Thursday, December 27, 1934
EIGHTH INSTALLMENT
SYNOPSIS , . . Ellen Church, 17
years old, finds herself alone in the
world with her artist mother's last
warning ringing in her ears to "love
lightly." Of the world she knew
little. All her life she had lived
alone with her mother in an old
brown house in a small rural com
munity. All her life, first as a new
baby, then a bubbling child, then a
charming young girl . . . she had
posed for her talented mother who
sold her magazine cover painting
through an art agent in the city . . .
Mrs. Church's broken life . . . the
unfaithful husband, his disappear
ance . . . and after seventeen years
of silence announcement of his death
was at last disclosed to Ellen. The
news of the husband's death killed
Mrs. Church. . . Ellen, alone, turned
to the only contact she knew, the
art agent in New York. Posing,
years of posing, was her only talent
so she was introduced to two lead
ing artists, Dick Alven and Sandy
Macintosh. Both used her as a
model and both fell in love with her
. . . . but Ellen, trying to follow the
warped philosophy of her mother to
"love lightly," resists the thought of
love. Her circle of friends is small,
artists and two or three girl models.
Ellen attends a ball with Sandy.
While dancing a tall young man
claims her and romance is born.
A ride in the park, proposal, the
next day marriage to Tony, and
wealth. But she'd "Love Lightly,"
Ellen told herself. She would never
let him know how desperately she
loved him, even though she were
his wife. NOW GO ON WITH THE
STORY.
"I'd advise you to shut up, old
man," said Dick, sternly. "I don't
blame you, in a way, but there's
something here that neither you nor
I understand. Only this—you said
it!—laughing's all that Ellen can do
just now. If you haven't enough
sense to see it, if Claire isn't woman
enough to get it, I do. The kid's at
the end of her rope."
Still formidable, still gaunt, he
had left Sandy standing wordlessly
beside the sofa on which Claire sat.
He had left Sandy, and had gone
swiftly to Ellen's side, and his long
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arms, reaching out, had drawn her
little figure—in its beaded play suit
—close to his chest.
"Easy now, youngster," said Dick.
"Lay off that stuff! Cry if you want
to, if you must. But lay off that
business of laughing. You'll be ill."
Ellen found that she was clutching
Dick's arms, way up close to the
shoulders. They were tense, like
iron. They were bony they weren't
cuddly, 'they were just something to
hold on to—but, oh, how dreadfully
she needed them! As her slim fin
gers bit into their tenseness, she be
gan to regain a certain amount of
self-control. She could realize, as
she fought to keep back her spas
modic giggles, that it was because
she had been relieved to know that
it was Sandy who had come up the
stairs—Sandy, and not Tony.
But at any moment it might be
Tony! For hadn't Claire said that
his car was waiting at the curb?
Ellen was wrenching herself free
from Dick's' grasp. Was beginning
to shake again, to shake as if she
were chilled, as if she were feverish.
"I'm all right n-now, old thing,"
she tried to say breezily, although
she found it almost impossible to
articulate. "I'll go now and g-get
my things on ... I really have a
date, you know."
Sandy threw himself down on the
sofa, beside Claire.
"With the baby you met last night,
I suppose?" he sneered. "With the
boy who rode around the park with
you—oh, I know all about it."
"Then," Ellen's eyes were blazing,
"then you can just be still about it!
For even if you did buy my ticket to
the Six Arts, you don't own me. I'm
sorry that I left you—at least, I was
sorry. But I'm not, any more."
Dick had been very quiet for a
few minutes, but although Ellen
struggled to be free, his hand's were
not relaxing their hold, not a par
ticle.
"You're not leaving this studio, not
in this condition," he told her.
"What's it all about, youngster, any
way? Did you have anything to
drink last night? Answer me that!"
Ellen tried to master this business
of nerves. If she didn't Dick would
not let her go. She knew Dick.
"Of course, I didn't have anything
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to drink," she said, almost gently.
"I never drink. Don't you trust me?"
"I used to, myself," said Sandy,
"trust you. But not any more. Even
Gay wouldn't treat a guy—"
"Be still!" roared Dick. Like most
men, his helplessness had the effect
of angering him.
