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Show A5vs ' Harry PchJ UdV fcV Mc ClURt W.N.U. Service7 CiLsC;S INSTALLMENT EIGHT The Story So Far Kathleen Maguire goes to a dance with Gene Mays, wealthy scamp, whom she does not like, because she Is Irritated Irri-tated for many reasons. Mrs. Newsum wants Jaird. her son. to marry Connie Mays, though he is in love and en-ffaged en-ffaged to Shirley, Kathleen's sister. Tom, her brother, and his wife, Mary Etta, are talking of Reno, since the depression depres-sion has made him dependent on her earnings as secretary. Her brother. Alec, who can't find a job. Is taking up with a flashy divorcee, years older than he. And Ritchie Graham, a stranger in town, kissed her after fixing a flat for her. He is a newspaper man too. At the dance she sees Alec, who tells her that for a Joke he made a phony date with poor Lou Knight, the town drunk's daughter. Kathleen makes him keep the date. He takes her to a show. CHAPTER X Continued Alec had a healthy fear of ridicule because he was awfully good at it himself. He made plenty ol sport of other people and he imagined they were always looking for a chance to return the compliment. If he caught a pal in a comic position, he rode the life out of him. He knew that by morning everybody in town would have heard about his new girl friend and he had a good idea of the kind of hurrah he was in for. But he had no comeback. That was what hurt. He would just have to take it and like it. The girl beside him said nothing at all. She sat as far away as possible, huddled in her seat, her eyes fastened on the screen. But the small hands clenched in her lap were white at the knuckles and Alec had an idea she didn't see any more of the picture pic-ture than he did. Butch Henderson and Henny Baxter, Bax-ter, a couple of pool-room cowboys whom Alec wouldn't have introduced to his sisters, but with whom he sometimes shot a few craps when he had nothing else to do, came In and sat down directly behind him. Occasionally one of them sniggered and the back of Alec's neck felt scalded. They hung around outside the theater when the show was over to hand Alec a discreet raspberry. They weren't even very discreet about it. Had Lou noticed? Alec glanced at her sidewise. Her little pointed face was very white, but she stared straight ahead. It is an unwritten law in small towns that a fellow asks a girl to have a drink after he's taken her to a movie. But Alec just did not believe he could walk into Henderson's Hender-son's Drug Store and sit at a table with Lou Knight while the village comedians lined up on stools at the soda fountain and exercised their wit at his expense. So he marched her home straight as he could go, trying desperately to make conversation conver-sation to which she answered only in choked, frightened monosyllables. It was just midnight of a warm May night. On Main Street a good deal was still stirring. But down near the shops the streets were illy lighted and almost deserted. It was the longest ten blocks Alec ever traversed. tra-versed. He could have shouted when the ordeal ended at the foot of the steep staircase that went up to Lou's sorry home. Only all at once his elation collapsed. What on earth was he going to say to the poor kid? "It was nice of you to go out with me," he stammered. She was staring at him with big miserable eyes and her under-lip quivered. He didn't want to lie but it seemed kinder kind-er than to let her down flat. "Maybe we'll do it again some day." pranks. But Shirley knew that Connie Con-nie was neither a child nor innocent But did Jaird know or care? It was enough to turn any man's head, the way Connie had been pursuing pur-suing Jaird for months. It did not seem possible that she could have gone on and on without a fraction of encouragement on his part. And yet Shirley suspected that where Connie Mays was concerned, anything any-thing was possible. It was certain, however, that others by no means gave Jaird the benefit of the doubt. For weeks Shirley's friends had been going out of their way to be sweet to her. And she knew what that meant. They believed Jaird intended in-tended to jilt her for Connie Mays. After all thought Shirley with a bitterness that dismayed her, Jaird could not be blamed if he yielded to the inevitable. Eugene Mays' son-in-law would not long remain in the ranks of the unemployed. Once married mar-ried to Connie, Jaird's economic problems would dissolve like mist in the blaze of his wife's powerful family connections. Of course if Jaird chose Connie as a way out, he lost Shirley. But