“Strange.”
Corey swiveled his drink. “Maybe it was one of these women society reporters looking for stuff on your engagement.”
“No, they usually tackle the girl end of it. Marjorie’s people have already given out all the dope there is, anyway. I wonder if it was her?” he said after a moment’s thought.
“Who’s her?”
Bliss grinned. “I haven’t told you, but I think I’ve got a secret admirer. Funny thing happened not long ago. One night when I was out a beautiful girl tried her level best to get into the apartment here. The doorman told me about it afterward. She wouldn’t give her name or anything. He knows most of the crowd I used to hang out with — you know how doormen get after a while — and he was pretty sure he’d never seen her before. She was all togged out in evening clothes, looked like real carriage trade to his practiced eye. But she didn’t drive up to the door, that was the strangest part of it; just came strolling along the street from nowhere, dressed to kill like that.
“He told me she opened her bag, pretending to hunt for a lipstick or something, and let him get a good look at a hundred-dollar bill floating around on top of everything else. And the way she acted gave him a pretty good idea it would have been his for the asking if he’d just opened my door with his passkey and let her in.”
Corey looked skeptical. “You mean a doorman is going to turn down a chance to make a hundred dollars that easy? He’s bulling you.”
“I don’t know about that. The amount is so fantastic in itself that, to me at any rate, it bears the earmark of truth. If he was just making the thing up, he would have been more likely to make it ten or twenty dollars.”
“Well, what’d he do — let her in?”
“I could tell by the way he spoke that the hundred darned near got him; he was just on the point of bringing her up and letting her in. Only he thought he’d better try her out first, see if she really knew me, before he went ahead and admitted her. So he strung her along with a fake description that was just the opposite of mine in every respect, and she fell for it, said yes, that was the man — proving she’d never seen me before in her life.
“That finished it, of course; he was afraid to take a chance after that. He pretended he didn’t have the key or something and eased her out as tactfully as he could. She was too well dressed for him to get snotty with. When she saw it was no go, she just smiled, shrugged and went sauntering down the street again.”
Corey was leaning interestedly forward by this time. “And are you sure you don’t recognize her from his description?”
“Dead sure. And as I just told you, she didn’t recognize me, either.”
“I wonder what she was after?”
“She wasn’t out to clean the apartment, that’s a cinch, because she was willing to pay a hundred dollars just for the privilege of getting in here, and anyone who can get a hundred dollars’ worth out of this place is a magician.”
Corey nodded judicious agreement on that point.
Bliss stood up. “Let’s go.” He smiled nervously. “I like everything about marriage except the functions leading up to it — such as tonight’s.”
“The part I like best,” said Corey, “is not having it happen in the first place.”
They were out in the public hall waiting for the self-service car when a thin, querulous ringing piped up behind a closed door somewhere near by.
Bliss cocked an experienced ear. “Key of G flat. That’s mine. I’d better hop in and take it a minute; it may be Marge.”
He went back to the door, fumbled in his pocket for his key, dropped it, had to stoop to get it. Corey stuck his foot out to hold the car up for them. “Hurry up before somebody gets it away from us,” he urged.
Bliss pitched the door open. The thin wail rose to a full-toned peal, then perversely stopped short and didn’t resume. He backed out again, pulled the door shut after him. “Too late, they’ve quit trying.”
Riding down in the elevator, Corey suggested, “Maybe it was that same mystery dame again.”
“If it was,” Bliss grunted, “whatever it is she wants, she sure wants bad.”
Alone there with Marge, in a little alcove away from the rest of the party, he scratched the back of his neck in pretended perplexity. “Let’s see now, how does this go? I’ve seen enough movies, I ought to have the hang of it. Well, let’s give it the old shut-eye treatment, that’s the safest. Shut your eyes and stick out your finger.”
She promptly hooked her thumb toward him.
He slapped it out of the way. “Not that one. Help a fellow out. I’m so nervous I could—”
“Oh, wrong finger? You should be more specific. How’d I know but what you wanted to bite it or something?”
And then the ring. Their heads drew together, looking down at it; they made a love knot of their four hands. They made nonsensical purrings and cooings and other noises that to them were probably language. Suddenly both became aware of eyes regarding them steadfastly, and they turned their heads in unison toward the doorway. A girl was outlined in it, as motionless as though she had taken root in the floor.
She was in tiered, wide-spreading black, the creamy whiteness of her shoulders rising out of it without any interrupting straps. A gossamer black wimple twinkling with jet was drawn over hair so incredibly yellow it seemed to have been powdered with cornmeal.
A dimple of sympathy — or possibly derision — at the comer of her mouth had disappeared before they could confirm it. “Pardon me,” she said quietly, and moved on.
“What a striking girl!” Marjorie exclaimed involuntarily, continuing to stare at the empty doorway as though hypnotized.
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know. I think I remember her coming in along with Fred Sterling and his party, but if I was introduced, it didn’t take.”
They looked down at the ring once more. But the spell had been broken, their mood was gone, they couldn’t seem to get it back. The room didn’t feel quite as warm as it had. As though that look from the doorway had chilled it.
She shivered, said, “Come on, let’s get back to the others.”
The party was in the homestretch now, and they were dancing, he and she. Those little sketchy turns and fake half steps that are just an excuse to cover up a private conversation.
He said, “Well, let’s take the apartment on Eighty-fourth Street, then. After all, if he’ll give it to us for five dollars less a month like he said... And with the furniture they’re going to give us, we can fix it up to look like something—”
She said: “That girl in black can’t take her eyes off you. Every time I look over there she’s staring at you for all she’s worth. If it was any night but tonight, I might begin to get worried.”
He turned his head. “She isn’t looking at me.”
“She was until I called your attention to it.”
“Who is she, anyway?”
She shrugged. “I thought all along she came with Fred Sterling and his bunch. You know how he always shows up anywhere with a whole posse. But he left quite some time ago and now I see she’s still here. Maybe she decided to stay on alone. Whoever she is, I like the way she handles herself. None of this cheap dazzle stuff. I’ve been watching, she’s had her troubles all evening long, poor thing. Every time she tries to sneak out on the terrace alone, three or four of the men mistake it for a come-on and make a beeline after her. Then a minute later she’ll come in again, usually by the side door, still alone. What she does to get rid of them that fast I don’t know, but she must have it down to a science. They they’ll come slinking in again themselves right afterward, one by one, with that foolish look men have when they’ve been stymied. It’s a regular sideshow.”