Ellen, there in Dick's arms, wanted
to scream at them. She wanted to
call Claire ugly names, and she'd
lever wanted to call anyone an ugly
name, before. v This bantering, when
her whole future.was at stake! For
if Tony came up searching for her—
how could she explain.things? These
arms—Dick's arms—that held her?
ow could she say anything in the
'ace of this scene?
"Oh, Dick," she begged, "let me
go. I've got to get dressed. This
date—it's very vital; you don't un
derstand. I've got to keep it. Let
-ne go, now-*-and I'll call you on the
phone, tomorrow, and explain. I'll
top by in the morning and tell you
ill about It. You'd not try to keep
me, if you khew. When you know,
you'll say it's all right—"
Dick was nuzzling his chin into the
hair at the top of her head, with a
movement unexpectedly tender.
"What I'm afraid of, honey," he
said, "is that you've gone and got
ourself into some bad sort of a
scrape. Maybe it would be better if
you told me now. I'll kick them out,
Claire and Sandy, if you like. I'll
have some dinner sent in for you,
and you can get all'calmed down."
But Ellen was crying, now.
"I've got to go," she sobbed, "Ive
got a date!
"Is—it was Sandy speaking; be
fore her tears some of his wrath had
vanished, but he still desired infor
mation—"ls the date with the same
boy that you ditched me for, last
night?"
The time for evasion—some of it,
at least—had passed.
"Yes," sobbed Ellen.
"Who," it was Dick now, "who is
this insistent young man, child?"
Claire was gazing up at the ceil
ing. ,
"He's tall," she said, "and God
how glum! And he has blue eyes
and a swell sunburn and the snap
piest red rolls-Royce in the city."
But Dick was insisting, himself.
"What's his name, Ellen?" he
questioned. "I'd like to know, my
self."
Ellen had relaxed hopelessly
against Dick. At the moment noth
ing was any use, any more. Sud
denly she was more tired than she
had ever been in all of her life— and
older, too.
"His name is Tony Brander," she
said. "Anthony Brander, the sugar
man, was his father."
Claire yawned. The yawn was far
too elaborate to be plausible.
"Nothing of the piker about you,"
she said, "is there?"
Sandy whistled.
"One of those!" he said. "Saw his
picture snapped at the races, in
Vogue last month. He's an orphan,
they said."
Claire laughed.
"What a break!" she murmured.
But Dick didn't say anything for a
moment. In fact, his silence made
the whole studio seem silent. So
silent that the clock, chiming five
forty-five, seemed only an echo to
the knock upon the studio door.
Claire was the one who called a
summons. It wasn't her studio, but
she was like that.
And then Tony walked into the
oom. There was a narrow white
line around his mouth as he looked
across Ellen's head, into the eyes of
the man who was holding her. Ellen
with her face twisted back awkward
ly so she could watch across her
shoulder, noticed that line and won
dered about it, mutely.
But it was Dick who spoke.
"This is my place," he said. "I'm
Alven. You —you haven't been here
before, ever. Who are you?"
Tony's voice was So steady when
he answered that it was almost ab
surd.
"It may be your place," he said,
"but it's my wife you're holding in
your arms. My Wife! Funny, isn't
it?"
You could have cut through the
atmosphere of Dick's studio with a
knife, the air was so thick with con
flicting emotions. They were such
mixed emotions that, though the
hysteria rose again in Ellen's mind,
she couldn't even laugh. It wasr
possible any more to do anything
so simple as to laugh!
Again, by some miraculous change,
she wasn't a part of thtf thing. She
was standing on the side lines, she
was reading from a printed page.
These people—she didn't know them.
Not Dick, with his face gone sudden
ly old and greenish in its pallor. Not
Tony, her Tony, with pain looking
out of his eyes at her. Not Sandy,
with his mouth hanging, ever so
slightly, open.
Only Claire retained her noncha
lance.
"So!" said Claire. And then lan
guidly she rose from the sofa and
strolled across the room toward
Tony. And extended to him a pink
;ipped hand.
"Congratulations," she said. "I
suppose they're in order."
Tony wasn't seeing Claire —he was
staring at Ellen, though Ellen was
not in Dick's arms any more. _
"I suppose," said Tony, "that'tney
are!"
It was that Dick spoke. Dick,
with a vague color coming back in
to his cheeks—Dick, with a great ef
fort, justifying a girl's three-year
faith in him.
He advanced toward Tony and ex
tended his hand.
"I can't pretend that I'm not
shocked by this news," he told Tony.
