None But Lucifer

Chapter X

Hale was happy, for several reasons. Johnson was away from the city on business. The pool was even better than he'd been able to imagine from blueprints. The floor was covered with soft, electrically warmed rubber tiling; the walls were quartz glass on all sides; enough room had been left on the sides of the pool for tables and lounging chairs, palms, an orchestra stand, and rubber mattresses for those who wanted to sun themselves.

It was swell, he thought. He let his white toweling robe fall open. He felt more aristocratic than a Roman emperor. If he could only continue feeling that way he couldn't fail to impress her.

He hadn't seen anyone but the press photographers yet. The guests were dressing. The fact that for once he wasn't the only person occupying the place gratified him.

Then Banner came in. He was probably sensitive about his shape, which was rather like Alexander P. Johnson's only taller, for he wore a business suit instead of being dressed for swimming. He strode up combatively. "You Hale?" he demanded.

Hale hesitated."Yes, Mr. Banner."

"Never recognize you all cleaned up," Banner snapped. He stepped back and glowered at Hale until the latter grew uneasy. Then his face suddenly cleared and he thumped Hale's shoulder approvingly. "You didn't have me fooled for a second. I can spot a winner every time."

"You're not sore at me?" Hale asked incredulously.

"Me sore at you? What for?" Banner looked hurt. "You ought to know me better than that. Any man who'd keep another from rising is a heel. Besides, seeing you make good boosts my own ego. Shows what a good judge of character I am. Of course, I wasn't too happy when you quit. Nobody likes to lose a good man. I kind of thought maybe Gloria and I shouldn't come here. But what the hell, I like you. And, as Johnson says, you don't know too many people. Meeting Gloria's crowd'll perk you up."

"Johnson?"

"Your partner."

"Do you know him?"

"Met him through the Businessmen's Club. By the way" — Banner's voice became confidential — "remember what you said about marrying my daughter, the time you busted in on me? Still got that idea in your head?"

Hale flushed. "That was just a bluff. All I've seen of her is her pictures —"

"They're nothing like her, Hale! Can't get her skin and personality in halftones, you know." He squeezed Hale's arm. "Don't jump into anything on my say-so. But I'll tell you straight from the shoulder — you're the kind of guy I'd like for a son-in-law. You have guts and you know where you're going. Know what Emerson used to say? 'The world steps aside for the man who knows where he's going.' Smart fellow, that Emerson."

Hale was silent. It was true: while he had been heading straight for his goal, the world had stepped aside for him. Now that he had his partnership, he noticed signs of indecision in himself. For instance, he allowed his servants and Johnson to run his affairs practically without argument. Worst of all, he was waiting almost shyly for Gloria Banner.

He straightened his shoulders and tied his robe belt more tightly. He'd look her over, and if he liked her he'd just go after her the way he'd gone after his partnership.

But he wasn't prepared for the effect that she habitually created. When she entered, her concentrated femininity struck him like a shock.

She was of medium size, dark, and beautiful. She had just the right amount of hair. Her robe was tied so as to show the contrast between her white suit and her fine dark skin. Her features were small and finely matched and haughtily confident.

Naturally, the partly anaesthetized Hale didn't analyze her to that extent. He felt only uncritical, inarticulate admiration, particularly when she stopped and stood, very still and regal gazing at the pool. The photographers went into action.

"Hi, Gloria!" Banner shouted irreverently.

That shocked Hale. But then, he thought, he couldn't expect her own father to address her the way one should.

"Daddy! Isn't it wonderful?" Hale thought her voice resembled the tone of an exceptionally mellow flute, and that she ran toward them with the grace of a ballerina.

"Mmmm, it's grand! Why can't we have one, daddy?"

Banner turned to Hale for sympathy, jerking his head at her. "My worthless, spendthrift daughter speaking. Look here, loafer, if you'd stop frittering and get yourself a job — any kind, even if it only pays a couple of hundred thousand a year — we could afford one."

She wasn't listening to him. She smiled brilliantly at Hale. "Aren't you the nice man who asked us?" Her voice made Hale feel that they were alone and had known each other since childhood.

