New Britain Herald Newspaper, May 17, 1926, Page 10

10 NEW BRITAIN DAILY HERALD, MONDAY, MAY 17, 1¢ — x O gm0 - . e 2 e e 2 - ) ) - a2 2 o o 2 ) ) 2 - ) 2 4 A B ) ) B ; HER MAN - CHAPTER 1 ss a girl who never Hu\nmtn Ve ver gu 1it of her—to see her, with her come- antalizing red mouth that bloomed like a fac oo / ST ( u'd probably have said of her, ite you But you'd 1 3 She had r 1 twicc 1 on earth except ernoon when he for the first time, 1 years and five Il in love with him— Randall Phelps, had walked ho om high That had been sever mon t desperately. Onac 2 n late March, Sylvia Starr sat pn a wet i1 bench in Buchanan park waiting for Ranny Phelps. He had telephoned her an hour before at the Carr library, where she n charge of the children’s book “T want to see vou about something,” he had said to her in his short brisk way. “How about 5 o'clock in the lilac walk In the park?” It was 20 1 5 and Sylvia was soaked to the skin and little bright drops of rain clung to the edge of her hat and to the thick fringe of her eyelashes. She shivered ar stled her white chin more deeply into the fur collar of her coat as she looked down at the watch that was strapped on her wrist. It was ) now—then 20 minutes te 6. And still no Ranny! Sylvia began to wonder how many hours she had spent the last year doing s very thing that she was doing now— waiting patiently for Ranny to keep a date with her. He was always late. She had never known him to be on time. And son 1es he forgot to come at all, and would call up hours and hours later to beg pardon for forgetting, Sy always forgave him. “You're a silly to bother with him at all!” her chum, Fay Shirley, had told her dozens of times. “Believe me, I wouldn’t let anybody treat me the way Ranny Phelps treats you! Time and I wait for no man!” But Sylvia let this advice of Fay's go in one ear and out the other. She loved Ranny too much to treat him carelessly as Fay treated her “boy friends.” She cared too much for him to get up and walk away from any trysting-place while there was still a chance that he might come. And so she went on quietly waiting, today, while the violet twilight came down over Buchanan park and lights began to twinkle in the distance. At 10 minutes to 6 an open roadster turned into the wet gravel of the lilac walk anr{ stopped with a shrill scream of the brakes. g With eyes like rain-w d sta Phelps get out of it and come tow swinging stride of his. “Sorry I'm late,” he greeted her cheerfully, as he dropped down on the dripping bench beside her and lit a cigarette. “Did you get the heebie jeebies waiting so long for me to show up?” Sylvia sneezed twice. “No, nothing but a cold I guess,” he answered, and smiled at him. He just barely flicked her shoulder with the tips of his ingers and smiled back at her. It was his stock-in-trade— hat smile of Ranny's—although he didn’t suspect it. It was a smile that stayed in his gray eyes, even when his mouth was hard and straight. It wa: mile that you just had to remember, even when vou had forgotten everything else about him; and a great many women still remember that smile n, too! Ranny was almost too handsome for a man. As Fay Shirley put it, he looked “like a stroke on the Yale crew.” And with his clean, healthy, blond ;vm-u looks, he had a devil-may-care manner that was ve But today, quite su S ‘he was very serious. He flung away his half-smoked cigarette and sat staring straight ahead of him at the misty green of the park for a few min- utes, as if he were trying to make up his mind about some- thing he was g Sylvia stole a rs, as the mi at was ¢ wanted to see her al Whateve = Sylvia watched Ranny ard her with that free 2] == g to say. k at him with those flirty eyes of ke little centuries. What was it he had she wondered. t 1t o be very unhappy and un- it he was under some kind of was, he see power exceit hands re clasped together on his knees and iched from time to time. H turned tc : g a lot of each other \m ne nt Ve ng what he was getting at. “Re first time we ever came here together?” 1at mght last had found this uld forget to the park and moonlight and the park had orest, Ilven now, that night seemed that night when Ranny had sissed her and first dr told he to sleep that had lain 10se first id not been abl¢ night when he 1 1e ! ) 1 door, and t ) t 1emory of rl « 1 1 t L Ara \ en he .