CHAPTER NINE

Not long afterward a situation in the M.A.N. office began to monopolize Grace's conversations with her most intimate friends. "You know--how--I worry," was the prefix they had learned to recognize when she was determined to make them share her troubles. And Grace was worried.

A man named Graves had arrived from the coast by order of Mr. Meiselson, who was president of the M.A.N. Mr. Graves had distinguished himself, as everyone knew, by being the only sober press agent at a luncheon for a women's committee in the coast studio. This was his reward. He came East bearing the title of supervisor of both the New York and the Hollywood publicity offices. Roy Williams had always understood that this was his position; now Graves became suddenly his superior. Everyone saw how it would go. The M.A.N. was never satisfied merely to fire; it liked to prepare its victims for firing. First Roy Williams had been denuded of his title; by spring his private office had been taken away from him and turned over to Graves. While he was still deciding whether, for the sake of prestige, it would not be best to resign, his duties were being snatched from him one by one; soon his very typewriter itself would vanish, and finally his salary.

Small whirlpools of disquiet, expansions of the central whirlpool, swirled about each of the desks in the outer room. Each wondered who would be sucked in and who would be left. Grace had been favored so much by Roy Williams that she feared she would be counted among his retainers, and it is well known what happens to the friends of the old régime when the new assumes power. She tried hard to maintain her neutrality, being docile and sympathetic with Roy Williams; pliant, serious, and intelligent with Mr. Graves.

Her attitude seemed to work. Graves did not like Mr. Colton, who handled the daily newspapers and fan magazines. When it came time to herald the arrival of a newly risen star he ignored Colton, to whom the job properly belonged, detached Roger Darray from the press books and Grace from her women's features, and assigned them both to Nola Winter.

Nola Winter was a fledgling star, still warm from the incubator. The Broadway opening of her latest picture and her rumored engagement to a famous movie actor had given the M.A.N. sufficient warrant to send her on her first trip East. She was traveling in style, chaperoned, groomed, and stateroomed, to be housed at the Ritz, to be wined and dined and properly introduced to the fan writers, i.e., the public. Mr. Graves himself had caught an earlier train to meet the Twentieth Century and ride down with her. It was the first important effort that had been required of him in New York--a trial of himself as well as of Grace and Roger Darray.

With his last-minute instructions still buzzing in their ears, Grace and Roger walked over to Grand Central. The pavements were caked with summer heat. Underneath a topcoat of somnolence, the air burned with a peculiar, needlelike brilliance. Ordinarily they would have been placid; little could go wrong in a routine arrangement like this. The New York public, represented by the city editors, was as anxious to hear from a pretty new movie actress who might be engaged to Adam Jennifer as Nola Winter was to be heard from. They could be almost certain of making the afternoon papers--with pictures--and all one needed to attract a joyful greeting crowd in a station was a group of cameras. However, even the countenance of Roger, a blank and solemn individual, reflected the tremors of excitement with which Mr. Graves had infected them.

"I hope he doesn't--expect us to meet her waving aloft the keys of the city, the way they do in California," said Grace nervously.

Roger attempted a polite answer which trailed off into murmurs. He kept a slight space between them, while at crossings he gave a start, touched her elbow with his hand, then hastily released it. Grace could barely repress a smirk, thinking of how afraid of her and embarrassed with her Roger Darray always was. She had once tried to attach him, just before his marriage--not very urgently, to be sure, but so as to keep her hand in--and he had never forgotten how nearly, according to Grace, he had "fallen" for her. He always gave her the impression of restraining himself from "falling" even now, a fact which added to her complacent amusement.

They found one cub reporter lounging at the gate with his press card nonchalantly stuck in the band of his hat. More appeared within the interval--all they hoped for: a couple of newspapermen in the twisted soft hats that seem best to conform to the reportorial head; a girl whom Grace knew, wearing spectacles and carrying a book into which, detaching herself from the proceedings, she at once plunged; photographers, a raft of them, bristling with the legs of cameras, some with their caps reversed so that the visors slouched on the napes of their necks. Grace saw with satisfaction that, apart from the groups of welcoming friends who stared at them curiously, growing numbers of people paused in their business and, as if under a spell, without reason or real desire of their own, moved closer and closer to the cameras, stopping now and then, turning away, then moving closer and standing, after the manner of their kind, with mouths slightly agape in an attitude of unalterably patient, of mesmerized attention.

As the train came in the stragglers pressed forward upon the flanks of the newspaper party; the latter crushed against, then passed, the gate, while a few station employees thrust out their arms to bar the crowd. In spite of themselves, other people's welcoming friends and the inquisitive bystanders merged, formed a solid, sweating phalanx around the gate. An impressive greeting to Nola Winter!

The platform was all at once black with scurrying figures, porters, trucks of baggage.

Gradually a few spaces of gray stone floor were left visible between feet. The spaces cleared. They widened. They expanded.

"Y'know what stateroom this baby is in?" demanded one of the photographers.

Grace asked Roger. Mr. Graves had neglected to give them the numbers of the car and the stateroom.

"Oh, she'll be along soon. Sure. Sure. Pretty soon," said Roger.

The length of the platform stretched forth longer and longer, duller and duller, barer and barer. It was dark, even damp, but with a density, a monotony of heat which was unendurable. Far at the other end antlike creatures were still hastening through the gate.

The reporters waited in boredom. The newspaper girl, with some aid from the photographers, climbed upon a baggage truck, fanned herself, and swung her legs. "Are you sure she's on this train?" she said suspiciously.

Grace and Roger consulted.

"Perhaps she's missed it or something," said Grace.

