A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

And that’s the way she went there, in an outfit costing $18.50. He sent the car for her, of course. Pat met his mother and his sister and her fiancé. There were just the five of them. And they were going to be very nice to her, Pat could tell. They were going to be very nice to her and show Laurence how unsuitable she was for him. So she played up to them and helped them along, and she even said and did things that she knew were wrong. She said hello to the butler, and she pushed her spoon toward her instead of away from her when they served the soup. But they didn’t seem to notice anything, and after a while she forgot to pretend any more and just became her natural self. And before she knew it, dinner was over and she was alone with Laurence’s mother and sister. His mother put her arm around Pat and said, “You’re a lovable child. What I like about you is that you’re so natural. I can understand how Laurence feels.”

And his sister said, “You were right not to wear that gaudy dress he sent you. You don’t need it. You look too sweet this way.”

“All we want is to see Laurence happy,” his mother said. “And if you really care for him—”

Pat knew what she was going to say. She had seen it in the pictures a great many times before. It was always: “You will give him up if you really love him.”

But his mother went on: “When I was your age, I was selling flowers in a restaurant. I don’t see what right anyone has to stand in your way if you love each other.”

Pat didn’t wait to hear any more. She began to cry.

“Oh, I can’t pretend any more!” she sobbed. “I don’t need to tell you how much I love him. But what am I going to do? You know what people will say.”

“About his money?” Mrs. Pierce said. “Well, let them! You’re one girl in a thousand and Laurence believes in you. Isn’t that enough?” And she gave her a little kiss. “I’ll see you and Laurence through this,” she said.

And the next day there was a diamond on Pat’s finger that hadn’t been there before, and Pat kept looking intently at it.

All it seemed to do was bring the tears to her eyes. “My darling Larry!” she said to her mother. “How can I give him up? Oh, it’s tough sometimes to be a girl.”

“Well, it’s either one or the other of them,” her mother said, “or else it’s bigamy.”

And Larry himself wouldn’t listen to anything Pat tried to say. “Did you think I’d stand in your way?” And when he smiled at her that way, she could almost hear her own heart breaking inside her piece by piece. “Wouldn’t I be the man to do that! He’s got a combination hard to beat — love and money. Don’t throw yourself away on Mrs. Cogan’s little boy.”

And he took her in his arms and kissed her, the first time he’d ever done that in all the time they’d known each other. Greetings and farewell!

“Say the word,” Pat sobbed, “and nothing matters but you.”

“Good-bye’s the word,” he murmured.

Sometimes a little thing makes up your mind for you. Molly Reardon, who lived on the floor below, walked in one night about two weeks before the wedding. Pat had never liked her much anyway.

“What’s all this going on around here?” she said to Pat’s mother. “A snappy car parked in front of the flat every night and reporters snooping around trying to find out who the lucky girl is. I hear Pat has caught a swell. Pretty soft for her. How’d she do it?”

Pat was in the other room drying the supper dishes when she heard her say that. She dried her hands and went in to them then. And a minute later Pat’s mother had to call out at the top of her voice, “Tom! Tom! Come in here quick before that sister of yours breaks all my best plates!”

Molly Reardon ducked once to the right and once to the left, and then she managed to escape into the hall in a big hurry, followed by a salad-bowl.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Pat sobbed when they had calmed her down. “That’s what they’ll all be thinking. Caught a swell, have I? Just because he’s rich and I’m poor. And maybe some day he’ll begin to think so too. That’s what I’m afraid of. Some day he’ll forget and think it was the money.”

“Not if he loves you he won’t,” her mother assured her.

“I want to keep this dream,” Pat told her. “It may be the only one I’ll ever have. I want to keep him forever, just like he was this one month I’ve known him.”

And she called up Laurence’s house, but she asked for his mother, not him.

“You said you used to work for your living when you were my age,” she said, “so you ought to understand. Make him understand too.”

And when she was all through, Mrs. Pierce just said, “Poor Laurence” and hung up.

Then Pat rang a certain other number. Corned beef and cabbage for the rest of her life.

“Larry,” she said, “I’m to be married, and I want you there.”

“You know I’d do anything for you,” he said, “even this. Where is it, 420 Park Avenue?”

“No,” Pat said, “68th Street and Ninth Avenue. And don’t keep me waiting because you’re to be the groom.”

The Girl in the Moon