Эптон Синклер - Oil!

“You’ll have to get a new God!” Bunny had managed to recover the use of his tongue.

“I want us to promise to be happy! Any time we can’t be happy, let’s quit, and not have any fuss! Let’s be sensible, and not go crazy with jealousy, and torment each other.”

“You’ll be a plenty for me,” declared Bunny. “I surely won’t make you jealous!”

“You don’t know what you’ll do! Nobody ever knows! It’s the devil’s own business—oh, you’ve no idea what I’ve seen, Bunny! You’re nothing but a babe in arms.”

“You’ll be good to me, Vee, and raise me up!”

“How do you know what I’ll do? How do you know anything about me? You want me, without really knowing what I am or what I’ll do! I could have told you a million lies, and how would you have known? The next woman that comes along will tell you a million and one, and how will you know about her?”

“That’s too easy, Vee—you’ll tell me!”

He sank down on his knees before her, and took one of her hands, intending to comfort her; but she pushed it away. “No, I don’t want you to do that. I want you to think about what I’m saying. I want us to decide in cold blood.”

“You make my blood cold,” he laughed, “telling about the vamps of Hollywood!”

“Bunny, a man and a woman ought to tell each other the truth—all the time. They ought to trust each other that much, no matter how much it hurts. Isn’t that so?”

“You bet it’s so.”

“If that means they give each other up, all right—but they’ve no business holding each other by lies. Will you make that bargain, Bunny?”

“I will.”

“And I want you to know, I don’t want any of your money.”

“I haven’t got any money, Vee—it’s all Dad’s. That is the first painful truth.”

“Well, I don’t want it. I’ve got my own, and I’ll take care of myself. I’ve got a job, and you’ll have yours, and we’ll let each other alone, and meet when it makes both of us happy.”

“That’s too easy for a man, Vee!”

“It’ll be a game, and those are the rules, and if we break the rules, it’s cheating.”

Bunny could assure her that he had never cheated in a game, and would not cheat in this one. So he overcame her fears, and she was in his arms again, and they were exchanging those ravishing kisses, of which for a time it seems impossible ever to have enough. Presently she whispered, “Some one will come out here, Bunny. Let me go in, and I’ll dance a bit, and then make my excuses and get away, and you come up to my room.”

Had anybody seen them in the moonlight? Or had Vee whispered the secret to Annabelle? Or was it just the light of happiness radiating from the eyes of the young couple? Anyhow, it was evident next day that the truth was out, and there was an atmosphere of festivity about the Monastery. Nobody went so far as to sprinkle rice on the pair, or to throw old shoes at them, or tie white ribbons to their cars; but there were friendly smiles, and sly jests, enough to keep the play spirit alive. Annabelle, of course, was enraptured; she had planned this from the beginning, she had picked this young oil prince for her friend from the day that Verne had told her about him. And Verne—well, you can imagine that when he started to make jokes on such a subject, nobody was left in doubt as to what had happened!

Strangely enough, when Bunny got home, he found this spirit of orange blossoms and white ribbons in some mysterious way communicated to Dad. Could it be that Verne, the old rascal, had taken the trouble to telephone the news? Here was Dad, shining with satisfaction, and Bunny could read his every thought. Dad had met Vee Tracy, and liked her fine. A motion picture star—by golly, that was something to brag about! That was the right sort of career for a young oil prince—quite in the aristocratic tradition! Bunny would have something else in his mind now but this fool Bolshevik business!

Presently here was Dad trying to drop hints—with about as much tact as you would expect from a full grown rhinoceros! Had Vee Tracy been up at the Monastery this time? Say, that was a live wire, that girl! Verne said she got as high as four thousand a week; and that was no press agent money either. She had more brains than all the male dolls put together; she had money salted away, owned lots all over Hollywood. She’d come to Verne to ask his advice about Ross Consolidated, and he had told her to go the limit, and by golly, she had brought him a cashier’s check for fifty thousand dollars, and had got a block of the stock at the opening price, and now it was worth three times that, and Vee said that Verne had saved her from six rapings! Then the old rhinoceros went on and explained what Vee had meant—that she wouldn’t have to act in six pictures!

And then there was Bertie, who got the news at once because it happened that Charlie Norman’s bootlegger was in love with Annabelle Ames’ sister. Right away Bertie was curious to meet Vee Tracy, and ordered Bunny to bring her to lunch. Vee was uneasy about this—declaring that sisters always poisoned men against sweethearts. But Bunny laughed and said he had plenty of antitoxins against Bertie. So they met, and everything went off beautifully; Vee was humble, and anxious to please, and Bertie was the great lady, supremely gracious. That was according to the properties, for Vee was only an actress, while Bertie was in real “society,” her doings appearing in a sanctified part of the newspaper, where the screen people seldom broke in. After the luncheon, Bertie told her brother that Vee was all right, and maybe she would teach him a little sense; which, from a sister, was the limit of cordiality.

So there they were, everything hunkydory. Bunny’s sleep was no longer disturbed by dreams; the dream had become a reality, and it was his. When they visited the Monastery, they were placed in connecting rooms; and when he went to visit Vee at her bungalow, the discreet elderly lady who kept house for her would quietly disappear. As for the moving picture colony, it said nothing more—having already said everything there was to say.

Bunny would call Vee on the telephone, and if it was a Saturday or holiday, they would make a date; but if it was a week-day, Vee would say, “No, Bunny, you ought to stay home and study.”

He would answer, “Oh, bosh, Vee, I’m a whole week ahead of my classes.”

“But Bunny, if I make you neglect your work, your father will get down on me!”

“Dad’s more in love with you than I am! He thinks you’re the brightest star in the movie zodiac.”

“We just mustn’t overdo it, Bunny! Your conscience will get to troubling you, and you’ll blame it on me.”

“Dog-gone-it, Vee, you boss me worse than if we were Annabelle and Roscoe.”

“Well, let me tell you, if I manage to keep my oil prince as long as Annabelle has kept hers, I’ll count myself a lucky woman!”

Gregor Nikolaieff was back from his trip to Alaska, with more troubles for the conscience of a young idealist. Gregor was gaunt and hollow-eyed, like Paul returned from Siberia. Poor unsuspecting foreign youth—he had shipped on what the sailors call “the hell fleet of the Pacific,” and had found himself trapped in a desolate bay, walled in by mountains on one side and ocean on the other, housed in barracks whose floors were wet by the tides, sleeping in vermin-ridden bunks, and eating food like that fed to the inmates of county jails. No way of escape, save on ships that would not take you! While Bunny had been romping in the Pacific with Vee and the seals, Gregor had been near to drowning himself in the same ocean.

Also Rachel Menzies had come home, with more troubles; there was a strike of the clothing workers! Quite unforeseen and spontaneous—hundreds of workers, driven beyond endurance by petty oppressions, had walked out in the middle of a job; the movement had spread all over this Angel City, paradise of the “open shop.” The workers were crowding into the union offices and signing up, and a regular mass-struggle was under way. But Papa Menzies, one of the intellectuals among the strikers, a man of force and insight—Papa Menzies was sitting at home, with his frantic Hebrew wife clinging to his coat-tails and wailing that if he went out and took part in the strike, the police would get him and ship him off to Poland to be shot, and never to see his family again!