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Show TRAILER GIRL Ledger VERA BROWN WNU Service THE STORY THUS FAR Lynn Morrow, beautiful blonde New York girl. Is stranded In Palm Beach In her bathing suit with only 50 cents when her employer. Mrs. Helen Warren, disappears dis-appears with car and trailer from a camp where she. Buddy, her son, and Lynn had been living. A note from Mrs. Warren advises Lynn to call at her New York attorney's office for her clothes and wages. She Is rescued by Terry Mc-Nair. Mc-Nair. whom she met at the beach. She goes to his home, where he has a maid provide her with some of his sister's evening clothes. They then go to a beach club. His sister appears and a quarrel ensues. Lynn accepts the help of a stranger to escape. He takes her to his home where he Identifies himself as Raymond Ray-mond (Wild) Austin. He accuses her of trying to blackmail him. Greatly Incensed, In-censed, Lynn flees. Stopping at a coffee cof-fee shop, she meets a young artist, Rene Bouchier, who is returning to New York by trailer and offers to take her there. She finds Rene to be a decent sort ot a fellow. Lynn tells Rene her story. The car breaks down. They are forced to stay at the Lovell farmhouse during repairs, the Lovells believing them new-lyweds. new-lyweds. The Lovells discover they are not married and insist a marriage take place. There being no way out, Lynn and Rene agree. They decide their marriage Is to be one in name only, with a divorce to follow. The wedding takes place. Their car repaired, they go on. Arriving in New York, they go to a trailer camp. Rene is taken ill. Lynn nurses him through. Their funds are gone. Lynn goes to see Mr. Mortimer, Mrs. Warren's attorney, who gives her a check for $200. Lynn secure's a position with Mme. Reanoud as a dress model. A friend of Rene's, Marty Siedenberg, art editor of a nationally known weekly, calls. CHAPTER X Continued "Get more of the stove in, push her around!" Marty said excitedly as he hung over Rene's shoulder. Tears of anger and pain came to her eyes. Her hand did hurt badly! Rene was too cruel. "Get those tears!" "You've both gone mad!" Lynn cried out. "Shut up, cry some more!" Marty snapped at her. That was an easy order. Her hand was blistering. The bacon grease was congealing in an unsightly mess on the rug. Rene sketched away for dear life, and it was not for another ten minutes he allowed Lynn to begin be-gin to clean up the mess. "Put something on your hand," Rene said at last. "Put on some more coffee, girl, we'll talk all this over," Marty suggested sug-gested with a wave of his large hand. Meekly Lynn did as she was ordered, as the two men talked excitedly ex-citedly in an un-understandable jargon. jar-gon. Later, at the table, over coffee cups, Marty Siedenberg tried to explain ex-plain to Lynn what had happened. "We liked Rene's stuff, but we wanted action. Something for the last of the month. Something arresting ar-resting and amusing. He couldn't seem to get it. But this is it!" Siedenberg turned out to be the art editor of a nationally known weekly with whom Rene had been dickering for a magazine cover. "I knew he could do it, if we just got going right. Rene, my boy!" Marty leaned back, toasted the excited ex-cited artist with his coffee cup. "Now the first thing is for you to get out of this joint so you'll have some space to work in," and Marty . peeled off some bills from the roll in his pocket. CHAPTER XI The pictures were finished, and Marty Siedenberg charged about Rene's big dusty studio down off Washington Square. Lynn had a little room with her own bath in the building next door to Rene's new home, and she believed be-lieved she was the happiest girl in the world. As she looked at the picture pic-ture she said finally: "I'm not as lovely as that." Marty grinned down at her. "No, nobody could be, but you're what every American girl would like to be." The girl in the picture, tears running run-ning down her cheeks, nursed a burned hand as bacon and eggs swam on the floor of the trailer. "Trailer Girl" was the name of the picture. Rene had managed to get in a suggestion of a wrecked stove, as a vacation breakfast went down before the crash. It was amusing and pathetic and lovely. Rene had caught Lynn's breathless beauty, even In this domestic breakfast crisis. "I wonder how you'll like fame?" Marty said suddenly to Lynn. "Fame?" "My child, in a week after our magazine comes out you'll have half the guys in New York trying to date you." "What nonsense!" "Wait and see." The magazine came out the last week in May, on a Wednesday. Lynn had not realized how startled she would be the first time she saw those new magazines piled high, on every newsstand, filling drug store windows. Her first sight of them came when she got off the Fifth Avenue bus that morning to