Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel

For a moment Summerlad gnawed his underlip without attempting to reply. Then with a sign of despair he retreated to one end of the club-lounge, against which he rested, to ease his foot. He said something in an angry mumble, as Lucinda followed into the room.

"You might have told me, Lynn…"

"I didn't want you to know."

"You must have known I'd find out, sooner or later."

"I thought I could keep it from you until…"

"Till when? Till what?" He growled, inarticulate with vexation. "To let me go on thinking … making such a fool of myself!.. Since you don't live together, why aren't you divorced?"

"How do you know I'm not?"

"Because you told me that lying story about her. But you've lied to me so much and so long, no doubt you think it unreasonable of me now to expect you to remember everything… Anyway, if you'd been divorced, you wouldn't have hesitated to own it. Why aren't you?"

"She refuses to divorce me."

"Why?"

"How do I know? I suppose she's still stuck on me, in her way – hopes to get me back some time."

"But what prevents you – ?"

"Nelly said if I tried to divorce her she'd fight back, and she knows…"

He didn't finish, but shut his teeth on a blundering tongue and looked more than ever guilty. But Lucinda was in a pitiless temper.

"About you? You mean – about you and other women?"

"Hang it all! I've never pretended to be a saint, have I, Linda?"

"No wonder the poor thing hated the sight of me!.. Oh, how could you have been so unkind!"

"If you'd only give me a show to explain…"

Her lip curled: "Explain!"

"I've been doing my best," Summerlad argued resentfully. "When I saw how it was going to be with you and me, and found out Nelly'd come back to Hollywood, I went to her and had things out – gave her some money and promised her more, on the strength of her promise to go back home and get a divorce on the dead quiet."

"And did you hope to keep that a secret from me?"

"My name isn't Summerlad, anymore than hers is Marquis – or yours Lee. I thought I'd… I thought everything was going to be all right till she turned up again with your officious husband."

"You think Bel had something to do – "

"I think he hunted Nelly up, if you want to know, and induced her to come back here, in violation of her agreement."

"But Bel… I don't quite see…"

"He wanted Nelly on the spot as a sort of club over my head. He hasn't given you up yet" – Summerlad laughed shortly – "not by a long sight."

"A club over your head? I don't understand."

"Not meaning to use it as long as we behaved ourselves."

"Behaved ourselves! Lynn!"

"Oh, forgive me! I didn't mean to say that."

Summerlad's look mirrored a real and poignant contrition as he saw her colouring with affronted sensibility, drawing back from him, momentarily slipping farther beyond his reach. "Linda!" he implored – "don't look at me that way. I can't help what your husband thinks, can I? I didn't ask him to come out here and be the pest he is, did I? After all, what have I done? I lied about Nelly – yes – but only to spare your feelings. I didn't want you to think people might be talking about you, stepping out with a married man. If you'd thought that, you'd have given me my walking papers and … and I couldn't do without you, dear – I can't! The others never mattered much, they sort of came and went, mostly I didn't care which they did. But you're so different, you're so wonderful, everything a fellow dreams about. I've never known anybody like you, never will again. If I lost you I'd – I'd – I think I'd go out of my mind!"

And suddenly, before she could stir to escape, he caught her to him and held her fast.

"Linda, sweetheart; don't be angry with me. I've tried so hard to be good enough for you. And you – you've loved me, too! Don't let this rotten accident spoil everything for us. If you love me – and you know I love you – what does anything matter? What if we are both married? What difference need that make? Love can still be sweet…"

She made no show of opposition, only drew back her head to cheat his lips; but when she tried to brave his eyes, thinking to read therein his heart and mind, she winced from recognition of the hunger that informed them, hunger that she wittingly had whetted, hunger such as she herself had too often known of late, like warm wine running in one's veins…

But always ere now she had fortified and shriven her conscience with the belief that they were of one mind, it must and would be Reno first…

Now Reno no longer held forth any promise of salvation, of the law's sanction, the church's countenance. Even though she were to find there her own freedom, Lynn would still be bound. It wasn't in reason to hope that the woman who had rejected his money would listen to other arguments. Today and henceforward it must be all for love or … nothing … a break final and irreparable…

And for all the shock she had suffered, for all the wrong Lynn had done and the pain of which his ill-faith had been the cause, the love she had given the man still was dear, dangerously sweet and disarming. Already she was aware of anxiety to grasp at excuses for him, to comfort the ache in her heart with the thought that she was according charity to a dear transgressor, already she felt her strength to resist being sapped, flesh and spirit succumbing anew to the spell he knew too well how to weave.

She wrestled with a weakness stronger than all her strength. They couldn't go on like this… Lynn hadn't said it, but they both knew it … without going farther… Even Reno couldn't save her now, only the instinct of self-preservation latent in her, not even that if she failed to find in herself the will to hear and be guided by its admonishments. It was make or break…

The scales hung long in trembling. They turned only when Summerlad unwisely, losing patience, sought to take by storm the lips she had not yet made up her mind to surrender, and thus aroused resistance till then dormant.

With an ease that in a queer, detached way she found surprising, she managed to break his embrace. Nevertheless the effort left her faint. She faltered to the fireplace and rested a hand on the mantel, her forehead upon the hand. Lynn followed, stood by her side, not touching her but keeping her enveloped in the lethargizing knowledge of his nearness, his strength, his passion. Over and over he murmured gently: "Linda, Linda, Linda…" Shaking from head to feet, she made a feeble sign of appeal. He disregarded this entirely, his arms again stole round her and would have drawn her to him but that, of a sudden, her mind caught at a straw of memory, she drew away, with a hand upon his bosom put him firmly from her, eyes that were melting none the less denying him, lips that were a-quiver with "Yes" resolutely pronouncing "No!"

"You are cruel…"

"No, Lynn. Wait. Tell me something… You say she – your wife agreed to divorce you?"

"I made her promise," Summerlad asserted grimly.

"When was that? The day she disappeared? The day I found her lying senseless in her room?"

"I suppose so. Does it matter? Well, then – yes."

"You'd just left her when I found her?"

"I daresay – approximately."

"Tell me what you said to persuade her."

"See here: what is all this? What are you driving at?"

"I want to know… Did you have much of a scene?"