She dressed with a great deal of care the next afternoon, and when she surveyed herself in the long mirror, it was with quite a little satisfaction. For the last few months, perhaps as a result of the woe that had weighted her down, she hadn’t put on any more weight, and the special girdle certainly held her belly in quite nicely. The new dress had a smart, casual look to it, and was of a becoming length, so that enough of her legs showed, but not too much. The big hat gave her a slightly flirty, Merry Widow look. The shoes flattered her feet, and set off the whole costume with a bit of zip. She tried a silver fox fur, decided it was right, and wore it. In truth, although she didn’t look quite as she imagined she did, she looked rather interesting. She looked like a successful woman of business, with the remains of a rather seductive figure, a face of little distinction but considerable authority, a credit to the curious world that had produced her, Southern California.
It didn’t suit her plans to have Tommy along, so she stepped into the car herself and was pleased at the expert way she handled it. She went zipping over the bridge to Pasadena, from the traffic circle down Orange Grove Avenue. When she got to the Beragon mansion, Monty was sitting on the steps waiting for her. She went roaring up the drive, stopped in front of him, said “Well!” and held out her hand. He took it, then jumped in beside her. Both were smiling, but a little pang shot through her at the change in him. He wore slacks, but they were cheap and unpressed. His bald spot was bigger; it had grown from the size of a quarter to the size of a big silver dollar. He was thin and lined, and had a brooding, hangdog look that was very different from the jaunty air he had once had. As to how she looked, he made no comment, and indeed indulged in no personal talk of any kind. He said he wanted her to see a place in the Oak Knoll section, quite decent, very reasonable. Would she care to drive over there? She said she’d love to.
By the time they had looked at places in the Oak Knoll section, the Altadena section, and the South Pasadena section, and nothing quite suited her, he seemed a little irritated. From the glib way he quoted prices, she knew he had called up the agents, in spite of her telling him not to, and that he would get a little split if she bought. But she paid no attention, and around five headed for Orange Grove Avenue again, to bring him home. Rather curtly, he said good-bye, and got out, and started inside, and then, as a sort of afterthought, stood waiting for her to leave. Pensively, she sat at the wheel, looking at the house, and then she cut the motor, got out, and stood looking at it. Then she let a noisy sigh escape her, and said, “Beautiful, beautiful!”
“It could be, with a little money spent on it.”
“Yes, that’s what I mean... What do they want for it, Monty?”
For the first time that afternoon, Monty really looked at her. All the places he had taken her to had been quoted around $10,000: evidently it hadn’t occurred to him she could possibly be interested in this formidable pile. He stared, then said: “Year before last, seventy-five flat — and it’s worth every cent of it. Last year, fifty. This year, thirty, subject to a lien of thirty-one hundred for unpaid taxes — all together around thirty-three thousand dollars.”
Mildred’s information was that it could be had for twenty-eight and a half, plus the tax lien, and she noted ironically that he was a little better salesman than she had given him credit for. However, all she said was: “Beautiful, beautiful!” Then she went to the door, and peeped in.
It had changed somewhat since her last visit, that night in the rain. All the furniture, all the paintings, all the rugs, all the dust cloths, were gone, and in places the paper hung down in long strips. When she tiptoed inside, her shoes gritted on the floor, and she could hear gritty, hesitant echoes of her steps. Keeping up a sort of self-conscious commentary, he led her through the first floor, then up to the second. Presently they were in his own quarters, the same servants’ apartment he had occupied before. The servants’ furniture was gone, but in its place were a few oak pieces with leather seats, which she identified at once as having come from the shack at Lake Arrowhead. She sat down, sighed, and said it certainly would feel good to rest for a few minutes. He quickly offered tea, and when she accepted he disappeared into the bedroom. Then he came out and asked: “Or would you like something stronger? I have the heel of a bottle here.”
“I’d love something stronger.”
“I’m out of ice and seltzer, but—”
“I prefer it straight.”
“Since when?”
“Oh, I’ve changed a lot.”
The bottle turned out to be Scotch, which to her taste was quite different from rye. As she gagged over the first sip he laughed and said: “Oh, you haven’t changed much. On liquor I’d say you were about the same.”
“That’s what you think.”
He checked this lapse into the personal, and resumed his praise of the house. She said: “Well you don’t have to sell me. I’m already sold, if wanting it is all. And you don’t have to sit over there yelling at me, as though I was deaf. There’s room over here, isn’t there?”
Looking a little foolish, he crossed to the settee she was occupying. She took his little finger, tweaked it. “You haven’t even asked me how I am, yet.”
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Then that’s that.”
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Then that’s that.”
She tweaked his little finger again. He drew it away and said: “You know, gentlemen in my circumstances don’t have a great deal of romance in their lives. If you keep this up, you might find yourself the victim of some ravening brute, and you wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“Oh, being ravened isn’t so bad.”
He looked away quickly and said: “I think we’ll talk about the house.”
“One thing bothers me about it.”
“What’s that?”
“If I should buy it, as I’m half a mind to, where would you be? Would there be a brute ravening around somewhere, or would I have it all to myself?”
“It would be all yours.”
“I see.”
She reached again for his finger. He pulled it away before she caught it, looking annoyed. Then, rather roughly, he put his arm around her. “Is that what you want?”
“H’m-h’m.”
“Then that’s that.”
But she had barely settled back when he took his arm away. “I made a slight mistake about the price of this house. To you, it’s twenty-nine thousand, five hundred, and eighty. That’ll square up a little debt I owe you, of five hundred and twenty dollars, that’s been bothering me for quite some time.”
“You owe me a debt?”
“If you try, I think you can recall it.”
He looked quite wolfish, and she said “Booh!” He laughed, took her in his arms, touched the zipper on the front of her dress. Some little time went by, one half of him, no doubt, telling him to let the zipper alone, the other half telling him it would be ever so pleasant to give it a little pull. Then she felt her dress loosen, as the zipper began to slide. Then she felt herself being carried. Then she felt herself, with suitable roughness, being dumped down on the same iron bed, on the same tobacco-laden blankets, from which she had kicked the beach bag, years before, at Lake Arrowhead.