No Nice Girl by Perry Lindsay Page A

the light he was offering for her cigarette. The gesture brought her very close to him; so close that the faint, flower-like scent she had dared to put on earlier tantalized his senses just as she had planned it. It also brought again that intriguing, tempting display of soft breasts and the little blue-white shadow between. She looked up at him through her lashes—and suddenly the match had burned to Kenyon’s fingers and her cigarette was still unlighted. And then Kenyon took the cigarette from between her lips and flung it from him. His arms went about her, drawing her up close and hard against him. The blood sang triumphantly in her veins as she lifted her soft mouth, lips faintly parted, for the hard, eager down-drive of his own….
    And a voice from the open doorway said with gentle mirth: “Well, well, well! I do hope I’m intruding—and in time!”
    Kenyon almost flung Phyllis from him as he got to his feet and faced Letty. She stood in the doorway, an inscrutable look in her lovely jade-green eyes. Letty looked—as always—exquisite, in a very sheer summer frock of a dense, deep blue, through which her cream-white skin all but glowed. Her red-gold hair was adorned by a gay little hat that was simply a half-wreath of fresh white flowers that looked like gardenias, theband that held it in place concealed by narrow green leaves. Her long, soft black gloves were wrinkled beneath her elbows, where inevitably there were dimples. In short, Letty looked like something straight from one of the more exclusive fashion magazines. And nothing could have made Phyllis feel more hot and rumpled and untidy.
    Sick with frustration, shaken to the depths with the bitterest humiliation, Phyllis was for the moment powerless to do or say anything. And Kenyon stood awkwardly, flushed and miserable, looking unpleasantly sweaty, his hands opening and closing, for all the world like a rather stupid small boy caught without an alibi in the jam closet.
    Letty looked at the table set for two, with the remnants of a meal—the empty cocktail shaker, the two used glasses. And then her eyes, merry and not at all distressed, flickered over Kenyon and then to Phyllis.
    â€œHow very cozy!” she said silkily, and the very fact that she was not angry, that she was not hurling bitter accusations at them, that she seemed to find the whole thing merely amusing and faintly distasteful, added the final note of bitterness to Phyllis’ discomfort. Caught in the act—like some cheap little strumpet, she told herself furiously. “But, really, Kenyon, this…well, this is something a little beneath you, isn’t it? A cheap little office intrigue! I expected something much more subtle of you—and of Miss Gordon!”
    â€œBut—but see here, Letty, you don’t understand,” stammered Kenyon, and Letty’s airy eyebrows arched a little.
    â€œOh, come now, darling, please don’t insult my intelligence,” she said sweetly. “After all, there’s really nothing much to understand, is there? Except that you’re a male, and quite normal, and Miss Gordon is a morethan ordinarily attractive young woman, and that you were alone here together. Only really , Kenyon, your apartment—or hers—wouldn’t it have been more…well, more discreet? I mean the door was unlocked. Suppose one of the scrubwomen—” She lifted her lovely shoulders, artfully veiled by the dense blue chiffon of her gown, in a little shrug that told them how distasteful the whole scene was.
    â€œBut I tell you, Letty, Miss Gordon and I were working late—” Kenyon tried to bluster, and Phyllis could not bear to look at him.
    â€œOf course, darling, just as you and Miss Gordon have been working late rather frequently, now that I come to think of it,” said Letty gently. “I’m afraid I was stupid enough to accept that at face value. It’s rather nice I learned