stringy mud-color, wasalmost plastered, man-fashion, upon a narrow, high forehead. Upon hernose were perched a pair of glasses. Her lips, surprisingly, werewell-formed, full, and red. It was the mouth of a sensuous,beauty-loving, passionate woman, and the rest of her was the masculinityof an old maid.

  She smiled as Clancy approached.

  "So Sophie sent you to my matrimonial bureau, eh?" she said. Clancystared. "Oh, yes," Miss Henderson went on; "three girls have beenmarried from this business in the last eight months. I think there's acurse on the place. Tell me--are you engaged, in love, or anything?"Clancy shook her head. "That's too bad," sighed Miss Henderson.

  "Why?" asked Clancy.

  "Oh, if you were already engaged, you'd not be husband-hunting the menwho come apartment-hunting."

  "I assure you that I'm not husband-hunting," said Clancy indignantly.

  Miss Henderson shrugged.

  "Of course you are, my dear. All of us are. Even myself. Though I'vegiven it up lately. My peculiar style of beauty doesn't lure the men,I'm beginning to understand. Well, you can't help it if you'rebeautiful, can you? And I can't help it if one of my clients runs awaywith you. Just stay three months, and I'll give you, to start with,fifty dollars a week."

  Clancy stared at her.

  "You'll give me fifty a week--right now?"

  "My dear, any musical-comedy manager would give you forty to stand inthe front row. You could earn a trifle more than that by not beingparticular. I take it that you are particular. Should a particular girlearn less than the other kind? Is it common justice? It is not.Therefore, I will pay you fifty dollars a week. You ought to rent ahundred per cent. of the apartments you show. Also, every third clientyou deal with ought to be wheedled into having some interior decoratingdone. I can afford to pay you that."

  Clancy gasped. Fifty dollars a week was not, of course, a tithe of whatshe'd expect to earn in the moving pictures, but it was a big salary toone who possessed about five dollars in the world.

  "But you'll have to buy yourself some decent clothes," continued MissHenderson. "That suit, if you'll pardon me, my dear, looks like the verydevil. I have a dressmaker, unique thing-- Oh, don't stare at theclothes I have on; I have to dress this way during office-hours. Itmakes me look business-like. But outside of business--it's different.You may trust my dressmaker. Cheaper--much cheaper, too. What do youknow about interior decorating?" she asked suddenly.

  "Nothing," Clancy confessed frankly.

  "Excellent!" said Miss Henderson. "Interior decorators can designtheatrically beautiful rooms, but not homes. How can they? Home is theexpression of its owner. So the less you know the better."

  Clancy drew in a long breath. Feebly, she comprehended that she was inthe presence of a "character," a person unique in her experience. Shewas glad that she did not have to talk, that her new employer'sverbosity covered up her own silence. She was grateful when, as MissHenderson paused, the young man, Guernsey, entered.

  "Mr. Grannis to see you, Miss Henderson," he said.

  Miss Henderson shrugged petulantly. She looked at Clancy.

  "Your first commission, Miss Deane," she said. "He wants to rent anapartment. He has oodles of money. Here is a list of places. Mr.Guernsey will order a car for you. You'll find the rental-rates on thiscard. God be with you, my child!"

  She grinned, and Clancy started for the door. Her footsteps werefaltering and her face white. Grannis was an unusual name. And Grannishad been one of the players in the Zenda poker game three nights ago!