We Can't Have Everything Part 46

She was dazed with the shock.

She had been indifferent to the destruction of fortresses and cathedrals--even of Rheims, with its t.i.tanic granite lace. She had read, or might have read, of the airs.h.i.+p that dropped a bomb through the great fresco in Venice where Tiepolo revealed his unequaled mastery of aerial perspective, taking the eye up through the dome and the human witnesses, cloud by cloud, past the hierarchies of angels, past Christ and the Mother of G.o.d, on up to Jehovah himself, bending down from infinite heights. The eternal loss of this picture meant nothing to her. But the destruction of her own recorded smiles and tears and the pretty twistings and turnings of her young body--that was cataclysm.

She was like everybody else, in that no multiplication of other people's torments could be so vivid as the catching of her own thumb in a door.

Kedzie was too crushed to weep. This little personal Pompeii brought to the dust all the palaces and turrets of her hope upon her head. She whispered to Ferriday:

"What are you going to do? Must you make them over again?"

He shook his head. "The Hyperfilm Company will probably shut up shop now."

"And let my pictures die?"

He nodded.

She beckoned him close and clung to him, babbling: "What will become of me? Oh, my poor pictures! My pretty pictures! The company owes me a week's salary. And I had counted on the money. What's to become of me?"

Ferriday resented her eternal use of him for her own advantages. "Why do you appeal to me? Where's your friend Dyckman?"

"I was to see him this evening--dine with him."

"Well, he can build you ten new studios and not feel it. Better ask him to set you up in business."

Kedzie revolted at this, but she had no answer. Ferriday saw the papers folded open at the society pages. He stared at them, at her, then sniffed:

"So that's your new ambition!"

"What?"

"'In the Social World!' You want to get in with that gang, eh? Has Dyckman asked you to marry him?"

"Of course not."

"Well, if he does, don't ever let him take you into his own set."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Just to warn you. Those social worldlings wouldn't stand for you, Anita darling. You can make monkeys of us poor men. But those queens will make a little scared worm out of you and step on you. And they won't stop smiling for one minute."

"Is that so?" Kedzie snarled. There it was again.

The telephone rang. Kedzie answered it. The hall-boy timidly announced:

"Mistoo Dyckman is down year askin' kin he see you. Kin he?"

"Send him up, please," said Kedzie. Then she turned to Ferriday. "He's here--at this hour! I wonder why."

"I'd better slope."

"Do you mind?"

"Not in the least. I'll go up a flight of stairs and take the elevator after His Majesty has finished with it. Good-by. Get busy!"

He slid out, and Kedzie scurried about her primping. The bell rang.

She sent her maid to the door. Dyckman came in. She let him wait awhile--then went to him with an elegiac manner.

She accepted his salute on a martyr-white brow. He said:

"I read about the fire. I was scared to death for you till I learned that all the people were safe. I motored up to see the ruins. Some ruins! Like to see'em?"

"I don't think I could stand the sight of them. They're my ruins, too."

"How so?"

"Because the company won't rebuild or go on, and most of my pictures were destroyed."

"Your pretty, beautiful, gorgeous pictures gone! Oh, G.o.d help us! That's too terrible to believe."

She sighed, "It's true."

"Why, I'd rather lose the Metropolitan Art Gallery than your films.

Can't they be made over?"

"They could, but who's to stand the expense?"

"I will, if you'll let me."

"Mr. Dyckman!"

"I thought we'd agreed that my name was Jim."

"Jim! You would do that for me!"

"Why not?"

"But why so?"

"Because--why, simply--er--it's the most natural thing in the world, seeing that--Well, you're not sitting there pretending that you don't know I love you, are you?"

"Oh dear, oh dear! It's too wonderful to believe, you angel!"

And then for the first time she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him and hugged him, knelt on his lap and clasped him fiercely.

He felt as if a simoom of rapture had struck him, and when she told him a dozen times that she loved him he could think of nothing to say but, "Say, this is great!"

She forgave him the ba.n.a.lity this time. When she had calmed herself a little she said:

"But it would mean a frightful lot of money."

"Whatever it costs, it's cheap--considering this." He indicated her arm about his neck. "I wouldn't let the world be robbed of the pictures of you, Anita, not for any money." He told her to tell Ferriday to make the arrangements and send the estimates to him. And he said, "I won't ask you to quit being photographed, even when we are married."