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Show 5 two keys to a cabin BY LIDA LARRIMORE e MACRAE SMITH CO. WNU SERVICE la liage, running breathlessly, excitedly, excited-ly, to a cab. to Maine, to John. Kate came out from the dining-room dining-room as Gay burst into the hall of the apartment. "Where have you been?" she asked. "I waited luncheon for an hour. You're out of breath. Have you been running?" "Yes, I've been running. We mustn't lose any time." Kate dropped down on a love-seat in the hall. "What do you mean?" she asked. "We're driving to Maine." Gay tugged at her arm. "Come! Pack what you must but not much." "I'm not going to Maine. I'm going go-ing to stay right here and finish Anthony Adverse if it takes the rest of my life." "Don't be silly. We're going to Maine." "I went to Maine with you once and you know what happened." "All right, then. I'll go alone." "Wait a minute." Kate quickly caught Gay's arm as she turned. "What is this all about? You're the most head-long young lady I've ever known." "I've got to go, Kate. I wrote John a letter last night breaking it off, telling him I was going to marry Todd." "And now you want to beat the letter to Maine?" "If I can. Anyway, I'm going, I told Suki to call the garage and have my car sent around. I must pack." "Oh, Gay! And I've only my Pullman Pull-man case here!" Kate wailed. "It's as big as a trunk." "What does that have to do with my going to Maine?" "Well, you don't think I'd trust you to go alone, do you?" "Will you go with me?" Gay caught Kate's hand and gave it a squeeze. "Kate, you are a lamb." "Nonsense!" Kate pulled her hand away. "Go on and pack." "It's nice, isn't it?" Kate said as Gay turned the car into the street on which Dr. Sargeant lived. "They're elms, aren't they? Did you ever see so many, so tall?" "It's nice now." Gay's eyes strained ahead for the square frame house which she had remembered was painted yellow. "When I was here in March it was pretty bleak. There was a blizzard." "That must have been jolly." Kate regarded Gay's profile. "Aren't you glad I made you stay at that Inn last night? You look fresh and rested, rest-ed, though I still don't care for that hat." "The house was yellow," Gay murmured, slackening the speed of the car. "I don't see any yellow houses. Are you sure this is the right street?" "I've written the address a good many times. Oh!" Gay gave a little lit-tle cry. "There are Nat and Skip-py. Skip-py. This is the house. They've had it painted white." She drew in at the curb, pulled the brake, shut off the motor. "Hello, "Hel-lo, Admiral Byrd?" she called. (TO BE CONTINUED) CHAPTER XV Continued 22 "Jerry Conover." Gay's smile deepened. She leaned back against the leather upholstery, looking out across the dance floor where couples cou-ples circled in a wash of artfully mellowed light. "You called me up one day and asked me to take you dancing," continued con-tinued Todd. "Because he was magnificent in the sky but no use at all on a dance floor. And you took me. As I remember re-member the subject of aviation was never mentioned between us. Not for six months, at least. Yes, all that's true," she added thoughtfully. "We'd have something " "A great deal I'd try not to be too much in evidence. You could consider me a part of the landscape, until " "Todd!" she cried in soft protest. She turned to look at him, her eyes shadowed, thoughtful, a half-smile trembling across her lips. The music had stopped. It began again, a familiar tune. A voice, meltingly tender, sang "Red sails in the sunset Far out on the sea" Their eyes met. "Our tune. You bribed them to play it When you spoke to the waiter a few minutes ago " "All's fair in" He smiled with a twinkle in his hazel eyes. "Will you dance with me. Gay?" In silence they walked to the edge of the floor. She slipped into his arms, so accustomed to his dancing technique that her position, her steps, conformed instinctively with his. They circled out across the floor, rhythmically, with practiced ease, moving as though they were one person, her red-brown head close to his blond head, her dress of cream-colored lace, starched to crispness, as fragile as frost-work, a delicate silhouette against the black of his evening clothes. "That's the way it is with us. Gay," he said after a moment. "No false starts, no stepping on each other's toes, no necessity for apologies." apolo-gies." "I'd rather dance with you than anyone. But life isn't all dancing, Todd." "Dancing is a symbol. We understand under-stand each other." Her head turned, drew a little away so that she could look at him. His eyes met hers steadily. "There'd be sailing and dancing," he said gently. "Friends, a home, children, if you want them, friendship. friend-ship. They're good things, Gay." "Very good thingsTodd. But are they enough for you?" . "I told you, I'm conceited." He smiled. "You're a darKng." "Will you, Gay?" "I'll think I'll try I'll see" . . . Gay's evening wrap