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  CHAPTER 1

  HE PUNCHED the bell. The door choked. He heard Nan calling down his name.

  ("I've got so much to tell you," she had said on the phone just now.)

  He bounded up the stairs, they slipped arms around each other's waists, and went through the Uttle hall of the flat into what the girls' Aunt Emily called the back room—a big shabby room with a wide window, beyond which the city of San Francisco fell away.

  Dorothy was there. "Hi, Johnny," she greeted him. "How was Columbia University? Did you learn everything?" ,^.

  "Oh, pretty near," he said amiably. "How are your He looked down at Nan. 'His hand still held her Hghtly at the waist.

  "Dear John," said Nan Padgett, articulating precisely, as if she had practiced this, "I'm in love!" Her brown eyes shone with the news. "I'm engaged to be married!"

  Well, he gave her credit for being direct and for being prompt with this blow.

  "'You kinda look it, Nan," he said gravely, and took his hand slowly away. '"Weill I want to hear . . ."

  Dorothy said, "Don't worry. You're going to hear! She's got no more than her left toe on the ground. First, come help me mix you a drink."

  "I sure will," said Johnny.

  He saw Nan go waltzing away toward the big window. Maybe she felt reheved to have told him. He turned into the little closed-in pantry where Dorothy had assembled the makings. He Hterally couldn't see Dorothy. He dumped in-

  gredients together, tasted. As he swallowed he said to himself, O.K. swallow it. AU right, you got it down.

  Now he could see Dorothy's blonde head and Dorothy's anxious blue eyes.

  "I had a hunch, you know," he said cozily. (She didn't have to know how recent the hunch was.) "Don't you worry about me, Dot."

  Dorothy said indignantly, "She's about wild. She's on Cloud Nine."

  "As it should be." He patted Dorothy's shoulder to stop her. He wouldn't talk about Nan in a comer.

  Dorothy was Nan's cousin, a little the older of the two— certainly the more worldly one. Dorothy had beaux by the dozen. Maybe Dorothy could never reach Cloud Nine any more.

  He swallowed again, put the shaker on the tray and carried the tray into the big room. "Start at the beginning," he said cheerfully.

  "His name is Richardson Bartee. I wish he were here. But he had to go back this week and tend to business. He's flying up on Friday." Nan tumbled all this out.

  "From where is he flying up?" asked Johnny politely.

  "Oh, listen ..." Nan lit on the couch and patted an invitation. John sat downi beside her, marveling. Nan was usually the shy one, the little one with the quaint defensive air of dignity. Now she seemed bursting with joyous energy. "How can I tell you about him! He's big and— and good-looking and—" Words wouldn't do what Nan's face was doing in the way of description. "He's got a vineyard. Or anyhow, his family has. And a winery. Imaginel And I'm going to Hve in the south—"

  "With vine leaves in your hair." Johnny grinned across at Dorothy. "I see what you mean," he said. "This kid is off the ground all right."

  Dorothy was sitting and sipping. Dorothy, usually so casual and gay, didn't smile.

  Nan put her hand on the cushion between them. "Ah, Johnny, we've been awful fond of each other, you and I. And I always will be fond of you. But it never was hke this! Do you believe me?"

  He stiffened a little with the stab of this. He reminded himseff how young she was. "I believe you." He went on

  gallantly, "I won't say the old ticker isn't a little bent, honey, but it's still going."

  Nan sighed.

  Johnny put his nose in the glass. "When and where did you meet this fellow?" he asked her dreaming face.

  "Two months ago. Mr. Copeland introduced us."

  "Why wasn't I written? Never mind, don't answer that.'' He knew the answer very well. How could she have written him, or anyone, a day-by-day description of falHng in love. "What say we all go some very fancy place for dinner?" he asked restlessly. "On me. To celebrate."

  "We can't budge," said Dorothy. "We've got a phone call in for Paris, France."

  "For Aunt Emily? That where she is? I thought she and Hattie Cox were going around the world."

  "They are," said Dorothy, "but Paris is the farthest they've got yet. They're on some kind of an expedition today, because we haven't been able to reach her. The hotel expects her back before midnight."

  "Haven't we time for dinner?"

  "Midnight in Paris, France," Dorothy reminded.

  "You mean to tell me Aunt Emily doesn't even Icnow about this?"

  "Not yet." _

  "When did this engagement happen? Last night?"

