Love & Mrs. Sargent by Patrick Dennis

Sheila of lacking poise, but she always felt her composure crumbling in the presence of Malvern. Sheila didn’t know exactly when Malvern’s role had switched from Old Family Friend, the “Uncle” Howard who administered the estate, advised on stocks and bonds, took the children off to circuses and suitable matinees, to inarticulate beau. The change had been so gradual, so subtle, that Sheila had not recognized it—at least not in time to put a stop to it. Howard was now a permanent fixture. He took her out an evening or two every week; whenever she gave a dinner party— which was often—Howard invariably played host; people who had once dug up dashing extra men to escort the fabulous Sheila Sargent to their parties, now relaxed and just invited old Howard. They were getting to be treated like a couple. It would be only a matter of time, Sheila knew, before Howard got up enough courage to ask her to marry him and she supposed that she would say Yes. Howard was a habit, but a habit that made her rather uncomfortable.
    “ Well, Mr. Malvern,” she said brightly.
    “ Well?”
    “ Well, I must say that you’ve been neglecting me dreadfully. I haven’t seen you for more than a week.”
    “Sheila, darling, I’ve been busy.”
    “I see. Too busy for we?”
    “Busy with you! Setting up all the details for this Mother of the Year Award. . . .”
    “Oh, that!”
    “Thinking about your television show. Getting you even wider syndication for next year. This cover story for Worldwide. . . . ”
    “Worldwide indeed! Trashy little smart-aleck so-called news magazine. I’d just as soon be on the cover of the Police Gazette. I wonder if that talented portrait artist of yours might not paint me all bosoms and a rhinestone g-string.”
    “Don’t kid yourself, Sheila. Worldwide may be trash to you but it’s gospel to four million subscribers fifty-two weeks a year.”
    “Don’t I have more readers than that, Howard?”
    “Many more, but it’s not quite the same thing. That’s why I brought this Johnson out here myself.”
    “And why is that?”
    “I wanted to speak to you about him. I don’t like the way he’s going at this story. He’s come out here loaded for bear. He sounds like a Communist to me.”
    “Dear Howard!” Sheila laughed. “A Communist! And you sound like a newspaper publishers’ convention. He’s just a writer of the Surly School. It’s fashionable nowadays.”
    “Well, I still don’t like his attitude. It’s downright belligerent. And that’s why I want to warn you, my dear. Be very, very careful with him.”
    “Careful?”
    “Very careful about what you tell him.”
    “Tell him? Can you mention one thing about my life—any one incident—that couldn’t be printed on the front page of every newspaper in America?”
    “There’s us.”
    “ What about us?”
    “Well, it wouldn’t be especially pleasant—or especially good— for either of us to have our, ahem, relationship raked over the coals.”
    “Howard Malvern, you’re too priceless.” Sheila laughed and hugged him. “In the first place, you and I do not have any ahem, relationship. In the second place, we are middle-aged people, I’ve been a widow for fifteen years and you’ve been divorced for more than twenty. I hardly think it’s an outrage to the public morality if you take me to the Cape Cod Room for a plate of scallops now and then. The readers of Worldwide seem to be far more interested in how large my income is; whether I pick my teeth at dinner parties; how much I spend for my underwear and what size it is. You know—important facts.”
    “Still the same old Sheila,” Malvern said, squeezing her awkwardly. “But remember, this boy’s bearing a grudge of some sort. Turn on the charm. I know you can do it.”
    “Of course I can do it. Any fool can. But I’m not going to.”
    “Sheila! This could mean. . . .”
    “I’ve never tried to kid myself or anyone else, Howard, and I’m too old to start now.