did that any longer long-er mean a loss to him?" "What's become of Janet's friend who had such a crush on you earlier in the evening, Shirley?" asked Bob when the music ended. "What always happens when a new man looks at Shirley!" exclaimed ex-claimed Nell Cotter with indignation. indigna-tion. "Somebody told him she was engaged. And that was that." Jaird had come up behind them. He flushed darkly. "That's what Mother means when she says long engagements are un- heaviness lay between them like a blight. It had not been present those first radiant months of their engagement. engage-ment. Shirley had been able to talk to Jaird then about anything. More intimately than she had ever talked to another person. Against his breast, her hps on his, her reticence had vanished. But somewhere in the past year they had receded from each other. A curtain dropped between. be-tween. Even their kisses were no longer sweet, but bitter. Terribly bitter with denial. The wide front porch of the Maguire Ma-guire house was dark behind its tangle tan-gle of wistaria and climbing roses. It was not late. But nothing stirred. Jaird caught Shirley into his arms. Lately his caresses were always a little savage. As if he resented them because they never came to anything. any-thing. Even his lips had lost the shy tenderness with which they had once kissed her. They were feverish, fever-ish, almost cruel. More desperate than anything. Shirley's lovely slender slen-der body quivered. Her heart beat a devil's tattoo in her ears. "Shirley!" he cried in a thick unnatural un-natural voice. "It's hell to have you like this and then let you go." "I know," she whispered. "We never do anything any more but drive each other mad. Wanting what we can't have," he groaned. She shivered. It was true. To be together only aroused everything in them which they dared not release. "Shirley, we can't go on like this." He was putting into words the thing she had shrunk from saying. "I want you, Shirley. All of you! Or nothing. Shirley, darling!" whispered whis-pered Jaird. It was not the first time they had stood on the edge of an abyss, he couldn't lose Jaird. She couldn't go on without him, thought Shirley with a sob. Unconsciously her defenses crumbled. She felt herself being washed out on the turgid sea from which there is no returning. Only suddenly Shirley thought of Laura. Laura, who would never condemn, but whose heart would break. "You'll have to go, Jaird," said Shirley and pushed his arms away. He went without a word. Almost as if furies were at his heels. Poor Jaird, who had never dreamed he might live to see the day when his love was a threat and a disaster, both to his own and Shirley's' souls. CHAPTER Xn Tom Maguire glanced at his watch and groaned. It was ten minutes to two. His head ached. The Coal Scuttle, the city's newest tavern, was crowded to its rococo doors, the air heavy with stale cigar smoke, the tables littered with cigarette ashes, dreggy glasses and dead bottles. bot-tles. There had been many speeches. The same old hooey, thought Tom. Bombastic flowery eloquence, praising prais-ing the new Highway Commissioner, to which he had replied with the usual inanities. And running the whole show although he kept in the background, was Harvey Cobb Leigh. With tired embittered eyes Tom studied his wife's employer. Leigh was in his early fifties, a short paunchy man with a smooth un-lined un-lined face and small bullet eyes under un-der sleepy eyelids. But he was not sleepy. He was a human dynamo as Mary Etta often boasted. He never tired or took his hand off the throttle. Tom sighed. Mary Etta sat at her employer's left, the wife of the guest of honor at his right, a pudgy lady who looked as if she wished she were at home in bed. But apparently Mary Etta was as fresh 'as she had been three hours earlier. Tom knew that she had not missed a trick in the evening's progress. prog-ress. That was what made her invaluable. in-valuable. She had a stenographic memory which on such occasions as these did not require a notebook. The next day when she filed her memoranda, nothing would be missing miss-ing that might later be required. No wonder Harvey Cobb Leigh depended depend-ed on her and paid her a commensurate commen-surate amount. Tom stared at the cigarette which he had lit from the butt of another. an-other. He hated all the loud talk. It made him want to chew his fingernails. finger-nails. It was just so much eyewash, as he very well knew. And at the back of his brain a hammer pounded. The rent was due tomorrow and he could not pay it. Until now