go to work. A boy at the corner had a hundred of them piled, and people were buying them as they would the morning papers. Lynn hurried past, her head turned away. She was startled and flustered. Once inside the shop she dropped into a chair in the back room. She suddenly wanted to run away. But how silly, she told herself. her-self. Half an hour later Madam came charging in waving one of the magazines maga-zines in her hand. "Lynn, come here!" sne ordered. Why didn't you tell me?" Lynn tried to explain she didn't think it was important "Not important? Humph!" Madam Mad-am said nothing more, but she went into her office, straight to the telephone. tele-phone. If Madam was stunned by Lynn's sudden leap into the limelight, three men, all of them interested in Lynn, were even more upset. One of them was Mortimer. He saw the magazine as he ate breakfast, break-fast, and it spoiled his whole day. Terry McNair saw it in Asheville waiting to drop in to New York for a few days before he went on up to Maine. Wild Austin was in New York. He was staying at his mother's Long Island home and when he drove in to town that morning, through the Long Island Springtime, he felt suddenly weary with life. . His car stopped at his office next to his father's, and Austin went into the lobby. At the cigar store, the new weekly was stretched out, in a long line of ten, from a cord over the counter. He stood there speechless, speech-less, staring. Then he bought one, fled toward his rarely occupied suite. He looked at it a long time. "There can't be any mistake!" Then he began be-gan hunting feverishly for his telephone tele-phone book. Wild knew Marty Siedenberg, Sie-denberg, and, of course, he telephoned tele-phoned him immediately. "Hello, Marty, Wild speaking," he said when the call got through. "Who's the gorgeous blonde on your magazine this week?" Marty laughed with pride: "Nice, eh? Say, you're the steenth guy that's called this morning!" "Am I? I know Miss Morrow, as it happens." "Do you? She's worth knowing." Wild tried to keep his voice casual: cas-ual: "Any idea where I can get hold of her? I'd like to send her some flowers." "Of course, you would, you old fox!" Marty roared with laughter. This was getting good and he was thoroughly enjoying himself, for Mortimer's call had preceded Austin's. Aus-tin's. "That's a charming thought, Wild. Send them to me and I'll see she gets them!" Wild frowned, but his voice continued con-tinued to be perfection. "I'd like to take the kid to lunch." "So would about 'a million other guys in this town! Listen, Wild, I'm not going to turn that kid over to you! She's a nice girl." Wild laughed: "I resent that!" Finally, Fi-nally, Wild gave up in despair. Marty Mar-ty was not to be cajoled, and he refused to give Wild any information informa-tion about the "Rene" who had signed the picture. "You made a real find there," Wild said finally, resorting to flattery. flat-tery. "You're tellin' me? She's one" in a million! And the artist is not so bad!" "I wouldn't know about that!" flipped Wild. "So it's thumbs down!" "Absolutely." "I'll find her in twenty-four hours if it's the last thing I ever do!" Wild warned. "That's a bet. How much?" "Five hundred." So Wild set about the new business busi-ness of his day to find Lynn. He had no idea where to start He telephoned every artist he knew, and drew a blank. At least he was certain cer-tain that the girl's name was Lynn Morrow. He even tried Mortimer again, and Mortimer pretended he did not know what Wild was talking about That was the call Mortimer had so dreaded. But he felt he had carried off the thing rather well. By night he was discouraged. He called a detective agency he knew, gave them the magazine and told them to go ahead. Later, in his room at home, Wild looked over the morning papers. He glanced at them all, threw them down, picked them up again. It must have been 2 o'clock when he started on the town's most famous gossip column. There was one paragraph para-graph which caught his eyes when he was half through it. . "That gorgeous blonde on the R. E. A. cover this week models for Mme. Reanoud's Fifth Avenue shop. She's a honey, all right Hollywood please copy' Wild reached for a telephone book. Madam's shop was at 641 Fifth Avenue. Ave-nue. Two A. M. Nothing he could do tonight But, Wild put a sign on his door for his valet which read: "Call for me at 7 A. M." Next morning when Lynn came to work there was a big purple box waiting for her. The girl opened it and from the masses of swirling tissue and packing came two gorgeous gor-geous purple king orchids. The other girls stood about exclaiming ex-claiming as Lynn held her first orchids or-chids in her hand. "Who are they from?" somebody demanded. Lynn looked at the card, hidden in the box. It read: "A pica and an apology." It was