  "Since Sunday." Nan sighed, as if this had been a century.

  "I suppose you'll have to let Emily get all the way around the world before the wedding," he said comfortably.

  "No," said Nan. "That's just it. Dick and I- want to be married right now. Why not? What have I got to wait for? My job? There are a million stenographers and every single one of them can speU better than I can. Mr. Copeland isn't going to care. I want to be married to Dick—and help him in the vineyards. And that's all on earth I want to do."

  Johnny was astonished. This didn't sound like Nan. Shy Nan, hesitant Nan, Nan unsure of herself. "Won't that be a Httle rough on Emily?" he said gently, and knew that Dorothy stirred.

  "1 don't think so," cried Nan, "because HstenI Dick says

  we can get married and fly to Europe on our honeymoon. And see Aunt Emily. Wouldn't that please her?"

  "Not as a surprise," said Dorothy quietly. Johnny was startled.

  "Your fellow must be in the chips," he murmured.

  "It will be very extravagant," said Nan serenely, "but Dick knows Aunt Emily is all I've got—except Dotty, of course. He understands. He's an orphan, too. I think . . ."

  "I thought you mentioned his family."

  "Oh, well, there's an uncle and a grandmother. And I guess the uncle's got a wife. I haven't met them yet. There hasn't been time."

  He thought there should have been time. There should have been a lot more time. Nan was speeding and spinning. He wanted to put out both hands and hold her back and slow her down.

  Now she said, all sparkling, "Johnny, you're going to have to stand up with us. You're nearly family, after all these years."

  "I'm going to nm this wedding," he heard Dorothy say loudly. "Vm your family, please remember. And we're going to talk to Emily before we plan how or when. So calm downi."

  "Oh, Dot! I'm doing what you want. I'm calling Aunt Emily."

  Johnny perceived the conflict clearly now.

  Dorothy changed the subject. "Going to be home all summer, Johnny? Summer school?"

  "Nope. I'll get my doctorate in exactly one more year. Comes out nice and even. I'm stale on biology."

  "Going to work this siunmer, then?"

  "Don't know yet. Don't intend to work very hard," he grinned. "Maybe Roderick Grimes will have one of his projects for me. They're fun."

  Nan frowned. "Don't you let him send you off some place," she said with that gay vehemence so unlike the old Nan. "At least not this weekendl"

  "This weekend!"

  "Well, I hope . . ."

  'Tou mean to tell me you expect to be a married woman in a matter of days!" he exclaimed. "I don't believe it. How old are you, baby?"

  "I'm twenty," Nan said defiantly.

  "Actually," said Dorothy dryly, "she's young enough to wait, don't you think, 'til Emily gets around the world?"

  Nan sighed the kind of sigh that announced an old argument come up again. "I'll just bet Aunt Emily won't make me wait," she said.

  "Nobody would make you/' Dorothy began, and the phone rang.

  Nan
snatched for it, pinning Johimy Sims in his comer of the couch because the long phone cord crossed his body.

  He heard a voice say, "On your call to Paris, France . . ."

  His eyes sought Dorothy's. Dorothy didn't like this speeding and spinning either. He said to Dorothy, "I hope this chap is over twenty-one."

  "Oh, he is that," said Dorothy tartly. "He's thirty-two years old."

  "Ssshhh—" said Nan.

  Johnny swallowed shock. Yet he himself was twenty-eight. He could hear the operators' voices singsonging across the continent, across the ocean.

  He heard Emily, herself, say, "Yes?"

  "Aunt Emily! It's Nan!"

  "Nan! Dear, is anything wrong?"

  Johnny found he could visualize Aunt Emily Padgett's'^ small face, wt^h the sharp little nose, frosted with old-fashioned white powder,' and her pale brown hair going up all around.

  "Not a thing," cried Nan in the loud clear voice that had to go all the way to France.. "Everything's wpnderful! I have news!" Dorothy had risen and stood close by. Nan wasn't seeing Dorothy, or Johrmy, either. "I'm in love," she shouted across the world. "I'm engaged. I'm going to be married!"

  "Oh, NanI"

  "Listen, Aunt Emily, we want to get married right away and fly to Emope and meet you. We could meet you in Rome. Next week? Wouldn't that be fun?"

  "Nan . . . it's Johnny, isn't it?"

  "What?"

  "Johnny Sims?"

