Having Veda turn into Irving Berlin, with or without a million bucks in the bank, wasn't exactly what Mildred had in mind for her. In her imagination she could see Veda already, wearing a pale green dress to set off her coppery hair, seated at a big piano before a thousand people, grandly crossing her right hand over her left, haughtily bowing to thunderous applause—but no matter. The spirit was what counted. Bert spun her dreams for her, while she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, and Arline poured him more coffee, from a percolator, the way he liked it. It was the middle of the afternoon before Mildred returned to earth, and said suddenly: "Bert, can I ask a favor?"
"Anything, Mildred."
"It's not why I asked you here. I just wanted to tell you about it. I knew you'd want to hear."
"I know why you asked me. Now what is it?"
"I want that piano, at Mom's."
"Nothing to it. They'll be only too glad—"
"No, wait a minute. I don't want it as a gift, nothing like that at all. I just want to borrow it until I can get Veda a piano that—"
"It's all right. They'll—"
"No, but wait a minute. I'm going to get her a piano. But the kind of piano that she ought to have, I mean a real grand, costs eleven hundred dollars. And they'll give me terms, but I just don't dare take on any more debt. What I'm going to do, I'm going to open a special account, down at the bank, and keep putting in, and I know by next Christmas, I mean a year from now, I can manage it. But just now—"
"I only wish I could contribute a little."
"Nobody's asking you to."
Quickly she put her hand over his and patted it. "You've done plenty. Maybe you've forgotten how you gave me the house outright, and everything that went before, but I haven't. You've done your share. Now i't's my turn. I don't mind about that, but I do want them to know, Mom and Mr. Pierce I mean, 'that I'm not trying to get anything from them. I just want to borrow the piano, so Veda can practice at home, and—"
"Mildred."
"Yes?"
"Will you just kindly shut up?"
"All right."
"Everything's under control. Just leave it to me."
So presently, the piano was carted down, and on January 2, Mildred went to the bank and deposited $21, after multiplying carefully, and making sure that $21 a week, at the end of a year, would almost exactly equal $1,100.
Mildred was in such a panic over the bank holiday, as well as other alarms that attended to Mr. Roosevelt's inauguration, that she paid scant attention to anything except her immediate concerns. But when her apprehension slacked off, she began to notice that Monty seemed moody and abstracted, with little of the flippancy that was normally part of him. Then, in a speakeasy one night, the sharp way he glanced at the check told her he didn't have much money with him. Then another night, when he revoked an order for a drink he obviously wanted, she knew he was hard up. But it was Veda who let the cat out of the bag. Walking home from the restaurant one night, she suddenly asked Mildred: "Heard the news?"
"What news, darling?"
"The House of Beragon is ge-finished. It is ffft, fa-downgo-boom, oop-a-doop-whango. Alas it is no more. Pop goes the weasel."
"I've been suspecting something like that."
Mildred said this quickly, to cover the fact that she actually had been told nothing at all, and, for the rest of the walk home was depressed by the realization that Monty had suffered some sort of fantastic reverses without saying a word to her. But soon curiosity got the better of her. She lit a fire in the den, had Veda sit down, and asked for more details. "Well, Mother, I really don't know a great deal about it, except that it's all over Pasadena, and you hardly hear anything else. They had some stock, the Duenna, that's his mother, and the Infanta, that's his sister. Stock in a bank, somewhere in the East. And it was assessable, whatever that means. So when the bank didn't open it was most unfortunate. What is assessable?"
"I heard some talk about it, when the banks were closed. I think it means that if there's not enough money to pay the depositors, then the stockholders have to make it good."
"That's it. That explains about their assets being impounded, and why they've gone to Philadelphia, the Duenna and the Infanta, so papers can't be served on them. And of course when Beragon Brothers, dear old Beragon Brothers, founded in 1893—when they went bust, that didn't help any, either."
"When did that happen?"
"Three or four months ago. Their growers, the farmers that raised the fruit, all signed up with the Exchange, and that was what cooked Monty's goose. He didn't have any bank stock. His money was in the fruit company, but when that folded his mother kicked in. Then when the bank went under she had nothing to kick. Anyway there's a big sign on the lawn, 'For Sale, Owner Must Sacrifice,' and Monty's showing the prospective buyers around."
"You mean their house?"
"I mean their palatial residence on Orange Grove Avenue, with the iron dogs out front and the peacock out behind— but a buyer had better show up pretty soon, or Monty'll be eating the peacock. It certainly looks as though the old buszard will have to go to work."
Mildred didn't know whether she was more shocked at the tale she heard or Veda's complete callousness about it. But one thing was clear: Monty wanted no sympathy from her, so for a time she ate with him, drank with him, and slept with him under the pretense that she knew nothing whatever. But presently the thing became so public, what with pieces in the paper about the sale of his polo ponies, the disappearance of the Cord in favor of a battered little Chevrolet, and one thing and another, that he did begin to talk about it. But he always acted as though this were some casual thing that would be settled shortly, a nuisance while it lasted, but of no real importance. Never once did he let Mildred come close to him in connection with it, pat him on the head, tell him it didn't really matter, do any of the things that in her scheme of life a woman was expected to do under these circumstances. She felt sorry for him, terribly upset about him. And yet she also felt snubbed and rebuffed. And she could never shake off the feeling that if he accepted her as his social equal be would act differently about it.
