"Just a moment." For the first time the visitor's soft voice had taken on an edge. "You tell me the hotel is full, but your clerks are checking people in. Do they have some special kind of reservation?"
"I guess you could say that." The professional smile had disappeared.
"Jim Nicholas!" The boisterously cheerful greeting resounded across the lobby. Behind the voice a small elderly man with a sprightly rubicund face surmounted by a coxcomb of unruly white hair took short hurried strides toward the alcove.
The Negro stood. "Dr. Ingram! How good to see you!" He extended his hand which the older man grasped.
"How are you, Jim, my boy? No, don't answer! I can see for myself you're fine. Prosperous too, from the look of you. I assume your practice is going well."
"It is, thank you." Dr. Nicholas smiled. "Of course my university work still takes a good deal of time."
"Don't I know it! Don't I know it! I spend all my life teaching fellows like you, and then you all go out and get the big-paying practices." As the other grinned broadly: "Anyway you seem to have gotten the best of both - with a fine reputation. That paper of yours on malignant mouth tumors has caused a lot of discussion and we're all looking forward to a first-hand report. By the way, I shall have the pleasure of introducing you to the convention. You know they made me president this year?"
"Yes, I'd heard. I can't think of a finer choice."
As the two talked, the assistant manager rose slowly from his chair. His eyes moved uncertainly between their faces.
The small, white-haired man, Dr. Ingram, was laughing. He patted his colleague jovially on the shoulder. "Give me your room number, Jim. A few of us will be getting together for drinks later on. I'd like to have you join us."
"Unfortunately," Dr. Nicholas said, "I've been told I won't be getting a room. It seems to have something to do with my color."
There was a shocked silence in which the dentists' president flushed deep red. Then, his face muscles hardening, he asserted, "Jim, I'll deal with this. I promise you there'll be an apology and a room. If there isn't, I guarantee every other dentist will walk out of this hotel."
A moment earlier the assistant manager had beckoned a bellboy. Now he instructed urgently, "Get Mr. McDermott - fast!"
4
For Peter McDermott the day began with a minor piece of organization.
Among his morning mail was a memo from Reservations, informing him that Mr. and Mrs. Justin Kubek of Tuscaloosa were due to check into the St. Gregory the following day. What made the Kubeks special was an accompanying note from Mrs. Kubek, advising that her husband's height was seven foot one.
Seated behind his office desk, Peter wished all hotel problems were that simple.
"Tell the carpenters' shop," he instructed his secretary, Flora Yates.
"They probably still have that bed and mattress we used for General de Gaulle; if not, they'll have to put something else together. Tomorrow have a room allocated early and the bed made up before the Kubeks get here.
Tell Housekeeping too; they'll need special sheets and blankets."
Seated composedly on the opposite side of the desk, Flora made her notes, as usual without fuss or question. The instructions would be relayed correctly, Peter knew, and tomorrow - without his needing to remind her - Flora would check to make sure that they had been carried out.
He inherited Flora on first coming to the St. Gregory and had long since decided she was everything a secretary should be - competent, reliable, nudging forty, contentedly married, and plain as a cement block wall. One of the handy things about Flora, Peter thought, was that he could like her immensely - as he did - without it proving a distraction. Now, if Christine had been working for him, he reflected, instead of for Warren Trent, the effect would have been far different.
Since his impetuous departure from Christine's apartment last night, she had been out of his mind only briefly. Even sleeping, he had dreamed about her. The dream was an odyssey in which they floated serenely down a green-banked river (he was not sure aboard what) to an accompaniment of heady music in which harps, he seemed to recall, were featured strongly. He had told Christine this on telephoning her early this morning and she had asked, "Were we going upstream or down? - that ought to be significant." But he could not remember - only that he had enjoyed the whole thing tremendously and hoped (he informed Christine) to pick up later where he had left off last night.
Before that, however - sometime this evening - they were to meet again. Just when and where would be arranged later, they agreed. "It'll give me an excuse to call you," Peter said.
"Who needs a reason?" she had responded. "Besides, this morning I intend to find some terribly unimportant piece of paper that suddenly has to be delivered to you personally." She sounded happy, almost breathless, as if the excitement they had found in each other last night had spilled over into the new day.
Hoping Christine would come soon, he returned his attention to Flora and the morning mail.
It was a normal mixed batch, including several queries about conventions, which he dealt with first. As usual, Peter assumed his favorite position for dictating - feet elevated on a high leather wastebasket, and his padded swivel chair tilted precariously back, so that his body was almost horizontal. He found he could think incisively in that position, which he had refined through experimentation, so that now the chair was poised at the outer limits of balance, with only a hairsbreadth between equilibrium and disaster. As she often did, Flora watched expectantly during pauses in note taking. She just sat watching, making no comment.