signed simply "Wild." CHAPTER XII Mme. Reanoud took the card from Lynn's shaking hand. "Don't tell me they're from Wild Austin!" Lynn's eyes answered to her. "Do you know him?" "No." Lynn answered almost rudely. "How did he find me?" she added, her anger rising. Madam did not answer but she looked guilty. For she was, of course, responsible for that item in the Broadway column. It was good publicity for her shop. "Now, my dear, he's a nice boy, a little wild, but nice." Lynn shrugged, tossed the orchids onto the table. So an hour later, when "Wild" walked into the shop, Madam met him, wearing the flowers he had sent Lynn. She flushed uncomfortably, uncomfort-ably, for she knew he recognized them instantly. He held out his hand: "Please help me, Mme. Reanoud. Rea-noud. She's angry at me and I want to make my peace. Can I see her a moment? Some place a little private?" pri-vate?" "In my office," was all Madam could say as she sent for Lynn. The girl came in. Then she saw Wild. She halted suddenly. He came toward her, and Madam, always discreet left them together. "Please, Lynn " Wild held out his hand. Lynn did not trust herself to speak. "I came hoping you'd forgive me. I behaved badly, Lynn." Lynn smiled a little uncertainly. It all seemed a long time ago that she had run away from his mother's moth-er's home. It did not matter now, nor did he. She had hated him once bitterly. Now that Austin was here, he seemed a stranger. That night in Florida seemed trivial and far and unimportant. , VI have forgotten all that," she said in a low voice, anxious to be done with this conversation, .to get back to work. "That's kind of you. I was sorry afterward, tried to find you, but you'd disappeared." Lynn smiled at the memory of that panic, and how poor Rene had dashed for the North that night. Seeing her smile, Wild was beaming. beam-ing. "I sent a peace offering this morning, but you didn't accept it, I see." "I was angry, just for the moment. mo-ment. We'll forget the whole thing." Her tone held a note of dismissal. "Would you have dinner with me tonight? I'd be very grateful, sure you'd forgiven me!" Wild pleaded well, because he was quite sincere. "That is impossible, Mr. Austin." Seeing his face fall she added by way of explanation: "You see I find so little time to pose for Mr. Bouchier Bou-chier that I go straight home so he may make use of the hour of daylight left." "Will you let me drive you, then?" Lynn tried to refuse, but he protested pro-tested so hard she finally nodded: "If it gives you pleasure. I live down in the Village. It is not far, but I must go directly to Mr. Bou-chier's Bou-chier's studio." "Whatever you say." Business was excellent and Mme. Reanoud was beaming. It was almost al-most closing time when Terry McNair Mc-Nair came dashing into the shop. Madam knew his sister well, sold her clothes often. In fact, she had sold Helen the frock Lynn had "borrowed" "bor-rowed" that eventful night in February. Feb-ruary. Lynn was modeling a bridesmaid's frock when Terry arrived. Mme. Reanoud kept him 'occupied until Lynn was free, and she shook her head over Lynn's friends. She had no idea the girl knew so many important im-portant people. Madam felt she had been right to suspect Lynn of hidden hid-den worldliness. Certainly she must have learned much from these two young men! Lynn was pleasant to Terry, took the box of roses his chauffeur brought in, refused to have dinner with him. He left finally when she promised she might dine with him later. But he waited outside to see Wild drive up in his car. Terry came over to Wild's roadster and grinned. "So you weren't interested in Miss Morrow!" His voice was mocking. "Only to apologize for being so rude to her," Wild said uncomfortably. uncomfort-ably. He was frankly embarrassed at Terry's appearance. "Where are you dining?" Terry asked next. "At Pierre's," Wild lied. "You might join us there later, if you can." With an elaborate nod Terry answered: an-swered: "Thanks, you mug! You know darned well you won't be there, if you thought I'd turn up!" Just then Lynn came out wearing a prim white linen suit which set off her luscious beauty to perfection. perfec-tion. She talked with them both for a moment, then climbed into Wild's car. "I want to lose Terry," Wild explained ex-plained as he turned off Fifth Avenue. Ave-nue. "I'll hurry you home. But I don't want him bothering you." Wild was as good as his word. He drove at breakneck speed, and shortly they were before the studio off Washington Square. "I'm sorry 1 must hurry, but Rene will be waiting." "Aren't you going to eat?" "Later, perhaps." "How long does the brute keep you posing?" "Until almost dark." Lynn did not explain that usually she prepared Rene's supper for him. Wild let her go without further pretest and she was grateful (TO BE r.oyTIWLDJ. |