Two Flights Up (19 page)

“Why shouldn’t I?” he said. “He did me a favour when I’ll tell the world I needed it. And I had a talk with him to-day. We’ll have Warrington, too.”

“You’ve got something in your mind. What is it?”

“You leave that to me, my girl,” he told her.

“He’ll never go into the store.”

“Who said he was going into the store?” James demanded. “You get out that clover-leaf design I sent up the other day and attend to your job. I’ll attend to mine.”

Mr. Steinfeldt came. He drank the cocktail James shook up for him, praised the dinner, and even noticed the tablecloth.

“One of our patterns, isn’t it?” he asked. And James glowed.

“It is,” he said. “You can’t beat us for linens, Mr. Steinfeldt. Quality
and
looks.”

Mr. Steinfeldt sat back at last, and lighting a cigar, gazed with approval at Holly.

“Well, young lady!” he said. “And the last time I saw you, you were trying to make out you wanted to go to jail! And I didn’t believe you, did I? We put in that nice young man beside you, instead!” He eyed her shrewdly. “And because he was a gentleman, he said nothing and went, eh? It was a very fine thing to do.”

“A very fine thing,” said Holly unsteadily.

“And now,” said Mr. Steinfeldt, leaning back comfortably, “if I was a young lady, and a young gentleman did a thing like that for me, a nice personable young man too, I would think: ‘I better make up to him, somehow.’ What do you think?”

“Maybe he doesn’t want me to,” said Holly, her face scarlet.

Suddenly Margaret got up. “I think,” she said, “if you are ready for your coffee—”

But nobody else moved. James sat complacently back in his chair, and Warrington faced Mr. Steinfeldt, his hand closing over Holly’s as he spoke.

“That’s not the question, Holly,” he said steadily. “It it’s a question of wanting—” He released her hand again and addressed Mr. Steinfeldt. “I hadn’t expected the thing to be brought up like this,” he said, “but since it has—”

Mr. Steinfeldt beamed.

“Since it has, we might as well go through with it. Holly here knows I—care for her. I always have, since I’ve known her. I always will. There can never be anybody else. But I’m not in a position to marry, and I don’t know when I will be. She can do better, and I think she should.”

Mr. Steinfeldt looked at Margaret, standing outraged and disapproving at the end of the table.

“Sit down, Mrs. Cox,” he said. “Why hurry and spoil a good meal? I might get indigestion and forget what I came to say.”

But he did not forget what he had come to say. Leaning over the table now, his keen face alert, ashes over the front of his coat, he put his proposition. He didn’t think much of the bond business, either way; nothing in it for the salesman, and too little for the investor. Give him good common stock, every day in the week. But he knew a good house which needed a manager for the bond department, and he could land that job for Warrington, and would, on one condition.

“And that condition?” Warrington asked, none too steadily.

“They’d kinda like a married man,” said Mr. Steinfeldt, and, leaning back again, bit off the end of a fresh cigar.

There was silence in the room. James still sat back, faintly smiling. Honest James—wily James, crafty James. Margaret’s eyes being off him, he furtively took a bit of cake and gave it to the dog, underneath the tablecloth.

“Sounds like a nice easy condition to me,” he observed.

Warrington sat very still. Then he reached over and gently took Holly’s hand once more.

“I’ll take your position, Mr. Steinfeldt,” he said huskily, “if the young lady here will take your advice.”

And then Mr. Steinfeldt proved himself to be truly a diplomat. He removed his napkin, quality
and
looks, from its anchorage in a buttonhole of his waistcoat, pushed back his chair and rose.

“It’s a fine house you’ve got here, Cox,” he said. “Maybe Mrs. Cox and you would show me around a bit. After you, Mrs. Cox.”

They went out, and the door closed. Warrington watched them go, and then turned and took Holly in his arms.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1928 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.

Copyright © 1926 by the Consolidated Magazine Corporation (The Red Book Magazine).

Cover design by Kathleen Lynch

This 2013 edition distributed by MysteriousPress.com/Head of Zeus

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781784088156

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