"Well, if that isn't ignorant of me!" exclaimed Banner. "Gloria, this is William Hale. The guy I told you about — the one who broke into my office looking like a bum and —"

Hale broke in swiftly: "I've seen a lot of your pictures in the newspapers."

"Oh, they were terrible. They always make me look so fat!"

"You, fat? Why, you ... you're —" His glottis closed up with emotion.

Neither looked away from the other. Hale was unaware of Banner, until a ponderously uneasy squirming at his side gave way to: "You two don't seem to have much use for me."

Her eyes broke away from Hale, and she said unconvincingly: "Oh, no, daddy! We'd love to have you stay here with us, but we know business comes first and you have to make friends with the newspapermen."

"Yeah," Banner grinned walking away. "How did I happen to forget that excuse? See you when you're able to notice me."

Through all this, Hale had taken his eyes off her face only long enough to glance at her hair, whose top came to the level of his eyes, convincing him that she was the perfect height for him.

Her friends entered loudly. She put on a bathing cap and pulled him to the edge of the pool. "Let's be the first ones in — Billie-willie!"

"Billie-willie?" he asked, slightly embarrassed.

"I can't call you William or Bill," she whispered conspiratorially. "Not when we're alone together. It'll be a secret for just the two of us. You don't mind, do you, Billie-willie?"

He didn't. He felt the pleasant outrage you feel when somebody gives your name an unexpected but intimate twist. He wanted her to call him that every time they were alone, and he wanted to be alone with her a lot.

"No," he whispered back. "I think it's ... swell."

She wrinkled her nose at him. The room was filling with chattering people who made enough noise for a movie storm scene. But Gloria had the rare knack of making a man forget that other people were living. She wriggled out of her robe, smiled back at him, and took a perfectly ordinary dive.

That made him feel even better. He knew he was a miserable diver. But, while her eyes were on him, he wasn't afraid of smacking the water with his stomach. As a result he did fairly well, and came up with his face a foot from hers.

They trod water abstractedly. He said her bathing cap gave her face a heart shape and she said it was a horrid old thing, and he said he'd like anything she wore. They might have gone on this way indefinitely if a man hadn't yelled: "Hey! Got room for us down there, Mr. Hale?"

They came to and swam off slowly, close together, oblivious to the men and girls doing neat dives all around them. The spell of intimacy was somehow unbroken, though the photographers were flashing bulbs with the fury of madmen, and the orchestra broke into a crash of music.

The thin moon was setting when they took a tray of sandwiches and stole of to a deserted corner and sat on an inflated mattress. "Happy?" he said eagerly.

She nodded and sighed. "It must be grand fun, having a swimming pool in your own home."

He watched her take a dainty bite on a sandwich. "It is, when you're here. Otherwise it would be about the same as owning a bathtub."

He had known her for several hours, but meeting her gaze still had a physical shock for him. Her eyes were large, deep, gravely thoughtful, and probably myopic.

He said: "You make everything seem — I don't know how to put it — exciting is the word, I guess. I've never known a girl like you."

"I'm just like any other girl —"

"No, you're not! You have glamour. You're beautiful ... and everything."

Her smile was touchingly uncertain. "I like you, too. I don't want you to feel alone any more."

"What do you usually do?" he asked suddenly.

"What? What do you mean?"

"I mean for amusement. Do you like plays and concerts?"

"I do, but the boys I used to go with never seemed to care much for them."

He opened his mouth. Used to go with? Did she mean what he hoped she meant?

"I'm afraid I don't know much about music and the theater. I'd love to learn. Would you teach me, Billie-willie?"

He trembled with excitement. "We'll go to plays and concerts and art galleries, and we'll see only the best movies together," he said with a rush of enthusiasm.

"I'd love that. I want to like everything you like."

He thought happily, all she needs is molding. Her beauty was enough for any man, but she also had intelligence and the desire to learn. All he had to do was teach her to enjoy the things he liked. Then she would be a fit mate for Lucifer's partner — lovely, dainty, and, ultimately, intellectual. Training her would give him the creative joy of the master sculptor.

She did not resist when he put his arm around her.