  Nan took in her breath. She didn't look down at Johnny, pinned there. "No, no, it isn't. It's somebody—you never met him but he's wonderful and I know you'll think so too . . . and I'm so happy. Aunt Er surprise you—"

  "Who?" The syllable crossed the sound.

  "His name is Richardson Bartee. son. It's a family name."

  Nobody spoke in Paris, France.

  "Aunt Emily, can you hear me? I Bartee. He's from Hestia . . . Anc Emily? . . ."

  Now there was a sound on the wi ''Yes, dear." Or it might have been "H

  "Emily, dear, we want to get m fly to Rome. You ipM be there?"

  "Don't ..." A groan.

  "What?"

  "No."

  "Emilyr

  "Don't . . "

  "Emily, darling, we just can't wait Nan began to coax. "We thought . . ."

  ""You must not marry this man!" Hij

  "Aunt Emily, what did you say?"

  "I'm coming home. I'll fly. Quick as

  "Please, I don't understand. Emily trip. What's the matter?"

  "Wait. Promise me you'll wait?"

  "Of course, I—"

  "What am I going to do?" said 1 far away.

  Dorothy snatched the phone out c

  lightly. "She'll be home in a couple of days-want to call her back?"

  "She hung up," Nan said angrily and shook Dorothy's arm. "It sounded as if she knows who as if she knows something bad about him. Die challenged them. Dorothy was biting her Bp.

  "Yes, it kinda did," said Johnny honestly.

  "Well, she couldn't," said Nan, "because tli be anything . . ." She walked across the room ai by the window. Now the sparkle and the flyi gone. Nan was her old self, dignified, lonely forlorn.

  The big room was still. Dorothy stood witl clasped. Johnny sat in his comer. Nan looked ( city.

  "She's made some kind of mistake," Nan sai ment. "Probably she couldn't hear me very well."

  "That's possible," Dorothy said quietly.

  "I'm sorry she didn't understand," Nan wer and I are in love and going to be married, going to change that." Her dark head came up.

  "No use to worry," Dorothy said, "until you to worry about."

  "Oh, I woni worry," Nan said remotely. "T to call Dick. I'm not going to upset him. Bee is going to be upset." The dream was soberec back in her eyes. "Will you stay for dinner, • asked politely. "I don't feel like going out, some cold beef." She was aloof. It was as if had turned to a cold close fog and swallow< reach.

  out in Marin County last year, s headquarters now.

  He got into his four-year-old Pl> home. What was the matter with Er what was the matter with Richardsoi beheve that Emily had made a mists odd name. There was also the pla must know this man or know of hij Nan must not marry him? Johnny sho

  Looky here, he said to J. Sims, i manger stuffi Nan's in love with 1 And whatever Emily's got on her i rough on Nan.

  Johnny respected Emily Padgett would not turn out to be some female

  Emily had been mother and fathe next door, whom he could remembei sash, the other a pink one, to Sunday

  Emily Padgett's brother and siste perished, together with their spouse: den highway crash years ago. Emily any other objective of her own, t cousins in to raise. Dorothy was the of the brotlier. Dorothy's last name, Padgett but something else. Johnny ( and he was not quite sure it wasn't No matter. Emily had made them joined all P.T.A.'s and Mother's C Brownies and Girl Scouts and the ^ fine parent.

  She had also earned a hving w

  dance at the high school. Nan had no d Johnny take her?

  Jolinny had protested that this wasn't a goc he had let himself be talked into it. Dorothy oflF in a gold-spangled dress with flowers on h Dorothy, who was seventeen by then, had tun and fair, surrounded by boys, picking and cho( them gaily. But little Nan was different—sensitive

  Nan had worn a pale green dress that nigf looked ready to weep. Johrmy remembered reso he were going to do this, he'd do it right, going to look dragooned, or superior, or bor fed and encouraged her with attention. M; Backed her up. He'd been touched by the sk of Nan's confidence.

  After that he'd kept an eye on her. Watched Seen to it that she got to go wherever it n-she went. In a way, she'd grown up with Jo back. The first time Nan tiuned down a date 1 tried to explain that she ought not to fend off But she'd been stubborn.

  So they wrote letters back and forth when months in the service and all the fi^rst year h< east. Last summer, they were a pair. Johnn; had backed up Nan's little figure at dances and ]

  A courtship, he thought now, is a tentatr exploring, a growing thing. There should com when you know. But Nan was so young. He'« for her so long. Maybe he'd been a little the ought to be glad she'd fallen in love. He mus had not thoughtlessly kept her from this experie:

  There was no denying he felt his loss more

  sense their deep pleasure that he was home and in the room with them. But it wasn't necessary to pay attention.