‘h‘!h_b\" !L‘A'u'\‘ Sylvia —wh anaged to sa) ground the s head down into o tell you this—" ound of a brook, houlder. Il me, old boy, is —lost your job or Rann ) a joke. He worked for ather, selling eal estate for the firm of Jamison, Phelp: “Only I never sell any,” he would cheerfully “When t comes to working, I'm ,Im Below-Zero.” He laughed now, rather bitterl “No, I haven't lost my job. ' guess,” he saic “You've robbed a bank, then, into the movies!” Svlvia chaffed him, doing her best to keep her voice light. She was blue and thLumlw. all of a sudrlon because he was Ylue and miserable. s wished on me for good, or gone Ak o a A (Hlustrated and Copyrighted by Johnson Features, Inc., 1819 He groaned. “What I've done is worse than that,” he an- swered her. He jumped up from the wet bench and pulled 1“\ up with him. For one shining moment Sylvia thoug going to draw her up to him and kiss her. her hands abruptly and turned toward his car. “Come along, hop in!” he said, roughly, “We'll go for a skid around the corner, I can't talk to you while you sit there staring at me!” Sylvia caught her breath with sharp surprise. In all the years she had know Ranny he had never spoken to her like that. What in the world was the matter with hi 'm not staring at you! T always like to look at the peoplc I'm talking to!” she began, and then stopped. Through the thickening darkness she caugiit the look on Ranny's face—the unhappy, puzzled look on it. “Why should I razz him when he fells like this? He's in trouble about something,” she thought, and without another 'd sh o climbed into the roadster. y had driven along the wet, lan 15 minutes before either of them spok “What ails you tonight, Ranny?” Sylvia asked him, then, very softly, “I've never seen you like this before. What's the matter?” She leaned close to him and laid both of lier hands over his gloved one, He seemed to sag down low over the driving wheel, as were afraid or ashamed to meet her eyes or even see her face, “Sylvy,” his voice was muffled, “Sylvy, I've done about the rottenest thing to you that a man can do to a girl, T guess In two minutes he had blurted out the whole story to her. “You know I've been racing around with Fay Shirley for the last few weeks, dan't you?” he asked. Sylvia hadn’'t known. She hadn't even suspected such a thing. She had thought that he was as deeply in love with her as she was with him—and she had gone happily about making her plans for their wedding in June. Ranny had always seemed to care for her. She had never, never dreamed that he would look at any girl but herself— especially at her very best friend, Fay Shirl ey! Why, he had never seemed to notice Fay any more than he nntlu\l the rest of Sylvia's girl friends. His voice went on: “Things have been getting pretty thick between us, lately, and—and we’ve just about made up our minds that we can’t get along without—each other.” So that was it! The cold fact. “You mean you want to marry Fay?” she asked, and her voice sounded far away and faint in her own ears. He gave a short, quick nod. “How soon?” “In June,” he answered, huskily. In June! Why, June was the month when she, herself, had promised to marry Ranny! She had a cedar chest of linens at home, all monogrammed and laundered! And the bottom drawer of her dresser was half full of soft, bridey-looking things for her honeymoon! A breakfast coat of white silk, a chiffon petticoat, a little band of lace and rosebuds to wear around her hair in the mornings before it was done up for the day. She had tried them all on before her mirror 20 times at least since she had bought them, trying to see herself with Ranny’s eyes when he should first be- hold her in those lovely, soft-colored things. And only this very afternoon she had broken the news to Miss Hope, the head librarian, that she expected to be married in June! But these things didn't matter. Not really, The only thing in the world that did matter was that Ranny didn't love her any more. That he didn't want to marry her. Ranny, her Ranny— She looked at him. He had stopped the car at the side of the wet street and tting, hunched over the wheel, perfectly motionless. “I'd rather have been drawn and quartered than to ha\ to tell you this, Sylvy,” he was saying in a lifeless sort of way. “You know I think you're the sweetest thing that ever lived, but— vou were always too good for me, and I knew it—Good Lord, whatever you do, don’t cry—" For Sylvia had suddenly put her head d and began to shake with dry, racking sobs. “My thro sore,” she moaned; “I'm crying because my aches—I sat too long in the rain, I guess—"’ And without knowing clearly just what she was doing, she opened the door of the car and got out. Inside head there seemed to be a great wheel that raced around and around so fast that she couldn’t think. She knew simply that she had to get away from Ranny—away from everybody—to be alone in the kindly dark and the rain, for a whil Not to try to think things over, but just to keep on walking and walking until she was too tired to do anything but ‘w xw and forget what had happened to her. * p-lit streets for fully e down m her ki th throat's