slipped from her shoulders, fell to the floor. She walked across to the desk between the windows. When you killed a thing, you killed it quickly. She seated herself, selected a sheet of note paper, drew the pen from its holder. "John, darling" The pen moved steadily across the sheet of cream-colored cream-colored paper, beneath the engraved address of her mother's apartment. "We have hurt each other too much and too often. It isn't your fault or mine. I love you. I have tried as you have tried, but trying does no good. I'm going to marry Todd, very soon, by the time you receive this, perhaps, we will have been married. He understands, as you must and will. There can be no peace for either you or me while we continue to fight something that is too big for us, something which we cannot alter or control. I want peace for you, for myself. You will find it in your work. I will find it, eventually, in the life which Todd and I, together, will create. cre-ate. Don't be bitter or self-reproachful. I don't regret having loved you. You must not regret what has happened. Keep the memories of the happy times we've had and forget for-get the others . . . "' The pen came to a stop. She read what she had written. It seemed adequate. There was nothing noth-ing to add except her name. She wrote it quickly, folded the sheet of note-paper, enclosed it in an envelope, enve-lope, found a stamp. "Dr. John L. Houghton," Dr. Sargeant's address in Portland. Her writing was clear, each letter distinct and carefully formed. It betrayed no sign of emotion. emo-tion. She was glad of that. There was nothing to indicate hesitancy. She glanced at the clock on the night stand beside her bed. Better to mail it now than to wait until morning. She rose, stooped, picked up her evening wrap. Standing before be-fore the mirror, she slipped it on. secured the fastenings with delib eration and smoothed back her hair. When she turned, she saw the letter, a cream-colored oblong on dark desk pad. She returned to the desk, stood for an instant holding the letter in her hand, then, moving swiftly and quietly, went out of the room. The night doorman spoke to her at the entrance of the apartment. "I'm going to mail a letter, William," Wil-liam," she said. "Shall I mail it fo' you?" he asked. "No, thank you." "Must be mighty important letter," let-ter," he said, with a drowsy grin. "Very important, William." She went out through the door he held open for her into the quiet street There was a mailbox at the corner. cor-ner. Her high narrow heels clicked on the concrete pavement. The air was balmy and smelled of the river. riv-er. The sky was sown thickly with stars. The letter made no sound falling into the box, hut the click of the lid against the slot when her hand released it startled her as though a shot had been fired through the night. -Walking back to the apartment house, saying good-night to the doorman, door-man, going up in the lift, she marveled mar-veled at her composure. Whenever, during the last three months, she had thought of making a clean break with John, she had anticipated the pain it would give her. Now that she had written and posted the letter, she felt only a sense of relief. Had she gotten over it without being be-ing conscious of the process? she wondered as she prepared for bed. Nothing in the mechanical movements move-ments involved in writing and posting post-ing the letter had shaken her except the click of the mailbox lid. Her hand, as she brushed her hair, was steady. Her face, in the mirror above the dressing-table, was composed, com-posed, thin as it had been all spring, the cheek bones accented, shadows under her eyes. No hint of jhe shattering shat-tering emotion she had anticipated. She felt more tranquil than she had for months, physically weary, as though she could sleep forever. She lay beneath a light coverlet in the soft narrow bed, her arms crossed beneath her head, looking up at the disk of light that the bed-stand bed-stand lamp printed upon the ceiling. At some time, during the past three months, had she stopped loving John? No, not that But had she accepted ac-cepted the inevitable? Had she been recovering all these weeks since she had returned from Maine? Had the decision she had avoided, finally made, brought tranquillity rather than the pain she had anticipated? She didn't know. She felt sleepy, blissfully released from tension and strain. She turned, pulled the lamp cord. Darkness pressed against her closed eyelids, heavy and soft, blotting blot-ting out objects, smothering thought, quieting as an opiate, blessedly welcome. wel-come. Her hand, moving to an accustomed ac-customed position beneath her cheek felt heavy. She sighed, murmured and was asleep. CHAPTER XVI Gay dropped down on a bench in Central Park and glanced at her wrist-watch. Ten minutes of two. Kate would have had luncheon without with-out her, wondering where she was. Todd would probably have called. He had said last