thanks to the nest egg which he had accumulated in more prosperous times toward buying his own business Tom had been able at least to pay for sheer necessities like rent and food. But the past year, when his earnings had dropped to an appalling low, had wiped out his savings at a rate that left him hanging on the ropes, dizzy for breath. "Thank God!" he muttered when at last people began to push back from soiled and disorderly tables. Mary Etta gave him a stiletto . glance. "You needn't make it quite so obvious that you've been bored to death," she said out the corner of her mouth. (TO BE CO. Tl.L F.D "Somebody told him she was engaged." fair," he said when he and Shirley were dancing a little later. Doubts stabbed her. Was Jaird hinting that he agreed with his mother? "I guess you'll be a withered old maid before I can afford to marry you, Shirley," he went on and his voice rasped. "God knows, I'd think you'd hate me for the fiasco I've made. After I promised you everything. every-thing. If I were half a man I'd set you free for some other man who can afford a wife." She wished that she could read his mind. He might mean exactly what he said. Or he might be offering her a graceful exit. Hoping she'd break their engagement and set them both free to find happiness elsewhere since together they had reached an impasse. "You're so beautiful, Shirley," groaned Jaird. "And so sweet. And you're wasting the best years of your life waiting for a guy who can't even buy you a sack of peanuts unless un-less his father doles out the nickel." She wanted dreadfully to tell him that she would wait forever if he wanted her to. Only she wasn't sure he wanted anything of the kind. So she couldn't say it. Not when possibly possi-bly he hoped she would say something some-thing quite different. "Maybe things will change." murmured mur-mured Shirley, which might mean anything or nothing. "Maybe so," agreed Jaird and went off to dance with Connie Mays. And the old dreary treadmill set up its merciless hammering in Shirley's Shir-ley's heart. Was Jaird tired of going go-ing around in circles never getting anywhere? The way he and Shirley Shir-ley had been doing for years. Both of them were silent on their way home in Jaird's coupe which his mother had given him on his last birthday. It was not new for them to have nothing to say to each other. Nowadays they were never gay when they were together. A His heart sank as he realized that she was crying. Very softly. As shyly as she did everything else. "You don't have to pretend so as not to hurt my feelings," she said in a little smothered voice. "I know you won't ask me again. Because I've just bored you. Ever since you called this afternoon I've tried to think of things to say. Interesting things so you'd want to come back. But I couldn't. Say anything, I mean." Alec stared at her dumbly. "You see," whispered Lou Knight, "nothing as lovely as this has ever happened to me before and I guess it never will again." Alec Maguire swallowed hard but he could not speak. And after a minute she went on, so low he could barely distinguish the words. "I've always thought you were wonderful. At school I used to watch you although you never noticed me. You were always taking prizes. And every time you did, I felt as proud as if it had happened to me. And you're the only person who ever did anything about Pop when kids treated treat-ed him mean. I could have kissed the ground you walked on for that. But I never thought you'd ask me for a date. Not really. I used to dream sometimes that you would. Dreams help when you haven't anything any-thing else. Only I always knew anybody any-body as marvelous as you could never nev-er bother about me." Alec felt as if someone was pouring pour-ing salt on a fresh wound in his side. "I'm not marvelous, Lou," he said humbly. "You are to me." she whispered and fled up the stairs. CHAPTER XI Shirley Maguire. dancing with Bob Baird, did not look at Jaird. Never once did her eyes turn in his direction. direc-tion. But she was really conscious of nothing except Jaird with Connie Ways in his arms. Connie's face lifted devouringly to his while her green eyes said shameless tilings and her pouting scarlet mouth promised prom-ised even more. The girl was . perfectly brazen. Why not? She was the daughter of Eugene Mays and all her life she had done exactly as she pleased. Like her brother, Connie was about as subtle as a battering ram. She did outrageous things and the town smiled indulgently. People like Bella Newsum said Connie was Just a high-spirited child, full of innocent |