sore. Tt was 9 o'clock before she found herself before the high house in Cleak street, where she lived with Aunt A Aunt Agony had been christened Agnes long ago in her sour babyhood, but no one had called her that for mar vears. The nickname “Agony” fitted her perfectly, somehow or other. She was an old maid of 55, and wrinkling as she reached middle age, up as bread dries up when it gets old. She was tall and spare and colorless, and she habitually wore a look of pained disgust at the silly world around her. When she smiled she smiled acidly. She was a born gossip and a man-hater—and the man she most detested was Ranny Phelps. There were only Agony had a spark of warm, human affection. was her niece, Sylvia Starr, and the other wa cat, Judith of Bethulia. As Sylvia stood in the murmurous rain looking up at the tall, dark house that was all the home she knew, the 'w' door of it opened suddenly. Aunt Agony stood there, outlined against the orange light in the hall behind her. “That’s you, Sylvy, isn't it?” she called, peering out into the blackness. “You get in here this minute! I declave to instead of she was simply drying two living creatures for whom Aunt One of them her Persian By BEATRICE. BURTON Author of ‘Love Bound,’ Broadway, New York City) I've been worried crazy about you! Wherever have ou been all this time? My stars! Look at yourself!” For Sylvia's clothes were sodden with rain and there were cllow mud stains all along the bottom of her coat and on her hoes and stockings. As she stood under the hall light, water an down from the brim of her hat and dripped onto the oor. goodness, ildly. “Ilook like a mud puddle, don't asked, shrilly. “A mud puddle of a duck pond or some- awfully wet, don't I, Aunt Agony?” Aunt Agony didn't say a word. Her lips snapped together like a steel trap and her eyes narrowed with the questioning look she gave Sylvia. It was a look that took in the bright 1 on her niece’s cheeks and the <\\<\an mouth and eyelids. Imm, been crying, haven't you?” she asked, frowning, and then as Sylvia made no answer, she went on: “All right, stand there like a graven image if you want to, but you can’t fool me, young lady! I know you've been ery- and I know you've been somewhere with Ranny and he’s made you ery! And you just go ahead and marry him if you want to, but don't say I didn't warn you not to! If he makes ou Teel like this before he's got you, what kind of a h.fl do you think he'll lead you when you're married to him, eh ? Sylvia shrugged he yulders helplessly and started up the stairs, gripping the rail with her hand to steady herself as she went. She knew that this was the moment to tell Aunt Agony that she was not going to marry Ranny Phelps after all, but the words wouldn't come. that as soon as her aunt found out that all manner of sharp She began to laugh v She knew, too, Ranny had given her up she would sa and unkind things about him, and she felt that he didn't de- serve them, somehow. It wasn't his fault, wasit, that he didn’t love her any more, and loved Fay Shirley, instead ? Love wasn't a thing that could be forced, like a hot-house, plant. It bloomed, wild and sweet, in the most unexpected places, and it wilted and died at a breath. “It's not Ranny fault. It must be my fault that he doesn't want me any more,” Sylvia told herself humbly when she had drunk the hot chicken broth that Aunt Agony had brought to her, and was sitting on the edge of her bed with her feet in a hot mustard footbath that Aunt Agony had got ready for her. “I wasn’t thrilling enough for him, or pretty enough, I guess.” But across the room her reflection in the mirror of the dressing table told her that she was pretty enough to hold GOES A FLIRT,” YOU WOULD HAVE SAID - man. If beauty was all that counted, she had it. The lovely oval of her face was luminous ivory and her dark hair was blue-black in all its deep, polished waves. The thick lashes curled up all around those violet-gray eyves that should have belonged to a born flirt and never to a one-man airl like Sylvia Starr. No, if sheer good looks could keep a man faithful, Sylvia was perfectly sure that she never would have lost Ranny to Fay Shirley or to any other girl who walked the good green earth. She made up her mind that she must have lost him be- cause of something else that she lacked. Something that Fay had. Perhaps the wild, high spirits that were the chief charm of Fay—Fay who could roll a cigarette with one hand like an Arizona cowboy, who could dance like a gypsy queen, and reel off stories and songs like a sailor. “I"ay ran across the street to see you for a minute, tonight, Sylvy,” Aunt Agony was saying 1e stood before the bed- room fireplace and shook out Sylvia's wet stockings. “She said