And then one night she came home to find him with Veda, waiting for her. They were in the den, having a furious argument about polo, which continued after she sat down. It seemed that a new team had been organized, called the Ramblers; that its first game would be at San Diego, and that Monty had been invited to make the trip. Veda, an expert on such matters, was urging him to go. "There'd better be one eight-goal man with that outfit, or they can stop calling it The Ramblers and call it Mussolini Reviewing the Cavalry, because that's what it's going to be all right. Just• a one-way parade of horses, and they won't wake up until the score is about forty to nothing."
"I've got too much to do."
"Such as what?"
"This and that."
"Nothing whatever, if I'm any good at guessing. Monty, you've got to go with them. If you don't, they're sunk. It'll be embarrassing. And they'll simply ruin your horses. After all, they've got some rights."
Polo was a complete mystery to Mildred. How Monty could sell his ponies and still be riding them she couldn't understand, and chiefly she couldn't understand why he was riding them, or anybody was. And yet it tore her heart that he should want to go, and not be able to, and it kept bothering her long after Veda had gone to bed. When he got up to go she pulled him down beside her, and asked: "Do you need money?"
"Oh Lord no!"
His voice, look, and gesture were those of a man pained beyond expression at an insinuation utterly grotesque. But Mildred, nearly two years in the restaurant business, was not fooled. She said: "I think you do."
"Mildred—you leave me without any idea—what to say to you. I've—run into a little bad luck—that's true. My mother has—we all have. But—it's nothing that involves— small amounts. I can still—hold up my end of it—if that's what you're talking about."
"I want you to p
lay in that game."
"I'm not interested."
"Wait a minute."
She found her handbag, took out a crisp $20 bill. Going over to him she slipped it in the breast pocket of his coat. He took it out, with an annoyed grimace, and pitched it back at her. It fell on the floor. She picked it up and dropped it in his lap. With the same annoyed grimace, very much annoyed this time, he picked it up, started to pitch it back at her again, then hesitated, and sat there snapping it between his fingers, so it made little pistol shots. Then, without looking at her: "Well—I'll pay it back."
"That's all right."
"I don't know when—two or three things have to be straightened out first—but it won't be very long. So—if it's understood to be strictly a loan—"
"Any way you want."
That week, with the warm June weather, her business took a sharp drop. For the first time, she had to skip an installment on Veda's piano.
The next week, when he changed his mind about going to a speakeasy that he liked, she slipped $10 into his pocket, and they went. Before she knew it, she was slipping him $10's and $20's regularly, either when she remembered about it, or he stammeringly asked her if he could tap her for another small loan. Her business continued light, and when the summer bad gone, she had managed to make only three deposits on the piano, despite hard scrimping. She was appalled at the amount of money he cost, and fought off a rising irritation about it. She told herself it wasn't his fault, that he was merely going through what thousands of others had already gone through, were still going through. She told herself it was her duty to be helping somebody, and that it might as well be somebody that meant something to her. She also reminded herself she had practically forced the arrangement on him. It was no use. The piano had become an obsession with her by now, and the possibility that it was slipping away from her caused a baffled, frustrated sensation that almost smothered her.
And she was all too human, and the cuts she had received from him demanded their revenge. She began to order him around: timid requests that he haul Veda to Mr. Hannen's, so she wouldn't have to take the bus, now became commands; she curtly told him when he was to show up, when he was to be back, whether he was to have his dinner at the restaurant or at the house, and when she would join him afterwards. In a hundred small ways she betrayed that she despised him for taking her money, and on his side, he did little to make things better. Monty, alas, was like Bert. A catastrophic change had taken place in his life, and he was wholly unable to adjust himself to it. In some way, indeed, he was worse off than Bert, for Bert lived with his dreams, and at least they kept him mellow. But Monty was an amateur cynic, and cynics are too cynical to dream. He had been born to a way of life that included taste, manners, and a jaunty aloofness from money, as though it were beneath a gentleman's notice. But what he didn't realize was that all these things rested squarely on money: it was the possession of money that enabled him to be aloof from it. For the rest, his days were dedicated to play, play on which the newspapers cast a certain agreeable' importance, but play nevertheless. Now, with the money gone, he was unable to give up the old way of life, or find a new one. He became a jumble of sorry fictions, an attitude with nothing behind it but pretense. He retained something that he thought of as his pride, but it had no meaning, and exhibited itself mainly in mounting bitterness toward Mildred. He carped at her constantly, sneered at her loyalty to Mr. Roosevelt, revealed that his mother knew the whole Roosevelt family, and regarded Franldin Delano as a phony 'and a joke. His gags about the Pie Wagon, once easily patronizing and occasionally funny, took on a touch of malice, and Veda, ever fashionable, topped them with downright insolence. The gay little trio wasn't quite so gay.