"She'd have wired Graves," said Roger. "No. She must be on it. Probably just fixing up--just fixing up."

One of the sections backed off, backed forward. Grace suggested: "Don't you think--it would be wise--to go through the cars?"

Roger's face was grave. "He must know we're waiting," he said. "He did say Grand Central, didn't he? Might have been a mistake there."

They stood looking at each other, Grace with enlarged, troubled eyes, Roger stiff and pale. The platform was wholly empty now. An occasional employee passed, was questioned, shook his head and went away. They had been waiting nearly an hour. Each of the reporters had gone off to telephone and had disappeared. The photographers gave it up, too, and left one by one, gathering up their cameras and mumbling indifferent curses.

"We'd better go back to the office," said Grace finally.

They returned slowly down the endless length of the platform, still gluing their eyes to the train. A sound of movement caused them to turn their heads. Down the steps of a car close to where they had waited so long, a short man in a neat gray suit was ushering two ladies.

It was Mr. Graves.

They halted transfixed. "What in the hell!" said Roger very quietly. They exchanged a quick glance and, bracing themselves, hurried back along the platform. Nola Winter and her mother stood withdrawn, with delicately sniffing nostrils, affecting a self-absorption which did not quite come off, observing in side-long looks, while Mr. Graves received his press agents.

"Where were you?" he addressed Roger.

"Right here," said Roger rigidly.

"You were right here!" repeated Mr. Graves in a strangled voice. He was silent for a few moments, during which he glared at Roger. "Miss Winter and her mother and I," he said, "have been waiting for you fully an hour."

"Where?" said Roger reasonably.

"Where? Where?" burst forth Mr. Graves. "Why, in Miss Winter's stateroom, of course!"

A flash lighted Roger's pale blue eyes; he opened his mouth. Next instant his face was inscrutable.

"We were waiting on the platform with reporters and photographers," he said quietly.

"Why the ---- didn't you bring them to the stateroom, then? Where d'y' think Miss Winter would receive them?"

"On the platform," said Roger calmly. "Photographers can't set up their cameras in staterooms. And," he added, as an afterthought, "you didn't tell us the number of the car."

"Why'n't you look for it, then? Why'n't you find it?"

Roger made no reply.

A colored maid hovered over the car steps, stacking hand luggage.

"You can go back to the office," said Mr. Graves to Roger. "I'll see you later."

Roger swung on his heel and sauntered off.

Grace was white to the lips.

"Do you--need me, Mr. Graves?" she managed to stammer.

He then took notice of her for the first time. He reflected, allowing himself a space for recovery. Nodding at her, he said in a voice still sharp, "Yes. You might as well meet Miss Winter and her mother. You'll be handling her alone now."

Miss Winter was a fragile, languid young girl under a large hat. She bent her head slightly to Grace. Her mother was by turns more condescending and more plaintive. She shook Grace's hand and complained, "We didn't expect to be received like this." Apparently Mr. Graves had not quite mollified them.

Grace moved her deep eyes from Mr. Graves to Mrs. Winter. "Don't you think," she began tentatively, "it will be--better--really to have Miss Winter interviewed at her--hotel? It will be--less wearing for her--perhaps. I could--arrange it very shortly."

"Oh, not to-day," put in Miss Winter. "I'm fah too ti-erd."

"The poor child is tired. There's a porter now, honey. No, Nola must stay in bed to-day," said her mother.

"We'll have to let it go to-day," said Mr. Graves authoritatively.

Grace accompanied them to the taxi, conferring with Mr. Graves. Nola Winter had a luncheon with the fan writers next day. "We'll ask the reporters, too," said Mr. Graves. Grace agreed. At the same time she insinuated that they would perhaps get double publicity by keeping the reporters and the fan writers separate. Privately, she thought Mr. Graves didn't know his business. The reporters would write without being fed, while fan writers required to be fed. In a case like this, where there was the question of an engagement, they might easily get two sets of stories. Since she would be held responsible for the amount of publicity they received or didn't receive, she had to take the trouble to guide Mr. Graves's footsteps. It was decided that Miss Winter's official arrival, for the benefit of the press, would take place to-morrow and the luncheon for the fan writers would be postponed a day. She arranged with mother and daughter to call on them early next morning, bade them pleasant good-byes.

With a great sigh of relief, she headed for the office. Roger Darray's goose was cooked. But not hers--not yet. She was safe.

Roger was sitting by Mr. Colton's desk, smoking cigarettes and recounting their mishap. He had no further need of caution. He knew he would be fired. The whole office knew it. He called to Grace, "How'd you come out?"

Grace approached slowly. "He told me to--handle her alone. I'm--sorry, Roger." She fixed her huge, distressed eyes upon him. She was sorry, very. The loss of a job--especially through no fault of one's own--was a misery completely comprehensible to her. It was a danger which they all shared; her turn might come next.

"I'm--sorry," she said again unhappily. But what could she do?

"It's all right--all right. I guess I'm out," said Roger, without malice.

Colton, who suspected that he also would soon be out, made a helpless grimace and shrugged. "The ---- ----!" he remarked. "So he thought Nola Winter ought to receive reporters and photographers in her stateroom! That's what you gotta take off these bastards who come up from office boys. A hell of a lot they know about this game!"

"What are--your plans, Roger?" asked Grace low.

"Oh, I'll get along. Yes. Yes. I'll get something."

For several minutes they discussed Roger's prospects, jobs they had heard of, openings there might be.

Then Grace returned to her desk and picked up her telephone--it is one of the characteristics of press agents that they are never without a series of phone calls to make. She could not afford to waste any more time on condolences. The Three Cheers Club met at one o'clock and several of her personal plans revolved around it.