Ellen is very dear to me. She's been
rather like a little sister. I feel that
I'd have liked knowing, slightly bet
ter, the man she married. But you
look awfully regular, Brander," his
voice never wavered, "and I know,
sudden as it seems, that Ellen must
care for you very deeply. And I'm
sure, very sure, that you'll be good to
her."
Tony was flushing. He was very
young at the moment. He took the
proffered hand.
"You can't blame me," he said
grimly, "{or wondering. It seemed
rather strange. Ellen asked me to
wait for her at five, by the door,
and she didn't come. And then—"
Dick's hand was on the boy's
shoulder. It said as plainly as a
voice could have said:
"Steady, old chap ... Steady!"
"I don't blame you one bit," he
said aloud. "I'd have felt just as
you do, myself, if the situation had
been reversed."
Sandy's mouth had come shut-.
He, too, was standing.
"My name's Mackintosh," he said.
"I should be telling you where you
get off instead of -welcoming you to
our city. I took Ellen to the party
last night, so I suppose I'm directly
responsible—"
Claire interrupted. She allowed
herself to display direct and unvarn
ished curiosity, in a big way.
"But you knew each other, didn't
you, before last night?" she ques
tioned. "After all," she was mimick
ing. "I ought to k»e told."
Beeseechingly Ellen's eyes sought
Tony's eyes. Claire mustn't know
the irregularity, the suddenness, of
the whole thing. It would be a beau
tiful morsel of gossip for Claire, and
her intimates. An agony of em
barrassment lay in Ellen's gaze and
Tony, seeing, responded to that
agony. Swiftly he had crossed the
room, swiftly his two hands had en
folded Ellen's outflung hands.
"Oh," he said quite airly, "Oh,
we've known each other for centur
ies. When," Ellen was stunned to
hear him quote the line, "when she
was a tadpole and I was a fish—"
Claire laughed.
"When the world," she said, "was
even wetter than it is now!"
Sandy was laughing, too.
"Speaking," he said of wet worlds,
I think this calls for a party!"
Party? Ellen wanted to scream
out at the thought of a party.
"Oh—no party!" she murmured.
But Dick, with his white face oddly
aloof, was the one who failed her.
"Certainly a party!" he said.
Claire was already at the phone.
Her high chuckle was floating
through the room.
"Ellen," she was saying, "yes, mar
ried! Come around and make it le
gal.
In the excitement Tony's arm was
around her shoulder. It wasn't a
chill arm any more, but Ellen—
wanting his embrace with keen des
peration—wished that Dick weren't
watching.
"Tired, dear?" questioned Tony.
And then, "You're cute as a button
in that get-up!"
Ellen had forgotten the white
buckskin, the bea-ds.
"Let me go, Tony," she said. "I
must change into my own clothes
. . . Just behind tliis screen—" (She
was acutely conscious of his un
spoken, "Do you dress and undress,
behind that screen? Alone—with a
this studio?")
'No," she added, "I'm not tired,
really."
Walking sedately she went behind
the screen and began to pull the
white buckskin frock over her head,
and to untie the endless strings of
gay beads.
Prom the other side of the screen
sounded a babel of voices. Voices
that talked incessantly.
Dick's voice, saying dispassionately,
"You are a nasty little cat, piaire.
Why don't you try being decent for
a while . . ."
And then Tony's voice Tony's
voice. Saying—
"lf there's going to be a party,
seems as if it ought to be my party.
Seems as if I ought to throw it.
Seems as if some of my friends ought
to be in on the big time—"
Ellen, buttoning her straight little
blue crepe * ess, paused. Tony's
friends—why, she'd never even stop
ped to con ,ider Tony's friends! She
hadn't thought of Tony as being—
she hadn't thought of him, exactly,
in terms of having his own group of
friends! Somehow she didn't want
to meet those friends. They'd known
Tony for so long—so much longer
than she had known him, so infinite
ly much longer. All at once she
hated them. So this was jealousy!
Tony had already taken Claire's
place at the phone. He was ring
ing up numbers, one after the other.
Saying—
"Yes, I've news for you! Yes, I'm
married. No-not Jane. No, it's
someone you don't Jcnow, Oh, today!
Come to my post bachelor dinner."
So to one friend, so to another, so
to another.
CONTINTJEP NEXT WEEK
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Happy New Year!
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