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Show Mrs.Hrrypurt Smith instance, how decisive money s be adult world. For lack of it she was being penalized, but a Tony Rvan could "trlde rou.ch.hod into society because he had the admission price. "Going so soon, Janet?" asked Priscilla carelessly. Pr:.SYeS." said Janet. "I'm using Tim's car and I must pick him up He s over at the club subbing tor 'jock McCall, you know. She was surprised when she reached the battered flivver which her brother Jim had bought of a us d car dealer, to find that Gordon Gor-don had followed her outside -I'm awfully sorry," he stam-mered. stam-mered. I told you it's quite all right, said Janet. "I wouldn't have embarrassed em-barrassed you by coming over this afternoon if I had known you had a tea engagement w.th Priscilla t didn't mean to come, only I met Norma and she said the whole crowd was here. She wouldu t let me off." Gordon was perspiring. "It's not that," he said. "It's tonight. "Tonight?" "Mother didn't know I was taking tak-ing you to the dance. She couldn't have known, or she wouujT accepted Priscilla's dinner bij? Janet sat very still tor , ' ent. You mean you have to t Priscilla to the dance'?" ' 'Til ask Jim to bring yon sharply. "Please don't," she re,tslel "You're such a peach!" V "Yes?" murmered Janei ,,( "Yes?" murmered Janei ' drove away. Tliat same afternoon Jm p.. lips looked up from the tour ment schedule he was making "'.' for the next day to discover Cl Hetchcote smiling at him t the doorway of the caddy IT at the Country Club. "I haven't a partner, JB ,, looks as if you'll have to'.' around with me," she said ruetull; Jim laughed. "I can't think ni any way I'd rather spend a bait,, June afternoon than golfing a Hetchcote." Ruth smiled. "But then Wtl always been right partial to Dad and me." (To be continued) his nose, which was a little noosed noos-ed as if it had been broken. His -kin was swarthy and he was tall and unusually broad across the shoulders, but his waist and hips were narrow. He had a small-white small-white scar at the side of his mouth, and was dark enough to be an Italian, but his eyes were Irish blue. "You asked me to look you up if I came down this way," he said to Priscilla. "Tony Ryan!" Priscilla gave a little squtial of delight and ran across the room. She took both his hands in hers and drew him over the threshold. "It's Tony iRyan, everybody!" exclaimed Priscilla as if she expected ex-pected the news to overcome them. "What are we supposed to do?" Janet asked Ted. "Fall down and roll over, or kiss his hand?" Ted did not answer. He and the others were crowding in a body about the great Tony Ryan who at eighteen had been lightweight champion of America, and at twenty-two had realized that the big money in the sporting world is in the promotion end, and who at twenty-seven was said to be house In which to entertain her friends. Nor until recently had It made any social difference because be-cause her mother worked in a department de-partment store. Before her marriage mar-riage Anne Phillips had been a Radcliffe. The Radcliffes were one of the town's old aristocratic i'amilies. Janet's grandfather had been governor of the sate at one time. When it had become necessary ne-cessary at her husband's death for Mrs. Phillips to go out and make a living for her three children, her friends applauded her courage. Bay City was a conservative southern town of twenty thousand thous-and inhabitants. Everyone of any social pretensions lived on the right side of the town branch and Chapter I "It was the smoothest Formal the Kurorlty ever gave, I mean It really was," Insisted Norma Poole. "Far be It from me to doubt it," murmered Janet. "Did I tell you about the favors?" fav-ors?" Inquired Norma eagerly. Janet nodded. "Yes, you told me." She might have added that she heard the sorority dance discussed until she was weary of the subject, hut Norma meant to be kind and after all It was not her fault that Janet Phillips had not been able to go away to an exclusive finishing school along with the other girls in her crowd. "Want to dance. Norma?" asked ask-ed Dickey Allen, "or are you afraid?" Norma was wearing Ted Hughes' Hu-ghes' frat pin, and she adored being be-ing teased about it. "Certainly not!" she cried, displaying all her dimples. "Ted and I are terribly broad minded." Norma's departure left Janet conspicuously stranded on a large pink damask sofa. At the tea table ta-ble Priscilla Leigh was expatiating expatiat-ing on the plans for her debut party In the fall. "All alone, Janet," asked Ted Hughes, dropping down beside her. "Yes," said Janet with a little grimace. "I was sorry you couldn't come to the June Prom," he said. "You're the only girl in the crowd who didn't show up. We missed you." "I missed being there." "Gordon was lost without you." Janet carefully made her face expressionless. "Was he?" she asked. She did not glance toward Gordon Gor-don Key who was dancing with Priscilla Leigh. Until nine months before it had not mattered that Janet Phillips did not have a car of her own and a well-to-do father and a large "I don't mind," said Janet. The irritating point was that when she said things like that, nobody no-body believed her.