Professional Lover Part 6

9

Starr had never felt more miserable in her life than she was feeling at that moment. The fact that she knew she had brought most of the misery upon herself didn't help matters. If anything it aggravated it. To begin with, she had lost her job. That hurt intolerably. It spelt failure. And failure to anyone as ambitious as Starr was very bitter. Besides, there was the financial aspect.

She had saved no money and, owing to the depression, jobs, any jobs, were few and far between. This apartment was expensive, and she had several sizable bills overdue. And to make matters worse, she was in bed with a mild attack of grippe. That, also, was her fault. If she had pocketed her pride and driven back with Rex Brandon that night she wouldn't have had grippe. Incidentally she might have felt more kindly disposed towards him and not written that article. And then she wouldn't have lost her job. Somehow, after two days, she couldn't even feel very proud of that article. In fact whenever she thought of it she felt both hot and cold, with a queer stinging humiliation. It had been mean and malicious without even wit to recommend it. She kept wondering what Rex himself had thought about it. "Though I don't care," she told herself angrily. "I only hope he is furious!"

It was queer how, despite her dislike of him, the thought of Rex Brandon obsessed her. "But that's because I've never met a man I loathe so much," she a.s.sured herself repeatedly.

She hadn't heard from Stephen since that night. And this hurt, though she wouldn't admit it.

He might have sent her a line telling her that everything was all right. She supposed now he had got his wife back he had no thoughts to spare for her. Oh, well, she had expected that. But just one little line of appreciation...

She sniffed audibly and turned over on the narrow divan bed. It served as a couch during the daytime, with a black cover and multicolored satin cus.h.i.+ons. Now they lay all about her on the floor, vivid splotches of color on the plain gray carpet.

She wished she had enough energy to get up and make herself a cup of tea. She had been dying for one for the past hour. But there was that rotten pain in her back. If only the janitor's wife would come! She had promised to look in this afternoon. But it seemed, when you were sick and couldn't do anything for yourself, no one else had time to do anything for you. And when you were up and about, everyone fell over themselves to do things you could just as easily have done for yourself!

A knock on the door at last. Mrs. Green had come, after all. A little late, but invalids mustn't grumble.

"Do come in, Mrs. Green," she called without looking round. "I'm longing for that cup of tea. You will make me one, won't you?"

"Of course, only too delighted to make you a cup of tea," came a man's laughing voice. "It doesn't matter that I'm not Mrs. Green, does it?"Starr almost fell out of bed with astonishment. She knew that voice! How well she knew it!

That deep, slightly humorous voice that hundreds of microphones throughout the whole world were reproducing at that very moment.

"Why have you come here?" she managed to stammer.

"Intuition, my dear," that deep husky voice went on. "I must have known you needed me!"

"Oh..." Starr gasped. She turned fiercely around. The man half the women in the world adored stood looking down at her from the doorway with a crooked, slightly quizzical smile on his lean, attractive face.

"What are you doing here?" Starr demanded tersely.

"Doing?" He c.o.c.ked one eyebrow at her quizzically. "Nothing at the moment, though I'm hoping to be permitted to make you a cup of tea. The great Rex Brandon in his leisure moments! His chief hobby tea*making for pretty, bed*ridden admirers... oh, I beg your pardon, you're scarcely an admirer, are you?"

Starr ignored his banter and repeated, "Why have you come?"

He lit a cigarette leisurely and continued to smile down at her in that irritating, maddening way he could adopt on occasion. "Remember I promised myself the pleasure of this reunion.

Besides, I have a proposition to put to you. Quite an honorable proposition, you'll be surprised to hear! But that can wait. Tea's indicated, isn't it? I gather I boil up this kettle and find the tea in the boot cupboard, behind the bookcase, or in some equally unlikely place, eh?"

"For the great Rex Brandon you seem to know quite a lot about living in one room," she couldn't resist remarking.

"Of course," he smiled easily. "Before Rex Brandon became the great he lived for some years in a small one*room apartment not unsimilar to this. That was when I first went on the stage. I acted for an Art Theater movement. Distinctly not commercial, you understand, and it certainly wasn't! The producer carefully selected those plays most unlikely to appeal to the public. Sometimes I received a salary at the end of the week, sometimes I didn't. Still one tightens one's belt and concentrates on ART, spelled with capitals, please. One is fortunate to be able to a.s.sist a GREAT MOVEMENT, also spelled with capitals. One feels one is making a protest against the spirit of big business which has invaded the theater.... But after appealing to people's higher instincts for a couple of years I was darned glad to get a small part in a play which appealed decidedly to their lower ones! I was fairly successful in appealing to their lower instincts."

"You've been doing that ever since, haven't you?" Starr laughed back at him.

His blue*gray eyes twinkled.

"Since you say so. My chief regret is that you appear to have no lower instincts to appeal to.

What about tea?"

It is hard to be cold and standoffish with a man who seats himself on the end of your divan bed and proceeds to drink very strong tea and eat large quant.i.ties of very sticky buns with a child's enthusiastic appet.i.te. Especially when you're enjoying the same tea and you have him to thank for it!

"What is this proposition you want to put to me?" she asked curiously.

