The Lady of Situations Read Free Page B

what the Roosevelt administration was trying to accomplish, so that her pupil could impress the radical Roy.
    Her success with Edith's brother was even greater. Grant DeVoe was two years older than his sister, but her equal academically, as he had been dropped a form at Averhill School in Massachusetts and was, like her, now facing his senior year (or, as it was known at Averhill, his sixth form). He too felt the ennui of a Smithport summer, and his conversation was full of the visits he would make, if invited, to more socially active summer communities on the New England coast. He was pleasant looking rather than handsome, with a round, cheerful, rather thoughtless face and large brown eyes that seemed to promise a better temper and a more affectionate disposition than he had, and his dark curly hair and small tight figure, usually wrapped in bright blazers, completed this impression of amiability. Natica saw that, as with Edith, his interest in her sprang entirely from the summer vacuum. But it was also an interest that could be worked.
    She met Grant at first only at the family luncheons where she was careful to make a not too pointed note of smiling at his jokes. His immediate appreciation of this revealed the man who was quite accustomed to taking a second, even a third, place among his peers. Soon he was directing his smarter remarks in her direction, and at last he invited her to go sailing with him. It was a hot and almost windless afternoon and the small boat required a minimum of handling. Grant was free to talk uninterruptedly about himself: how difficult it was to be the only boy in a family of four girls; how much his father preferred his older sister, Mary, to him; how constantly and articulately disappointed both his parents were at everything he did and didn't do.
    "They think I should be more like Daddy," he complained. "Daddy was senior monitor at Averhill and I'm not even a house prefect. Daddy was Phi Beta Kappa and Bones at Yale. Daddy's the great banker ... Well, you see, there's no end of it."
    They were in the middle of the little bay now, and Natica, looking back, could make out one of the gables of Amberley, high on the hill. For a moment her yearning for such a home and such a father was so acute as to be actually painful.
    "Your old man's a tycoon, of course. He can't help that. And everyone respects and admires him. But perhaps being a tycoon isn't the only thing in the world. Your father has to pay for his success with the awe that surrounds him. He can't expect to be popular and easy the way you are."
    "Oh, do you really find me that?"
    "Well, aren't you?"
    She let him kiss her, but then drew firmly back.
    "What's wrong? Do I offend?"
    "Not at all," she replied in a definite tone. "But I don't think I want to get involved with you."
    "Even a wee bit? Even for a summer afternoon?"
    "Not even that. Because, if you must know, you're just a wee bit too attractive."
    And she proceeded to show that she meant it by sitting farther away and continuing the conversation pleasantly but on more neutral grounds. It was thus that she intended to show him that, however much attracted she might be by his charm, she had no idea of constituting any sort of a social threat. It was not difficult; he did
not
attract her.
    He was evidently pleased, for in the ensuing days he did not renew his amatory gesture. He continued to devote his attention to her at family meals, and he took her sailing once again, but it seemed enough now to be able to tell her of his troubles, to joke with her, and sometimes, at the family board, to wink across the table in recognition of their special link. Perhaps he was relieved not to have to do more. Perhaps it was less challenging to be a god on a pedestal.
    "You seem to have made a convert of my brother," Edith drawled one morning at their lesson. "I've never seen him take such trouble to be agreeable. If he keeps this up, he may become almost endurable."
    But then came a lunch when