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Show The Girl Who Came Back BY JACK WOODFORD CoPyr,8h V W. N. U. Servic. desk, and a thick taupe rug. She could see that the bed folded up during dur-ing the daytime and was concealed by two French doors which now stood open. A small door next to the French-doors French-doors stood open and an Ironing board protruded from it, fastened to the wall. It was a rather cozy, convenient-looking little room. The entire building had been built especially for girls who worked, along the lines of a new thought in working girls' homes, In that it had nothing of the "institutional" "institu-tional" flavor but seemed just like a family hotel. Gertrude watched her as her eyes roved about the room. "Like the dump?" she asked at last. "It's lovely," Lolita conceded wholeheartedly. whole-heartedly. "Hunky!" remarked Gertrude cryptically, cryp-tically, "it's half yours from now on." "You said that you were going to tell me something a little while ago," prompted Lolita, anxious to have her friend keep on talking so that her mind might not veer back too sharply to things that cut her as though she were filled with sharp glass. "Yes," admited Gertrude, "1 haven't forgotten I guess you're ready to listen now. I don't want you eveT to repeat anything of what I tell you. The rest of the girls at the store . i and you'll be all the more likely now to recognize a straight slow ball when you see it you'll know how to dodge to keep from being hit by the fast ones. You've played around In the bush league plenty long enough. Make up your mind tonight, not to step down and out, to give up and condemn yourself, your-self, but, Just make a game out of life from now on. You're at the bottom, in your own estimation, right now ; Just you start out tomorrow to have the most fun you ever had In your life seeing how high toward the top you can climb. I'll play along with you , until you feel as though you could hang on to the ladder again and start climbing . . . why, there isn't really anything you can't do if you make up your mind to it what soy?" Lolita looked acrosr at the now thoroughly thor-oughly earnest face of the girl opposite op-posite her. "You really think that aiter what's happened I can still " - "Why sure I Who knows anything about it?" "But if I should ever fall in love with a real man, one who " "If you ever fall in love with a eal man, he will be one who will be proud enough to listen to your story without with-out blinking, if he let's you tell it at all. There's very few men couldn't poke a pretty stiff chapter into the book of life themselves if they ever opened up as frankly as a fool woman does when she's honestly in love." "But it's going to be so hard at first. I'll miss Harvey, somehow, even while I loathe him, and I don't dare go home. Father'd see, Instantly, Instant-ly, the moment he looked at me, that there was something wrong." "Easiest way out of that, old girl, Is to find something to do every minute min-ute you're awake." "But In the evenings?" "Teh, in the evenings by the moonlight," moon-light," remarked the other bitterly. "But there's a way out of that, too. I suppose you think I got a lot of nerve to be lecturing you like this, when I haven't amounted to anything myself, but maybe I've got all the more right to do it, Just because of that. I see the bad bulls 1 made, and I've also seen how 1 could have avoided avoid-ed them. Why not go to school in the evenings? Think of all the things you c;n learn if you want to; why, there's all kinds of schools. There's secretary schools, where they place you in a good Job when you graduate, and trade schools; why, 1 know a girl works in a beauty shop, learned her trade in a year at night school, milking milk-ing around a hundred a week now, eats dinner at the Edgewater Beach every Sunday and pays for It herself. Believe me, when you're In a position posi-tion to pay your own way. then's when you're sitting pretty In p pretty little city, take it from one who's never been able to pay her own way. Listen, kid," Gertrude's tone changed. "Do you know that you're actually smiling, for the first time since you came in here?" She broke off with a laugh and suddenly pulled the other girl into a standing position upon the floor and started to unfasten her clothes. A few moments more and the light was off and they were In bed. Somewhere Some-where from across the now only faint-Ij faint-Ij rumbling city the chimes on a church struck three measured strokes. "Three strikes out I" thought Lolita Lo-lita with a little shiver as she lay beneath be-neath the covers, and then, though she ached with lonesonieness and despair, de-spair, she gritted ber teeth togetner firmly, "but tomorrow another game starts," she told herself. (TO BE CONTINUED. 