OCR Text |
Show By John Scott Douglas ffiHE DRIVER SAID, . "It's a straight walk, and a pretty little lit-tle cottage, but maybe all you'll find there will be trouble, Hal." Hal Lennard stepped from the car and said, "I'll deserve it,. Ed." "Seeing the New Year in doesn't mean much to me, Hal. Call the Ashes, and I'll leave early if she makes it too hot for you." Hal smiled and started briskly along the walk. But his steps gradually grad-ually slowed. Ed might be right. This visit could be awkward. It wasn't easy to face a woman who had loved you and from whom you'd run away;- He'd chosen the night deliberately. deliber-ately. (For it was on New Year's Eve, exactly 11 years ago, that he'd stood on the parapet outside the Skylight Room with Carol Cameron), Cam-eron), looking down at the city's lights, listening to sirens announcing announc-ing the new year. Impulsively, he'd said, "Will you marry me, Carol?" There was none of the coquette in Carol. "Of course, Hal. I've intended in-tended to since pigtail days." Now that memory made his knock uncertain. Within, he heard quick, light steps, and the door opened. "How good of you to come, Hal." Her voice still had a bell-like tone. She didn't switch on the light as she led the way into the living room. A dog nuzzled his leg as he sat down. "Here, Thora," she said. "Kind of you to let me come, Carol," he began awkwardly. "I wanted to make my peace before another year rolled around." "It was a shock," she admitted quietly. "Having a man ask you to marry him as the New Year broke, ; vr' - 'if-! ... j v ' v'-o ......v. A ...., .. .-.-. It was on New Year's Eve, 11 years ago, that he'd stood on the parapet with Carol Cameron. and then at noon next day receiving receiv-ing that telegram saying that you were going away and to forgive you." "I had a kid idea that I wanted to work at whatever I pleased, wherever I pleased. Fancy free, and tied to no responsibilities." TJY THE TIME I'd seen some of U the country and part of Mexico, Mexi-co, the war came, and I went into the merchant marine for the excitement ex-citement and big money. Crossed the Atlantic in convoys a few times before I had the bad luck to sail on a tanker that was torpedoed in the Caribbean." He described the confusion of the green crew, how he had been forced . to swim through burning oil, and had then drifted in a life-jacket life-jacket for hours before being rescued. res-cued. Months in a marine hospital had followed. "It was the massage treatments there," he explained, "that made me decide to become a masseur. Now I have two assistants. But I shouldn't be talking so much when you haVen't mentioned your accident." acci-dent." Before she quite finished, horns and sirens began blaring. "The New Year already, Hal. How quickly the time has passed." "It always did for us, remember?" remem-ber?" "It's a nice idea a fresh new year when people can resolve to lead better lives, start afresh and leave their mistakes behind." His voice was husky: "Could that be us, Carol? I'd like to make a fresh start with you, darling, if you could forgive me." She was silent so long that he added, "I wouldn't run away a second time." "I'm not thinking of that, my dear. I'm too happy to think. But maybe I should. There would be problems for us, Hal." "None we couldn't meet if we had courage." He found her lips and this time there was no parapet to steady himself. But he felt the dog beside him and gripped its harness. A tail began to thump his leg. "I believe Thora likes me," he said. "I hope she'll like Buck." "She should. Theyre of opposite sexes," Carol said. "That should keep our seeing-eye dogs from fighting, shouldn't it, darling?" |