Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel

"Good night, my dear."

"I've never tried to kiss you, Linda…"

"And won't, I know, till I want you to."

"Confound you! That's what I get for giving you an opening to put me on my honour."

"It's more than you'd have got – or deserved – if you hadn't."

His lips barely failed to find her hand; Lucinda had drawn away in the nick of time.

"Don't go before you've answered my question, Lynn."

"Question?"

"What I'm to do about these unlucky young women?"

"Hoped you'd forgotten them."

"I can't."

"You've got too soft a heart, I'm afraid, Linda. I don't see why you always let it rule your head – except about me."

"Perhaps it's a good sign, though."

"I'm sure I don't know how to advise you. Obviously you can't turn Linda Lee Inc. into a refuge for misguided females."

"There's one girl in especial I'm worried about, Lynn. She seems so ill and wretched. And even so, she's pretty. I'm sure a little happiness would make her radiant. Why can't we find or make a chance for her somewhere?"

"Once you start that sort of thing, the whole pack will be on your back, they won't give you a minute's peace. But if you insist… What's her type?"

"Olive brune; about my height; and the loveliest, most tragic eyes…"

"Any experience?"

"Yes. She told me she'd been working in the East, but her health broke down and the doctors advised California. She'd been out here before, I gathered, but not in pictures. At least – I'm not sure – that's what I understood. She only got in last night, and they put her at my table in the dining-room, so we met at luncheon today."

"Lost no time boning you for a job – "

"She didn't suggest anything of the sort. I don't believe she's heard yet about my having my own company. All she said was, she hoped she wouldn't have too much trouble finding work, she needed it so desperately."

"Well, since you make a point of it, I'll see what I can do – speak to Zinn about her. What's her name?"

"Miss Marquis – Nelly Marquis, I think she said."

Summerlad had just then opened his cigarette case. After a thoughtful pause he shut it with a snap, neglecting to help himself to a cigarette, and replaced it in his pocket. Then becoming sensible of the query in Lucinda's attitude, he asked in a dull voice: "What name did you say?"

"Nelly Marquis. Why? Do you know her?"

"I know a good deal about her. Rather a bad lot, I'm afraid. Look here, Linda: I wish you'd drop her."

"Don't be stupid, Lynn."

"I'm not. I mean it. I can't very well tell you what I know, but I do wish you'd take my word for it and cut this woman out. She's really not the sort you can afford to get mixed up with."

"You're sure, Lynn? You really want me to understand she is – what you're trying to avoid saying?"

"Yes – and worse. I'm in earnest, Linda. I think you might trust me. After all, I ought to know my way about Hollywood, I've lived in it long enough."

"Of course I trust you, Lynn. I'm sorry though. I felt so sorry for her, she didn't seem one of the usual sort."

"She isn't." Summerlad gave a curt, meaning laugh. "But you said you wanted to get rid of me, and I think I'd better go before the old curiosity gets in its fine work and you ask me questions I wouldn't want to answer."

He possessed himself of Lucinda's hands again and kissed them ardently, while she looked on with lenient eyes, more than half in love already. Why, then, must she persist in hanging fire with him? Was it merely crude, primordial instinct prompting her to withstand the male till his will prevailed? Or was there something wanting in the man, some lack divined by a sense in her subtle, anonymous, and inarticulate?

Infinitely perplexed, Lucinda lingered on where Summerlad had left her, near the far end of the veranda, where it rounded the rotund corner of the hotel. Here there was always shade by day, thanks to a screen of subtropical foliage, by night a deeper gloom than elsewhere on the veranda, and at all times a better show of privacy.

The engine roared as Summerlad's car swung down the drive, then changed its tune to a thick drone as it took the boulevard, heading away for Beverly Hills. Still Lucinda rested as she was, absently observing the play of street lights on leaves whose stir was all but imperceptible in the softly flowing air.

Impossible to understand herself, to read her own heart, make up her mind…

A thin trickle of sound violated the mid-evening hush, a broken and gusty beating of stifled sobs that for a time she heard without attention, then of a sudden identified.

Windows of guest-rooms looked out on the veranda, but Lucinda had made sure these were closed and lightless before permitting Summerlad's wooing to become ardent. The semi-round room on the corner, however, had French windows let in at an angle which she could not see. After a moment she moved quietly to investigate, and discovered that one of these was open, that the sobbing had its source in a shapeless heap upon the floor in the darkness beyond.

Entering and kneeling, Lucinda touched gently the shoulder of the stricken woman. "Please!" she begged. "Can I do anything?"

In a convulsive tremor the woman choked off her sobs and lifted her face to stare vacantly. Enough light seeped in from the street to reveal the features of Nelly Marquis.

Her voice broke huskily on the hush: "Who are you?"

"Miss Lee – Linda Lee. Can't I do something – ?"

With startling fury the girl struck aside Lucinda's hands and at the same time flung herself back and away.

"No!" she cried thickly. "No, no, no! Not you! Go away – please go!"

"I only wanted to help you, if I could," Lucinda explained, getting to her feet. "If you're unhappy – I'm so sorry – "

The movement must have been misinterpreted, for the girl sprang up like a threatened animal.

"I don't want your help!" she stormed throatily. "I don't want anything to do with you – only to be left alone!" She flung herself at Lucinda as if to thrust her out by force. "Go! go! go!" she screamed. Then the window slammed.

"Poor thing!" Lucinda told herself – "she must have heard…"

XXIV

There was at this time little room in Lucinda's inner life for other people's troubles, she was much too agreeably engrossed in doting on this radiant new avatar of Linda Lee, victress in a form of duel of which Summerlad was reputed a master who had never known defeat. Rumours current of his success with women had found her credulous and lenient; mortal vanity saw to that. It feeds on strange foods, vanity, it waxes fat on inconsistencies. Think as well as you will of yourself, you shall not find unacceptable the belief that one well loved by many has been laid low by love of you alone… And indeed a great part of that indecision at which Lucinda in those days played so daintily was due to the knowledge, unformulated in her consciousness but none the less exercising constant influence on her moods, that she was less in love with Lynn than in love with being loved by Lynn Summerlad the idolized.