night . . . She sighed and put it out of her mind, her weary glance returning to the Park. So children rolled hoops again. Why did they combine pink geraniums with those striped green and dark red plants? Where did all the strange-looking people one saw come from? How long did it take a letter mailed at midnight to reach Portland, Maine? Would he receive it in the late afternoon aft-ernoon delivery today? Was there a delivery in the afternoon? Why hadn't she called the post-office this morning when she woke and realized what she had done? Wouldn't there have been time enough, then, to stop the letter? All sorts of red-tape, she supposed, and she hadn't been sure that she wanted it stopped. She wasn't sure now. In spite of the way her heart ached and the faint-ness faint-ness which made her so weary, hadn't she done the right thing, the best thing for both herself and John? There was Todd, of course. But if he was willing to take a chance Strange how calm she'd been last night, dancing with Todd, half promising prom-ising to marry him, writing that letter to John and posting it. She'd slept, too, deeply and restfully. It was not until this morning when she woke that she had realized what she had done. This morning How long would it take a letter mailed a little after midnight to reach Portland. Port-land. Maine? The words she had written recurred re-curred to her. "We have hurt each other too much and too often." That was true. But the hurts they had given each other were not comparable compara-ble to the suffering she was enduring endur-ing now, to what John would suffer when he read her letter. She imagined imag-ined him tearing it open in the hall of Dr. Sargean't home, eagerly, because be-cause he loved her letters, anticipating anticipat-ing in the envelope which bore her hand-writing, a momentary release from work which was, to him, uninteresting un-interesting and exacting. Sitting on the park bench, she tortured herself her-self by watching his expression change, seeing the brightness fade out of his face, his lips quiver with pain, the agony in his eyes . . . "I'm going to marry Todd, very soon, by the time you receive this, perhaps " But she wasn't going to marry Todd, not very soon, not even as long as John lived and loved her, as long as she loved him with this aching intensity that throbbed with every throbbing beat of her heart. She was not going to marry Todd. That was settled the night she and Kate had arrived at the cabin, when John came in and she had watched his expression change from brusque inquiry to astonishment, to the soft and joyous radiance that had shone in his eyes. But why shouldn't she marry Todd? She loved him dearly, in quite a different way. But wasn't that "Go on and pack." way more lasting? She might hurt Todd but he could not hurt her. There would be children, lovely blond children in DePinna play suits filling her life. Why shouldn't she marry Todd Two children ran toward her. One of them stumbled and caught at her to keep from falling. Dark eyes looked up at her from a thin dark face. Her heart gave a lurch. She smiled and started to speak, but the child raced on, beyond her, out of her reach. A letter mailed at midnight She could drive to Portland in ten hours or less. Leaving now, she would be there before midnight Or she might drive as far as Boston tonight and go on to Portland in the morning. morn-ing. Her heart beat quickly, hopefully. hope-fully. She took a few rapid steps forward. But John would have had the letter let-ter by then. Would he? She wasn't sure. And to go dashing up there would be a concession. He had not come to her here. They had parted, after the time she had spent in his mother's home, not entirely reconciled, recon-ciled, a distance between them which both recognized but which neither had made an effort to close. If he loved her, and wanted her He hadn't been able to leave, of course. But now that Dr. Sargeant had returned re-turned Gay's chin lifted above the scarf knotted at her throat under un-der the jacket of her dark flannel suit She wouldn't humble herself to return to Maine. She wouldn't Why shouldn't she? Was it pride, false-pride, the wilful arrogance she had fought against that was restraining re-straining her? Was it pride that, last night, had compelled her to half promise Todd she would marry him, to write the letter to John? Pretty stupid to let pride rob you of the thing you wanted more than anything any-thing in the world. Pretty stupid and obstinate to let something beautiful beau-tiful slip through your fingers because be-cause you were accustomed to having hav-ing your own wilful way She did not know when she made the decision. She was hardly aware that she had until she found herself her-self running through the park to the nearest point at which she might l.ope to hail a cab, a tall beautiful girl in a dark tailored suit and a small bright hat, running along a paved walk beneath sun dappled fo- |