- The crowd was convinced that Gordon was breaking break-ing Janet's heart. "Run on and dance with Janet, Gordon," said Priscilla. "Didn't you always use to say she could dance rings around the rest of us?" Janet had had a surfeit of that sort of inuendo since her friends came home. Someone was forever pairing her off with Gordon because be-cause that was how it used to be. She and Gordon had never been formally engaged, but for several years it had been understood in the crowd that she was exclusively exclusive-ly Gordon's girl. "Sorry," said Janet, and to save her life she could not keep the acid out of her voice, "I don' believe be-lieve I care to dance just now." Priscilla gave a trill of malicious malic-ious laughter. "Don't tell me that love's young dream has curdled!" Gordon looked miserable and guilty and confused. "I didn't realize re-alize I was neglecting you, Janet," he stammered. "It's quite all right," said Jnaet stiffly. "It may seem incredible, but there are compensations for being neglected." Priscilla giggled. "That sounds like the well-known sour grapes, darling." Janet could see herself in the ready to retire with something over a half million dollars. "You said if you ever came off down here, you'd look me up," cried Priscilla deliriously, "but I simply didn't believe you'd come. I mean I couldn't imagine that any thing so perfectly gorgeous might happen." "Why shouldn't I drop into Bay City and look the old town over?" he demanded lazily. "After all," he went on softly, "My mother used to take in washing wash-ing for all the best families in Bay City. When I delivered clothes at back doors I promised myself I wouldn't be poor white trash from the wrong side of the branch forever," he said. "Funny, isn't it? As a ragged little tyke in a shanty in Shanty Town I made up my mind that some day I'd walk in at the front door of a house like this and be treated as visiting royalty." The corners of his wide mouth curled, the mockery in his Irish eyes deepened. As if he were sneering at them, thought Janet. "Darling," cried Priscilla, giving giv-ing him a languishing glance, "It's too romantic, from rags to riches practically over night!" Tony Ryan grinned. "All in the good old American tradition." Janet turned away abruptly. A great many things she had been taught to believe apparently were not true. She had not known, for went first to the old frame grade school on Lucas Avenue and later to the new brick High at Dawes and State. As a matter of course Janet grew up right along with the daughters of her mother's old friends. She had not realized a break was inevitable when she and her girl friends graduated from High School. The boys in the crowd had been going off to colleges and universities univer-sities for several years, but the group remained intact until the girls themselves departed for finishing fin-ishing schools the preceding September. Sept-ember. Janet had counted the days until their return for the summer. Yet it was now only the third week in June and she had definitely discovered that she no longer belonged. It was no one's fault. Nobody, again with the notable exception of Priscilla, wanted Janet to feel left out. Her path had diverged too sharply from the others. She was studying interior decorating in the Normal at home. When she finished her course she was going to work, and she seemed no long-I long-I er to have a lot in common with her friend. I'm for another slice of cake," said Ted when the radio paused for station identification. He led the way to the tea table toward which Gordon was moving with Priscilla. Janet's cheeks burned. burn-ed. "Hullo, Janet," he murmered. "How are you?" "I was never better," said Janet with her most brilliant smile. Priscilla laughed unpleasantly. "Excuse it, darling, if I seem to j have monopolized your boy friend this afternoon." mirror above the gate, a tall, slender, slen-der, black-haired girl in a crisp I blue linen dress with a white leather belt and glass buttons down the front. "My teeth are on edge," she told Priscilla, "but believe it or not, it has nothing to do with sour grapes." Priscilla shrugged her shoulders should-ers in a cynical manner and Gordon Gor-don looked more conscience-stricken conscience-stricken than ever. "I gues you'll carry off the swimming cup as usual tomorrow, Janet," he said. Janet shook her head. "You forget I have classes in the morning." morn-ing." "But it's the club opening." "Country clubs may come and go," said Janet lightly, "but summer sum-mer school is something you don't cut even once, or you're dropped." "What ever made you enroll?" protested Priscilla. "It's dumb enough to go to a poky local college col-lege when everybody's away and there's nohing else to do." Janet shrugged her shoulders. "The Normal has no social standing, stand-ing, Priscilla. You probably can't comprehend it, but people go there because they want to learn. It fits you for a paying job," Janet pointed point-ed out. "At least when I get my diploma in August I'm promised a place at Tracy's." There was another awkward pause. "You're going into the store?" faltered Ted in a second feeble effort to retrieve the conversation. con-versation. "The store where your mother works?" Priscilla added with disagreeable dis-agreeable emphasis. "Yes," said Janet, her lips tightening. tight-ening. Gordon Key was his widowed mother's adored and only child. They were impoverished gentlefolk. gentle-folk. By the exercise of every economy and subterfuge Dora Key managed, however, to keep up a front. "I'm afraid your mother thinks I'm committing social suicide," Janet said to Gordon with a laugh that was like a gauntlet flung down between them. He flushed. "The matter has certain bred-in-the-bone prejudices." prejud-ices." Priscilla laughed. "You sound as if you inherited them." "I don't believe any woman can buck the world without coarsening herself," he admitted doggedly. He's quoting his mother, thought Janet. It was then she became aware of the man standing in the doorway. door-way. She did not know how long he had been there, or how much he had overheard. He had a lean, controlled face and eyes which were not easily read. His heavy black eyebrows nearly met above |