Evening Star Newspaper, October 11, 1936, Page 82

“YOU'RE TOO SWEET FOR THIS LIFE — I NEED YOU. LILLIAN,” HE PLEADED Hlvstration by Ralph Pallen Coleman The story of a girl of the “Lost Generation” who learned that human beings can't escape Life by hiding their heads in the sands of Time by DALE EUNSON ILLIAN wondered if any late arrivals would think she was one of the girls who habitually dropped into Teddy's alone for a drink. Not that it mattered, of course. At the other tables were groups of men and women, most of them paired off, and at the bar a number of men without women were loudly convivial. The rhythm of the cocktail shaker beat a frenzied accoam- paniment to the atonality of conversation and midnight laughter. Lillian looked about the room again for Phil. He had seemed a little tight, but that wasn’t unusual. Phil was always slightly loopy after ten o'clock. He had excused himself to speak to a man at the opposite end of the bar, and when next she had searched for him he had disappeared. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time Phil had forgotten she was with him. She hoped she had enough money in her bag to pay the bill, but if she didn't have it Teddy would let her sign an I. O. U. She'd wait another fifteen minutes, and if Phil didn't reappear she would go home. Phil and Lil. What a pair! The last of the free spirits, they called themselves. They knew no hours; they ‘had no jobs. Nobody was dependent upon either of them. Each had just enough money in trust to get by on. Their only talent was in having a good time. We know how to live, they said to each other. Why work and pile up money? We're not going anywhere, but who is? We're the only ones with sense enough to realize it. We're the spawn of futility. Aren’t we fine? Where in hell was Phil? Didn’t he think he had any obligation to her? No. He wouldn’t. That was one of her tenets. No obligations. I can lake care of myself always. I'm a free agent. It certainly made it simple for a man. He ought to appreciate it and realize what a prize she was. Wasn't it funny that men didn't? Only Phil, and he was always taking ad- - vantage of it. But she wished he hadn't chosen tonight to do it — if he had. If she could pay the bill she knew she wouldn't have enough change left to take a taxi home, and would have to walk through the snow to the subway in her evening slippers. She started as a voice, a strangely familiar voice, spoke: “I beg pardon, but aren't you Lillian Benson from Granton?"’ She had a quip ready before she looked up, but it died on her lips when she saw the earnest, inquiring face looking down at her. “Henry!" she cried. ‘‘Henry Travers! Of all people! Sit right down here this minute!"’ He smiled and she moved over so that he could sit beside her. ‘‘Whatever are you doing Magazine Sectio. in New York?" she asked. “Here for long?" “‘Business. And a little wvacation. I'm taking a late train home tonight.” i “And you were going back without looking me up.” “I tried. But I couldn't find you. Your name's not in the telephone book."” “I know,” she said, ‘‘I have a 'phone but it isn't listed. So many bores call you up." “Do they?'" he said. There was no sarcasm in his tone, only genuine interest. It made Lillian ashamed of the harmless affectation. She knew that there had been many times when she would have welcomed having even a bore call her up. “It's been a long time, hasn't it?” she went on, after a pause. ““Ten years. You haven't changed much, Lillian. Only you look sort of — "’ *‘Older?" she prompted. : ‘‘Well — if you don’t mind my saying so — sort of tired. Have you been working too She could not tell him that she hadn’t been working hard, that she hadn't been working at all. Somehow you couldn't tell a man like Henry Travers that you had been doing nothing, that you had been, as he would certainly put it, ‘‘wasting your life.” “A little,”” she lied. ‘‘And then, there's so much to do in New York." g I suppose so — if you like to do it. I've been here a week and I'm tired already. I don’t see how you New Yorkers stand the pace night after night. I've got to get back . home where I can stretch out and breathe again — and get some sleep. This racket — how do you put up with it?"” “You get used to it,” she sighed. “The Mayor’s got some sort of campaign on to reduce noise, but I'll miss the taxi horns. They've put me to sleep for years. And if I don’t hear the garbage cans rattling every morning at five, I'll wake up screaming.” - ‘It sounds awful.” “I love it all. But let’s not talk about that. Tell me about the old home town. Tell me about yourself since I last saw you. You look like an important man. Lots of things must have happened to you, Henry,'’ she said. *‘Not much. I'm afraid it wouldn't interest you — not after New York and all.” *But it would. Tell me. What did you do after I turned you down. I did, you know.” She was sorry immediately she had said that, for it had apparently touched an old wound. But after a moment'’s silence he be- gan to talk. “I’ll make it as short as possible —it's a pretty average story. I went right on working in Father's paint factory. You re- member that. It was out on Elm Street, past the old brewery, in those days. Then in 1926 he retired and made me foreman. I was making fair money, so I married Ellen Stevens — you remember her — that pretty blonde girl a class behind us in high school. We bought the old Markham house. . . ." 1926. That would have been about the ° time Lillian and Betty took their little one- room-with-bathinette down on Grove Street. They were both just out of college and New York was the great adventure. It didn't matter that they had to cook on a one-burner grill in the bathroom, and that they kept their milk in an icebox which wasn't an ice- (Continved on page 12)