"I've come to ask you to be my secretary," he replied. "You see," he went on quickly, "I hear you got the push from your paper. You don't mind my knowing that, do you?"A hot color rushed to Starr's cheeks. She minded very much his knowing that. Especially since he knew the cause of her dismissal!

"Your secretary?" she stammered in the pause.

"Yes, since that article you wrote I've had so much extra fan mail that I find I do need a permanent secretary. And who more eligible for the task than she who made the post necessary?" he laughed. "By the way, I have to thank you for that article. So many women are writing indignant protests to me! You couldn't have thought out a better stunt to wedge me more firmly into their affections! Just let one person fling abuse at you, and suddenly you discover how many admirers you really have! I tell you it was a revelation. Besides, it was most flattering."

"I'm glad it hasn't ... harmed you." Starr brought it out with difficulty.

He put his cup on the floor and turned towards her. Momentarily his blue*gray eyes were grave. "My dear child, did you mean it to?"

Starr gulped suddenly. It infuriated her that she should, but she did.

"Yes, I did," she admitted.

There was a pause. She felt his eyes rest on her face with a strange, probing intensity. "At least, I'm glad you're honest," he said quietly. 'Now what about my proposition?"

"You mean you still want me to be your secretary?" she asked in amazement.

He got up off the bed and stood looking down at her, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, that twinkle showing again in his blue*gray eyes. "Yes, I do, though I'm darned if I know why I should! Can you enlighten me? But, of course, you can't, any more than I can enlighten myself. That's the devil of it. All the same I should like you to be my secretary, and I'm prepared to pay you three thousand dollars a year. How about it?"

"That is a very generous salary," Starr said slowly. "When I was Mr. Desmond's secretary I received just half that amount.'

"Ah, but the extra salary is because you'll be working under very exceptional circ.u.mstances.

Employers have to pay highly for that, you know."

She looked up at him inquiringly. "What exceptional circ.u.mstances?"

He grinned crookedly and s.h.i.+fted his weight from his left to his right foot. "Working under an employer you despise, dislike, and distrust.... If those aren't exceptional circ.u.mstances, I don't know what are!"

She sat straight up in bed. "You realize all that and yet you offer me this job?"

"Why not? It should be an amusing experiment. Besides, I don't really mind being disliked, I get so much of the other thing."

"Oh, conceited, insufferably conceited," Starr thought fiercely. Yet she couldn't quite convince herself. There was that twinkle in his blue*gray eyes. And then, suddenly, the twinkle was gone. He lowered his voice and said with genuine sympathy, "I am sorry you lost your job on the paper. That must have hurt."

For no accountable reason Starr suddenly found tears were stinging the back of her eyeb.a.l.l.s.

She hated to admit even to herself how much losing her job on the paper hurt. But to be forced into admitting it to this man was intolerable."What's one job?" She forced a light laugh. 'There are always plenty of others."

He shook his head slowly, and a rather tender smile played about his slightly crooked lips.

"You don't think that really. To lose any job spells failure, and we're all sufficiently conceited to hate admitting failure. In love as well as business, you know."

But Starr hadn't heard the last part of his remark. An idea had suddenly occurred to her. An idea that made her burn with an intense mortification.

"You're not offering me this job because... you're sorry for me?" she gasped out with difficulty.

He looked surprise. "Sorry for you? Why should I be sorry for you?"

"Well, because I lost my job over that article," she stammered in confusion.

He shook his head slowly. "No, Starr. I'm not so altruistic, I'm afraid. I should have wanted you as my secretary whether you'd lost your job or not. Only * I don't suppose I could have persuaded you if you hadn't, could I?"

"You think you can persuade me now?"

"I believe I can."

"Even though, as you say, I * I dislike you?"

His smile twisted. "Isn't 'hate' nearer the mark Starr?" There was a faintly wistful note in his voice, but he tried to crush it down.

The color flooded her face again. She turned her head aside swiftly.

"Perhaps it is." But her voice was tremulous.

"That's better," he said.

She turned towards him again, her eyes opened wide in astonishment. "Why better?"

He was smiling again, the attractive lopsided smile the women adored. "So much more flattering to be hated by a pretty girl, don't you think? 'Dislike' is such a cold term. Like a clammy rainy day, but 'hate' has the fire and vivid suns.h.i.+ne of the south in it. By the way, we will be going south soon. To Agua Caliente. They're shooting some of the scenes for my new picture down there. We leave on Sunday * that will give you three days in which to recover. I have your ticket, by the way."

"You were so sure I'd accept?" she gasped in amazement.

"So sure!" He grinned and added, "There's an affinity between love and hate, my dear. In both cases you invariably crave to keep close to the person involved. Both are diseases. I don't know which is the least dangerous!" And bending down swiftly, he took her thin white hand off the coverlet and kissed it.

Starr's cheeks flamed. Insolence in the gesture. Yet there was tenderness, too. And a queer humility that touched her. Because of this she forced a laugh. "I'm honored... the great Rex Brandon!"

He bowed mockingly. "The great Rex Brandon at your service." Then, ceasing to smile, he added two words, "always, dear."

