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Show Si 1 1 The Married Life of Helen and Warren 1 I , 1 t T TVTA'DTT ' Originator of "Their Married It f Y MilDiiL Life." Author of "The Jour- l I HERBERT URNER tt-te""Tle j 1 HELEN SPENDS A TRYING AFTERNOON MINISTERING TO CARRIE'S QUERULOUS DEMANDS ' i n n n n i g (Copyright, 1U17, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) "This pillow's s o hot," com-plained com-plained Carrie fretfully, rising on her elbow. "There, is that more .comfortable?" .comforta-ble?" Helen turned the rumpled rum-pled pillow. "What time is it?" querulously. "You haven't forgotten for-gotten my broth?" of course, if you dou't want to stay don't let me keep you." "Now, Carrie, don't take it that way. You know I'll stay if you need me but I didn't think, a few moments would make any difference." With an air of haughty aloofness, somewhat difficult to assume in bed, Carrie turned to the wall, while Helen, with quiet resignation, took a chair by the bed. A few moments later swift steps crossed the porch below, and the nurse came running up. "I'm so sorry to be late," laying off the long coat that covered her white uniform, "but I walked farther than I thought." "You'll have to change my nightgown night-gown before the doctor comes," began Carrie complainingly. "And I want my hair brushed, and " "You won't mind if I rush off," broke in Helen. "I think I can still make that train." "I'd cut across the commons," suggested sug-gested the nurse. "It's nearer." Throwing on her things, with a hurried hur-ried goodby, Helen ran down the stairs and out into the quiet dusk of the suburban streets. The unpaved crossings were still muddy from last night's rain. She had forgotten her rubbers, but, regardless of her thin shoes, she plunged recklessly reck-lessly ahead through the soft, marshy ground of a vacant lot. A distant whistle heralded the approaching ap-proaching train. Another block and she saw it was too late. Already the engine, with clanging bell, was slowing up. Though she ran on with panting, hopeless speed, she was still half a block away when the train drew out. An hour's wTait in that dingy, cheerless cheer-less station! She did not even consider con-sider going back to Carrie's. In the flyspecked window of a drug and candy store hung the familiar blue telephone sign. She would have to 'phone Dora that she could not get home for dinner. The freckle-faced youth behind the counter directed her to the telephone in the back. "Local calls, five cents New York city calls, twenty-five cents," read the card above the instrument. Helen had not thought that Warren would be home so early, and her heart bounded at his deep-voiced "Hello." "Oh, I've missed the six-fifteen, and the next is seven-ten. . . . Carrie let the nurse off and I had to stay. . . . You go ahead and have your dinner. . . . Dear, I wonder If you could meet me? Would you mind? ... No, I won't take a taxi it was a dollar dol-lar and a half last time. I can take the subway." Laying the quarter on the counter cluttered with pyramided patent medicines, medi-cines, soaps and chewing gum, Helen crossed the street to the station, where the yellow lights now gleamed faintly through the dusty windows. Warren had not expressed the slight' est concern over her long dinnerless wait. Even her "I'm sorry you have to eat alone," had brought only a careless care-less "Oh, that's all right" instead of the sympathetic response for which she had angled. And he had refused polntblank to meet her. The ill-smelling waiting room with Its rusty stove, tobacco-stained spittoons spit-toons and "eczemaed" walls was not conducive to cheerfulness. The high, nickering lights were too dim to read by, and she spent an Interminable hour brooding over Warren's indifference and his sister's utter selfishness. Ten minutes late, the snortingly impatient im-patient train stopped only long enough for the conductor to swing her up the high step. It had begun to mist, a cold, windblown wind-blown drizzle. Inside the soiled red plush car Helen gazed out the wet, blurred window in lonely, morbid dejection. de-jection. The dinner hour past without with-out food and her damp feet were physical phys-ical discomforts that contributed to her mental despondency. It was raining hard when they finally plunged into the tunnels of the Grand Central station. Forlornly she made her way up the long platform through the gates and toward the subway entrance. en-trance. "Hello, Kitten!" A tall, overcoated figure loomed beside her. "Oh oh," she caught his arm, her heart leaping with dizzy Joy. "No," Warren steered her past the subway steps, "we'll