Fanny Herself Part 18

"I beg your pardon!" Fenger came swiftly around the desk, and over to her. "I was thinking very hard. Miss Brandeis, will you dine with me somewhere tonight? Then to-morrow night? But I want to talk to you."

"Here I am. Talk."

"But I want to talk to--you."

It was then that f.a.n.n.y Brandeis saved an ugly situation. For she laughed, a big, wholesome, outdoors sort of laugh. She was honestly amused.

"My dear Mr. Fenger, you've been reading the murky magazines. Very bad for you."

Fenger was unsmiling: "Why won't you dine with me?"

"Because it would be unconventional and foolish. I respect the conventions. They're so sensible. And because it would be unfair to you, and to Mrs. Fenger, and to me."

"Rot! It's you who have the murky magazine viewpoint, as you call it, when you imply--"

"Now, look here, Mr. Fenger," f.a.n.n.y interrupted, quietly. "Let's be square with each other, even if we're not being square with ourselves.

You're the real power in this plant, because you've the brains. You can make any person in this organization, or break them. That sounds melodramatic, but it's true. I've got a definite life plan, and it's as complete and detailed as an engineering blue print. I don't intend to let you spoil it. I've made a real start here. If you want to, I've no doubt you can end it. But before you do, I want to warn you that I'll make a pretty stiff fight for it. I'm no silent sufferer. I'll say things. And people usually believe me when I talk."

Still the silent, concentrated gaze. With a little impatient exclamation f.a.n.n.y walked toward the door. Fenger, startlingly light and agile for his great height, followed.

"I'm sorry, Miss Brandeis, terribly sorry. You see, you interest me very much. Very much."

"Thanks," dryly.

"Don't go just yet. Please. I'm not a villain. Really. That is, not a deliberate villain. But when I find something very fine, very intricate, very fascinating and complex--like those etchings, for example--I am intrigued. I want it near me. I want to study it."

f.a.n.n.y said nothing. But she thought, "This is a dangerously clever man.

Too clever for you. You know so little about them." Fenger waited. Most women would have found refuge in words. The wrong words. It is only the strong who can be silent when in doubt.

"Perhaps you will dine with Mrs. Fenger and me at our home some evening?

Mrs. Fenger will speak to you about it."

"I'm afraid I'm usually too tired for further effort at the end of the day. I'm sorry----"

"Some Sunday night perhaps, then. Tea."

"Thank you." And so out, past the spare secretary, the anxious-browed stenographer, the academic office boy, to the hallway, the elevator, and finally the refuge of her own orderly desk. Slosson was at lunch in one of the huge restaurants provided for employees in the building across the street. She sat there, very still, for some minutes; for more minutes than she knew. Her hands were clasped tightly on the desk, and her eyes stared ahead in a puzzled, resentful, bewildered way. Something inside her was saying over and over again:

"You lied to him on that very first day. That placed you. That stamped you. Now he thinks you're rotten all the way through. You lied on the very first day."

Ella Monahan poked her head in at the door. The Gloves were on that floor, at the far end. The two women rarely saw each other, except at lunch time.

"Missed you at lunch," said Ella Monahan. She was a pink-cheeked, bright-eyed woman of forty-one or two, prematurely gray and therefore excessively young in her manner, as women often are who have grown gray before their time.

f.a.n.n.y stood up, hurriedly. "I was just about to go."

"Try the grape pie, dear. It's delicious." And strolled off down the aisle that seemed to stretch endlessly ahead.

f.a.n.n.y stood for a moment looking after her, as though meaning to call her back. But she must have changed her mind, because she said, "Oh, nonsense!" aloud. And went across to lunch. And ordered grape pie. And enjoyed it.