10

The hot spring suns.h.i.+ne was like molten gold poured upon everything. The flowers were riotous, vivid splotches of color against plain creamy walls. The sea was a curve of purest blue and purple; gold when at evening the sun dipped into it.

Starr stood on the balcony of the hotel and thought, "This is paradise, surely!"

She had never been out of the States before. Here she felt anything could happen. Surely in this exotic atmosphere you could do the mad exciting things you only dream about in the States? And down here it didn't seem so strange she should be the secretary of the one man in the world she most hated and despised.

She had a bedroom and office adjoining. But she found there wasn't much to do. A morning's hard work would clean up the mail. Besides, Rex was too busy on the new picture to do much dictating. All day long the company worked on the improvised sets which had been hastily constructed. Nights he would spend memorizing his lines. Sometimes he would ask Starr to hear him. This excursion was scarcely in the nature of a holiday for him.

Stephen Desmond was here, too, directing the picture. Both men tried to keep the hostility between them out of their business relations.h.i.+p. While they were working on the lot they pulled together. But, apart from that, they rarely spoke. Rex knew Stephen thought him a cad.

And while this distressed him considerably, it was impossible to offer any explanation that might satisfy Stephen without giving Rita away. Rita was in Hollywood. That, at least, Rex was grateful for.

It was some days after they were down here that Stephen and Starr actually met. She was standing on the balcony of the hotel when she saw him coming up the broad stone steps; steps banked by a trellis of deep mauve wisteria with painted tubs of roses dispersed at regular intervals up the bal.u.s.trade. They made the air heady with perfume. She caught her breath sharply and thought, "How well he looks. Better than I've seen him looking for months." As though the old Stephen Desmond had come to life again. He walked with bold, eager strides; his nice, good*looking face was bronzed. There were eagerness, enthusiasm in his deep*set brown eyes. How glad she was! And yet a tiny ache crept into her heart. Surely it was having Rita back that had wrought this transformation? The sure knowledge that her affair with Rex Brandon was a thing of the past?

Would he be surprised to see her down here? Starr wondered. What would he say when he knew she was Rex's secretary?

He was surprised. Also he was delighted.

"Why, Starr, what are you doing here?" he exclaimed. He held out both his hands to her, grasping hers in a firm, friendly grip."I'm here on a job, Mr. Desmond," she told him. But a thrill of pleasure shot through her, and she laughed to hide her embarra.s.sment. He had called her Starr!

"Stephen, please," he corrected, and added with that nice, friendly smile of his, "Remember we're friends. More, we're allies. But it's swell seeing you here. You're not connected with the new picture by any chance?"

"In a way," she told him. She paused a moment, and a tiny embarra.s.sed flush crept to her cheeks. "I'm Mr. Brandon's secretary."

He started, obviously. And despite himself his face clouded.

"Rex's secretary! You, Starr! I * I can't understand it. You don't mean to tell me..." * he laughed, but his laugh didn't quite come off * "You've gone over to the enemy, too?"

Her flush deepened; her voice was unsteady. "It isn't a question of that. I * I was out of a job and Mr. Brandon offered me this one. It was really too good an offer to refuse."

"But if you were out of a job why didn't you come to me?"

"I didn't think you'd want me again," she said hesitantly. "Not after I left you as I did a year ago."

"Not want you again!" His deep, pleasant voice sounded shocked. "But, Starr, I've never ceased wanting you ever since you left me." His face colored, and he added hastily, "As my secretary, I mean."

"Oh, yes, as your secretary," Starr echoed. But her voice which had been so alive was suddenly dead.

"I've been needing you badly," he went on presently. "No one has been such a help to me as you were. I never realized how much of my success I owed to you until you left me. And to think I might have had you back! Especially at this time when I'm at my wit's end for intelligent help. This picture is going to be the very devil, I'm afraid."

"Couldn't I help you in the evenings?" she suggested tentatively. "I'm quite free then."

His grip on her hands tightened. Queerly neither seemed to realize that he was still holding her hands. "That's awfully nice of you, but I couldn't think of monopolizing your free time. It wouldn't be fair."

"But I'd like you to," she insisted, and added quickly, "I don't know any way in which I could enjoy myself more."

He laughed. A light laugh in which happiness and satisfaction mingled. "How can you expect me to protest further? When a thirsting man is offered a draft of water he doesn't refuse it. I do need your cooperation, Starr. More than I ever did. You see," * he let go of her hands suddenly, and his lips tightened grimly * "I haven't been doing such good work lately, I'm afraid.

The critics have been noticing it. I've got to come back in this picture. Show 'em what I can really do. You were right in what you said to me that night at the West East Studio party. My career does matter. I mustn't let down now. Not when I'm so near the top of the ladder. I want to make this my finest picture. Will you help me, Starr?"

"Help you, Stephen?" She laughed, a queer, strangled laugh that had tears mixed up in it.

"Why, I'd do anything in the world to help you!"

"Thank you." His voice was low, but suddenly there leaped to his eyes a look she had never seen there before. It startled her. But a moment later she persuaded herself it must have beenher imagination. He was smiling again. That kind, friendly smile she had always a.s.sociated with him.