1 m lit P ' THE STORY Influenced by loneliness, without with-out relatives, or real friends, in Chicago, Lolita Forbes, young and pretty, yields to the Importunities Impor-tunities of Harvey Torrence, with ' whom she fancies herself In love CHAPTER I Continued 2 "Harvey, you lied to me from the start. You've lied to me every day we've been together. If you lied about one thing, there is no telling about how many other things you lied. I can't stand it all of the beautiful things that have passed between us and it's all been nothing but comic-opera comic-opera from the start Will you take me to the Grantham, or shall 1 get out and walk?" "Oh h 1," he said, disgustedly, and started the car. It was but a matter of a few blocks. He stopped the car without a word before the door and she got out Immediately. "Aren't you going to kiss me good-by, good-by, kid?" he asked ber in halting tones, tinged with real emotion. She stopped, looked at him for a moment, her eyes blinded by tears, and In that moment, for the first time she saw him, comically distorted ; saw the loud-uess loud-uess of bis check suit; the assertlve-ness assertlve-ness of his tie, the angle at which his gray fedora hat was pitched, the way the cigarette hung limply from bis under lip. the cheap good looks of his weak face; It was as though a mirror had been held up before her and she were somehow seeing herself. Without With-out a word she turned and fled Into the foyer. It was after 2 a. m. Men were not allowed In the hotel, beyond the lobby; lob-by; but they possessed all corners ol the lobby with its subdued lights. They were sitting everywhere wilb girls who lived in the hotel, talking, laughing londly. Walking past them, her head in the air. Lolita approached the automatic lift. "Who Is it?" came the sleepy voice of Lolita's friend when she knocked upon her door. "It's 1." said Lolita weakly through the panels, "Lolita. I should like to stay with you tonight, if 1 may." "Well, for crying out loud!" Lolita heard her friend say as she snapped on the light and came toward the door. "Harsh light streamed out to meet her from the open door. Gertrude, her friend, who also worked at the Emporium, Em-porium, was anything but prepossessing, prepossess-ing, with her hair in strings, her eyes starey. and her face covered with cold cVeam. Lolita. aching for companion ship and sympathy, threw hersell into her arms. "What's the big Idea?" objected Gertrude Ger-trude in startled surprise. "Oh, Gen, let me stay with you, ' Lolita begged. The other girl held tier . out at arm's length, looking at her sternly; anil then, with incredible sud denness she fuelled, softened. Lolita's head was upon her shoulder and she was crying gorgeously. "Tell me nil about it. kid," Gertrude demanded. Sparing nothing, Lolita told her the whole story, from tlie first time that she bad seen Harvey Torrence, until their parting thai night. The other listened carefully until she had fin Ished. "Well?" prompted Lolita, when she had come to the end of her tale, and Gertrude gave no sign of having beard, made no comment. "Yes, very, thanks," said Gertrude slaugily. "Wonder why I'm not sur prised or excited, or auything? Easy The story you Just told is as much mine as yours. In fact It's a very old story that doesn't belong to anyone; there's uothing original about it." "But it's new to me." protested Lolita. "What shall I do? It seems as though I'd been asleep for six mouths, walking in a dream, doing things that I shouldn't have done; and now I'm awake and 1 see how awful It all was, and I'm terrified; Oh. Gertrude, Ger-trude, please tell me ; whal shall I do? I've only one idea, myself and somehow some-how I can't do that either; It would kill dad." "And besides," returned Gertrude. water's cold us h I this time of year." Lolita hung her head. It seemed us though this other girl's experience had held so much that nothing, Dot even secret thoughts, were new to her. "Uowd you like to live here with me awhile?" suggested Gertrude, afler a moment; "you'd have the benefit of a 'horrible example' always before you do you good." She stopped to laugh, but there was no humor in ber laugh. Lolita sensed, for she could see that her story bad greatly affected the other girl. "Wouldn't I he a bother?" "Heck, no. You'd be welcome. All I've got' now Is my salary from the store, my sweetie pulled out a week ago; If you'll pay half the room rent It will be a lot cheaper for both of us. and then you can have a little money left to do what I'm going to tell you to do in a minute." Lolita looked about the little room The're were two large, comfortable looklDg upholstered chairs, a spinel "Take It From One Who's Never Been Able to Pay Her Own Way." would kid the very life out of me if they heard about it, because lols of us like to prelend we don't care all that sort of stuff; it's the only defense we've got. What I wanted to tell you Is simply this. You stand tonight, right where I stood about ten years ago, with the one difference that per haps you've got a little more sense you had better training at hume, or something I can feel a difference In you somehow. I let a rat put it over on me and break my heart, and then like a darned fool 1 went right ahead and finished myself what he'd only started. In those days, there was some kind of a delusion abroad In the land that when a girl was down she was out. Those days are gone forever for-ever take It from me. Siuce war, people, somehow. Just aren't so narrow. nar-row. One drink don't make a drunkard. drunk-ard. Just because you've made one mistake, don't get the Idea that the umpire Is going to send you to the bench. You'll have a lot of chances al die plate yet the Important thing is to profit by your experience You know a curve now when you see It. |