  Under cover of a commercial, he asked his mother whether Emily Padgett had ever mentioned a Richardson Bartee.

  "I don't think so, dear. Emily's gone off around the world. I guess you know that."

  "Um hum." He didn't feel like mentioning the possibility that Emily was tinning back, for an unknown reason.

  "Did you see the girls?" his mother asked. "I haven't seen them for ages. How are they?"

  "All right."

  His mother pulled her feelers in.

  In the morning, Johnny went to see Roderick Grimes, who was a pink and hairless man of great wealth whose avocation it was to write semi-scholarly books about old murder mysteries. Sometimes he hired Johnny to do the research, scavenge around, interview people. Grimes was lazy. He fancied himself the Mycroft type and he was rather brilliant in the armchair. He said that Johnny had a flair.

  This morning, Grimes was cordial but indecisive. He had a couple of things in mind, he said; he hadn't chosen between them. Perhaps in another week or so? Johnny was just as glad of a delay.

  He called the girls at six, when they'd be home from work. Dorothy answered.

  "We've had a cablegram," she told him. "Emily's flying in at noon on Friday."

  "Anything I can do?"

  "I don't think so, Johnny. We'll just have to wait. Maybe you'd hke to go to the airport with us?"

  "Of course. Pick you up downtown?" They made the date.

  "One thing, Dot." Johnny felt miserable. He couldn't speak directly to Nan about this. "Nan said Mr. Copeland introduced them. Has she ever asked him what he knows about this
. . . about Bartee?"

  "Oh, but Mr. Copeland has been away," said Dorothy quickly. "He went to Honolulu with his fairly new wife. Although I think they are coming back—is it Monday? Nan?" Silence on the wire. ''She asks no questions," said Dorothy in a low voice. (He

  sensed that Nan had gone away, could no longer hear.) "She's not in a mood to be practical, Johnny."

  He knew this was so. Who ever was? The sweet dizziness of love didn't wait for a dossier. When had it?

  "Isn't this . . . Bar tee coming up on Friday?" he asked.

  "Yes, but not until the evening . . ."

  He couldn't think of any more to say.

  When they walked into the airport waiting room on Friday, shock exploded. The Miss Padgetts were being paged. The yoimg man at the information desk said gingerly, "I'm soiTy to have to tell you that Miss Emily Padgett has been taken ill on the aiiplane. The suggestion is that you might like to call her own doctor."

  "/«.' How ill?"

  "Her heart, they tliink. There's a nxu'se on the airplane. Don't worr>' too much." The young man was in duty bound to say this, but he didn't create a lot of reassurance.

  Johnny whirled them into action, to call Dr. Keams, to make arrangements at a hospital. Johnny held a frightened girl on each arm as they waited the last tense two minutes at the barrier.

  Emily came off the plane on a stretcher and they ran to her. The small face was gray. The girls murmuredl^and touched her v>iTh loving hands.

  It was Johnny who said loudly, "Nobody got married, Emily." That was all the reference there was to Richardson Bartee before Emily vanished into the ambulance.

  At the hospital they were djslayed by the need to answer questions for admission. At last, they started down a corridor. It was a small private hospital, Dr. Keams' favorite, all on one floor. They came upon the doctor around a corner.

  "She ought to do, with a little sensible care," he told them cheerfully. "Now, don't excite her or upset her. Don't stay too long. Not now. Excuse me? Got a patient in the next wing. Cheer up, now."

  The girls stepped softly into Emily's room with Johnny behind them. Emily, on the bed, looked old. More murmurs of love given, received.

  "Don't worry about anything," Nan said uselessly. The whole room throbbed with unasked questions and unadmitted anxieties.

  "Maybe she ought to be let alone,'' said Johnny loudly. ''That's a brute of a trip she's just made, remember?" He was going to bully the girls out of here. This was no good. ''You could come back tonight at visiting hours. Hm, Emily?" Emily's sad eyes looked up at him and he knew they flickered. "Give me—until tomorrow ..." she said weakly. "Of course, darling." Dorothy kissed her hair. Nan picked up her hand. "I wouldn't want to do anything—ever—to hurt you in any way," Nan said, asking for absolution.