And then one night in the den, when Mildred tucked another $20 into his pocket, he omitted his usual mumble about paying it back. Instead, he took out the bill, touched his forelock with it, and said: "Your paid gigolo thanks you."
"I don't think that was very nice."
"It's true, isn't it?"
"Is that the only reason you come here?"
"Not at all. Come what may, swing high, swing low, for better or for worse, you're still the best piece of tail I ever had, or ever could imagine."
He got this off with a nervous, rasping little laugh, and for a few seconds Mildred felt prickly all over, as though the blood were leaving her body. Then her face felt hot, and she became aware of a throbbing silence that had fallen between them. Sheer pride demanded that she say something, and yet for a time she couldn't. Then, in a low, shaking voice, she said: "Monty, suppose you go home."
"What's the matter?"
"I think you know."
"Well, by all that's holy, I don't know!"
"I told you to go."
Instead of going, he shook his head, as though she were incredibly obtuse, and launched into a dissertation on the relations between the sexes. The sense of it was that as long as this thing was there, everything was all right; that it was the strongest bond there was, and what he was really doing, if she only had sense enough to know it, was paying her a compliment. What she really objected to was his language, wasn't it? If he had said it flowery, so it sounded poetic, she would have felt differently, wouldn't she?
But every moment or two he gave the same nervous, rasping laugh, and again she was unable to speak. Then, gathering herself with an effort, she rose to one of her rare moments of eloquence. "If you told me that, and intended it as a compliment, it might have been one, I don't know. Almost anything is a compliment, if you, mean it. But when you tell me that, and it's the only thing you have to tell me, then it's not a compliment. It's the worst thing I ever had said to me in my life."
"Oh, so you want the I-love-you scene."
"I want you to go."
Hot tears started to her eyes, but she winked them back. He shook his head, got up, then turned to her as though he had to explain something to a child. "We're not talking about things. We're talking about words. I'm not a poet. I don't even want to be a poet. To me, that's just funny. I say something to you my own way, and wham you go moral on me. Well what do I do now? It's a pure question of prudery, and—"
"That's a lie."
Her lungs were filling with breath now, so much that she felt it would suffocate her. Her face screwed up into the squint, and the glittering tears made her eyes look hard, cold, and feline. She sat perfectly still, her legs crossed, and looked at him, where he stood facing her on the other side of the room. After a long pause she went on, in a passionate, trembling voice. "Since you've known me, that's what I've been to you, a piece of tail. You've taken me to mountain shacks and back-street speakeasies, you've never introduced me to your friends——except for a few men you've brought over to dinner sometimes—or your mother, or your sister, or any member of your family. You're ashamed of me, and now that you're in my debt, you had to say what you just said to me, to get even. It's not a surprise to me. I've known it all along. Now you can go."
"None of that is true."
"Every word of it is true."
"So far as my friends go—"
"They mean nothing to me."
"—It hadn't occurred to me you'd care to meet any of them. Most of them are dull, but if meeting them means anything to you, that's easy fixed. So far as my mother goes—"
"She means nothing to me either."
"—So far as my mother goes, I can't do anything about her now, because she's away, and so is my sister. But you may have forgotten that with this restaurant of yours you keep somewhat peculiar hours. To have arranged a meeting would have been idiotically complicated, so I did the best I could. I took your daughter over there, and if you knew anything about social conventions at all, you'd know that I was dealing in my own way with what otherwise would have been a situation. And certainly my mother took all the interest in Veda she could be expected to take—a little more interest than you seemed to be taking, I sometimes thought."
"—I didn't complain on that score."
In her heart, Mildred knew that Monty was being as dishonest about Veda as he was being about the rest of it. Obviously, he liked Veda, and found her an amusing exhibit to drag around, no doubt because she was precisely the kind of snob that he was• himself, and that most of his friends were. And also, by doing so much for the child, he could neatly sidestep the necessity of doing anythin'g about the mother. But to argue about it would jeopardize the enchanted life that Veda now led, so Mildred veered off in a new direction. "Monty, why don't you tell the truth? You look down on me because I work."
"Are you crazy?"
"No. You look down on everybody that works, as you practically admitted to me the first night I was with you. All right, I work. It's nOt at all elegant work, but it's the only work I can do. I cook food and sell it. But one thing you'd better get through your head sooner or later: You'll have to go to work—"
"Of course I'm going to work!"
"Ha-ha. When?"
"As soon as I get the damned house sold, and this mess straightened out that we've got ourselves into. Until that's over, work, for me, is out of the question. But as soon as it's over—"
"Monty, you just make me laugh. I used to be married to a real-estate company, and there's no use trying to kid me about houses, and how to get rid of them. There's nothing about that place that can't be put in the hands of an agent, and handled like any other. No, it's not that. You'd rather live there, so you can, have an address on Orange Grove Avenue, and cook your own eggs in the morning, and drive over to the club in the afternoon, and have your dinner here with Veda, and take your spending money from me— than work. That's all, isn't it?"
"Sure."
His face broke into a sunny smile, he came over, roughly pushed her into a little heap, took her in his arms. "I don't know anybody I'd rather take money from than you. Your paid gigolo is damned well satisfied."