CHAPTER TEN

The invitation to tea came in due time from Mrs. Fenger. A thin, querulous voice over the telephone prepared one for the thin, querulous Mrs. Fenger herself. A sallow, plaintive woman, with a misbehaving valve. The valve, she confided to f.a.n.n.y, made any effort dangerous. Also it made her susceptible to draughts. She wore over her shoulders a scarf that was constantly slipping and constantly being retrieved by Michael Fenger. The sight of this man, a physical and mental giant, performing this task ever so gently and patiently, sent a little pang of pity through f.a.n.n.y, as Michael Fenger knew it would. The Fengers lived in an apartment on the Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive--an apartment such as only Chicago boasts. A view straight across the lake, rooms huge and many-windowed, a gla.s.s-enclosed sun-porch gay with chintz and wicker, an incredible number of bathrooms. The guests, besides f.a.n.n.y, included a young pair, newly married and interested solely in rents, hangings, linen closets, and the superiority of the Florentine over the Jacobean for dining room purposes; and a very scrubbed looking, handsome, spectacled man of thirty-two or three who was a mechanical engineer. f.a.n.n.y failed to catch his name, though she learned it later. Privately, she dubbed him Fascinating Facts, and he always remained that. His conversation was invariably prefaced with, "Funny thing happened down at the works to-day." The rest of it sounded like something one reads at the foot of each page of a loose-leaf desk calendar.

At tea there was a great deal of silver, and lace, but f.a.n.n.y thought she could have improved on the chicken a la king. It lacked paprika and personality. Mrs. Fenger was constantly directing one or the other of the neat maids in an irritating aside.

After tea Michael Fenger showed f.a.n.n.y his pictures, not boastfully, but as one who loves them reveals his treasures to an appreciative friend.

He showed her his library, too, and it was the library of a reader.

f.a.n.n.y nibbled at it, hungrily. She pulled out a book here, a book there, read a paragraph, skimmed a page. There was no attempt at cla.s.sification. Lever rubbed elbows with Spinoza; Mark Twain dug a facetious thumb into Haeckel's ribs. f.a.n.n.y wanted to sit down on the floor, legs crossed, before the open shelves, and read, and read, and read. Fenger, watching the light in her face, seemed himself to take on a certain glow, as people generally did who found this girl in sympathy with them.

They were deep in book talk when Fascinating Facts strolled in, looking aggrieved, and spoiled it with the thoroughness of one who never reads, and is not ashamed of it.

"My word, I'm having a rotten time, Fenger," he said, plaintively.

"They've got a tape-measure out of your wife's sewing basket, those two in there, and they're down on their hands and knees, measuring something. It has to do with their rug, over your rug, or some such rot.

And then you take Miss Brandeis and go off into the library."

"Then stay here," said f.a.n.n.y, "and talk books."

"My book's a blue-print," admitted Fascinating Facts, cheerfully.

"I never get time to read. There's enough fiction, and romance, and adventure in my job to give me all the thrill I want. Why, just last Tuesday--no, Thursday it was--down at the works----"

Between f.a.n.n.y and Fenger there flashed a look made up of dismay, and amus.e.m.e.nt, and secret sympathy. It was a look that said, "We both see the humor of this. Most people wouldn't. Our angle is the same." Such a glance jumps the gap between acquaintance and friends.h.i.+p that whole days of spoken conversation cannot cover.

"Cigar?" asked Fenger, hoping to stay the flood.

"No, thanks. Say, Fenger, would there be a row if I smoked my pipe?"

"That black one? With the smell?"

"The black one, yes."

"There would." Fenger glanced in toward his wife, and smiled, dryly.

Fascinating Facts took his hand out of his pocket, regretfully.

"Wouldn't it sour a fellow on marriage! Wouldn't it! First those two in there, with their d.a.m.ned linen closets, and their rugs--I beg your pardon, Miss Brandeis! And now your missus objects to my pipe. You wouldn't treat me like that, would you, Miss Brandeis?"

There was about him something that appealed--something boyish and likeable.

"No, I wouldn't. I'd let you smoke a nargileh, if you wanted to, surrounded by rolls of blue prints."

"I knew it. I'm going to drive you home for that."

And he did, in his trim little roadster. It is a fairy road at night, that lake drive between the north and south sides. Even the Rush street bridge cannot quite spoil it. f.a.n.n.y sat back luxuriously and let the soft splendor of the late August night enfold her. She was intelligently monosyllabic, while Fascinating Facts talked. At the door of her apartment house (she had left the Mendota weeks before) Fascinating Facts surprised her.

"I--I'd like to see you again, Miss Brandeis. If you'll let me."