take a taxi over to Jack's and square off to an extra sirloin." "Oh, no no. Dora's saved something some-thing for me. I don't want much." "Well, I do !" They were outside now. and he was beckoning for a cab. "Why, dear, didn't you have your dinner?" "Wasn't hungry then had a late lunch. Didn't feel like eating alone anyway." In the shadow of the cab, Helen nestled against his damp coat, swept to the thrilled heights that are only reached from the very depths. "Hold up there; somebody'll set you." "I don't care if they do," with gle ful (Vfinnee, as ehe kissed again his unbending neck. Mabel Herbert Uraer -N0' U S n0t quite five. Try to keep your arms covered," drawing up the sheet and blanket before she ran to answer the phrilling 'phone. "Hello ! . . . No, this is Helen. The nurse is off for a couple of hours. , . . Yes, she seems a little better. , . . No, It's not so high only 101. . . . O, no, I'm glad to do it." "Can't you deaden that 'phone?" when Helen returned to the bed. "Stuff the bcil with something. It wakes me up every time I doze off." "I'd better fix your broth first. It'll take a few moments to heat." "Pull down that shade a little more. No, not so much there! Wait, you'd better close that transom I feel a draft." The shade and transom adjusted, Helen ran downstairs to the kitchen. Finding the broth in a glass jar in the refrigerator, carefully she measured out a cupful in. a small enamel stew-pan. stew-pan. While it was heating, she could not help notice that the stove was not overclean. Instead of the shining spotlessness that she expected of Carrie's kitchen, things were neither very orderly nor very clean. But this was only because Carrie was ill. When she took up the napkin-covered broth, Carrie was tossing restlessly. rest-lessly. "It's too hot," tasting it with a grimace, "and too salty." "I didn't salt it," stirring the broth to cool it. "I just poured it out of the jar." "Well, it wasn't that salty before," skeptically. At all times difficult, Warren's sister sis-ter when she was ill had all of his Irritable unreasonableness. "Oh, those tablets ! I should've had them before the broth. No, that little pin box." "Two every two hours," read Helen from the label, "That's all it says." "The doctor said BEFORE the broth," temperishly. "Oh, I asked you to muffle that 'phone." It was only a wrong number call, p.nd as Helen hung up the receiver she stopped to fold a blotter and wedge it behind the bell. "Helen !" Carrie's voice came petulantly petu-lantly from the bedroom. "I'd better take those tablets anyway. No, get some fresh water. And bring a glass of cracked ice. And wait you'd better bet-ter fill this hot-water bag. How much longer before the nurse comes?" She said she'd be back at six," murmured mur-mured Helen, feeling under the covers for the bag. "No, it's not hot enough in the bathroom bath-room you'll have to go down to the kitchen. But give me the tablets first. Is that the doorbell?" It was the mail a letter, a postcard and two circular;, which the maid brought up and laid on the bed. "Put the other pillow under my head and raise that shade. No, I can't see," opening the letter. "Turn on this-light by the bed." While Carrie was absorbed in her mail, nplon, wondering what the next demands would be, filled the hot-water bag and got the cracked Ice. "Will you get me a clean handkerchief? handker-chief? Right there in the top drawer In that cretonne box. No, a plain hemstitched hem-stitched one. And hand me that bottle of violet water. The doctor'll be here this evening. Should I put on a fresh gown now or wait until the nurse comes? Well, you'd better lay it out anyway. The third drawer." A profusion of expensive silk and crepe lingerie crowded the drawer, confirming con-firming Helen's belief that about her underwear Carrie was most extravagant. extrava-gant. "No, one with pink ribbon. Yes, that'll do. Now I wish you'd put fresh cases on these pillows they look so rumpled." The pillows in fresh cases, the bed ctralghtened, the bedside table In order, or-der, and It was ten minutes of six. To got home in time for dinner Helen knew that she must catch the 8:15. The station was only a short walk from the house, so she waited another ten minutes before she ventured ven-tured a reluctant, "I'm afraid I'll have lo start now if I make that six-fifteen." six-fifteen." "Whv, you're not going" to leave me ALONE 1" "Can't the maid stay with you until the nurse comes? And Lawrence'll be here In a few minutes. There's no other train until seven-ten. That won't get mi! home before eight." "I wnrOrtn't have let the nurse go If I hadn't thought you'd be here. But, |