There was another letter today - which he answered next - from a New Orleans resident whose wife had attended a private wedding reception in the hotel some five weeks earlier. During the reception she placed her wild mink jacket on a piano, along with clothes and belongings of other guests.
Subsequently she had discovered a bad cigarette bum, necessitating a one-hundred-dollar repair to the coat. The husband was attempting to collect from the hotel, and his latest letter contained a strongly worded threat to sue.
Peter's reply was polite but firm. He pointed out - as he had previously - that the hotel provided checking facilities which the letter writer's wife had chosen not to use. Had she used the check room, the hotel would have considered a claim. As it was, the St. Gregory was not responsible.
The husband's letter, Peter suspected, was probably just a try-on, though it could develop into a lawsuit; there had been plenty of equally silly ones in the past. Usually the courts dismissed such claims with costs for the hotel, but they were annoying because of time and effort they consumed. It sometimes seemed, Peter thought, as if the public considered a hotel a convenient milch cow with a cornucopian udder.
He had selected another letter when there was a light tap on the door from the outer office. He looked up, expecting to see Christine.
"It's just me," Marsha Preyscott said. "There wasn't anyone outside, so I . . ." She caught sight of Peter. "Oh, my goodness! - won't you fall over backwards?"
"I haven't yet," he said - and promptly did.
The resounding crash was followed by a second's startled silence.
From the floor behind his desk, looking upward, he assessed the damage.
His left ankle stung painfully where it had struck a leg of the overturning chair on the way down. The back of his head ached as he fingered it, though fortunately the rug had cushioned most of the impact.
And there was his vanished dignity - attested to by Marsha's rippling laughter and Flora's more discreet smile.
They came around the desk to help him up. Despite his discomfiture, he was aware once more of Marsha's fresh, breathtaking radiance. Today she had on a simple blue linen dress which somehow emphasized the half-woman, half-child quality he had been conscious of yesterday. Her long black hair, as it had the day before, hung lustrously about her shoulders.
"You should use a safety net," Marsha said. "Like they do in a circus."
Peter grinned ruefully. "Maybe I could get a clown outfit too."
Flora restored the heavy swivel chair to its upright position. As he clambered up, Marsha and Flora taking an elbow each, Christine came in.
She stopped at the doorway, a sheaf of papers in her hand. Her eyebrows went up. "Am I intruding?"
"No," Peter said. "I ... well, I fell out of my chair."
Christine's eyes moved to the solidly standing chair.
He said, "It went over backwards."
"They do that, don't they? All the time." Christine glanced toward Marsha. Flora had quietly left.
Peter introduced them.
"How do you do, Miss Preyscott," Christine said. "I've heard of you."
Marsha had glanced appraisingly from Peter to Christine. She answered coolly, "I expect, working in a hotel, you hear all kinds of gossip, Miss Francis. You do work here, don't you?"
"Gossip wasn't what I meant," Christine acknowledged. "But you're right, I work here. So I can come back any old time, when things aren't so hectic or private."
Peter sensed an instant antagonism between Marsha and Christine. He wondered what had caused it.
As if interpreting his thoughts, Marsha smiled sweetly. "Please don't go on my account, Miss Francis. I just came in for a minute to remind Peter about dinner tonight." She turned toward him. "You hadn't forgotten, had you?"
Peter had a hollow feeling in his stomach. "No," he lied, "I hadn't forgotten."
Christine broke the ensuing silence. "Tonight?"
"Oh dear," Marsha said. "Does he have to work or something?"
Christine shook her head decisively. "He won't have a thing to do. I'll see to it myself."
"That's terribly sweet of you." Marsha flashed the smile again. "Well, I'd better be off. Oh, yes - seven o'clock," she told Peter, "and it's on Prytania Street - the house with four big pillars. Goodbye, Miss Francis."
With a wave of her hand she went out, closing the door.
Her expression guileless, Christine inquired, "Would you like me to write that down? - the house with four big pillars. So you won't forget."
He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I know - you and I had a date. When I made it, I'd forgotten about the other arrangement because last night . . . with you ... drove everything else out of my mind. When we talked this morning, I guess I was confused."
Christine said brightly, "Well, I can understand that. Who wouldn't be confused with so many women under foot?"
She was determined - even though with an effort - to be lighthearted and, if necessary, understanding. She reminded herself: despite last night, she had no lien on Peter's time, and what he said about confusion was probably true. She added, "I hope you have a delightful evening."
He shifted uncomfortably. "Marsha's just a child."
There were limits, Christine decided, even to patient understanding. Her eyes searched his face. "I suppose you really believe that. But speaking as a woman, let me advise you that little Miss Preyscott bears as much resemblance to a child as a kitten to a tiger. But it would be fun I should think - for a man - to be eaten up."