she wanted to see you about something awfully important.” She interrupted herself long enough to give a scornful snort before she went on: “Humph! I wonder what she con- siders important except her beaus and that face of hers! I wish you could have seen it tonight, all painted up like a Spanish shawl!” Aunt Agony had no earthly use for ¥ay Shirley. She had neved liked her from the time, years and years ago, when the Shirleys had moved in across the street and Fay and Sylvia had become fast friends. “T don't like her, and I never will like her,” she often said of Fay. “I don’t know what you see in her, Sylvy. Myself, I'd never trust a person with green eyes any farther than vou could throw an elephant by the trunk! They're always deceitful I And there was no doubt that Fay's eyes were green — a clear gray-green with a black velvety ring around them. They were Fay’s one claim to beauty. Svlvy cleared her throat and looked up at Aunt Agony. “I ar ” [ ! ! ! ! ! [ ! ! “The Flapper Wife’ know what she wanted to see me about,” she said, slowly and clearly. “She wanted to tell me about—about”—her lips quivered, but she went on—"‘about hmwlf and Ranny Phelps. They're going to be married in June.” To her astonishment, Aunt Agony surprise. She simply went on shaking out the wet garments before the fire and then hung them over a chair covered with news- papers. When she did look up, there was a little better smile around the corners of her dry lips. And she nodded wisel “That's just what I thought was going to happen!” 2 said, shaking her long, thin forefinger. “I've known for a month that your beautiful Ranny was calling across the street three or four times a week. But I thought I'd let you find it out for yourself—I knew you'd never have believed me if I had teld you.” The bitter little smile left her face serious as it faded. “Never you mind, Sylvia,” she comforted the girl, “he’d only have ruined your life if you had married him! He's no good for anything but riding around in his father’s car and mak- ing dates with girls! You're better off without him! 1 wouldn't give you 10 cents for the best man on earth any- way. I've lived without one all my life aral I'm a perfectly happy woman.” “A perfectly happy woman!” she repeated again, after a moment. It was as if she were trying to convince herself of the fact that she veally was perfectly happy. “And anyway, it's no tragedy to lose one beau,” she added. “My mother used to say that ‘the loss of one is the gain of two and the choice of 20 more’.” Sylvia shook her head and stared down into the yellow water of the mustard footbath. “I don’t want 20 more—I wanted just Ranny,” she said, hardly above a whisper. Then, quite suddenly, with a queer little strained sound in her throat, she threw herself sideways on the bed and began to ery once more. “Oh, I wish I were dead, I wish I were dead!” into the clean, fresh bed covers. Aunt Agony stood, looking down at the shaking figure for a minute or two and tears stood in her eyes and then rolled down her leathery chee She gave her familiar snort as she dashed them away with the back of her work-hardened hand. She had seen this moment coming for more than a month, now, and she was ready to meet it, as she met all things without any show of weakness or emotion. “You wish you were dead? What nonsense!” she said “You'll be all over it in two days and powdering and fixing up for Peter Wilk or some other cracker-barrel hero! Women don’t die of broken hearts when they're your age, Sylvia Starr! Not by a long chalk!” The next morning when Sylvia awakened she felt as if a cloud were-hanging over her. She lay with closed eyes for an instant, wondering what made her feel so unhappy and depressed. The whole world seemed as gray as the dull light that sifted in through the shutters of her bedroom. Then suddenly she remembered. Ranny had jilted her, thrown her down—Ranny, whose en- gagement ring still circled the third finger of her left hand. She held it up and looked at it, twinkling and winking at her like a star in th(- half-light. With a pang she remembered how Ranny had sed it when he put it on her finger last Thanksgiving night. “Will you love me forever and ever, amen?” he had asked her solemnly, and just as solemnly she had promised that she would. She had been so sure of him then. She had been so sure of him all alorez, right up until yesterday afternoon. So blind- ed she had been by the radiance of her Fool's Paradise that she hadn't seen what was going on right und~r her nose— hadn't seen that he was falling in love with Fay and that he had fallen out of love with herself! The door of the room opened stealthily and Aunt Agony’s long, straight face and one lynx eye appeared in the crack. “Asleep?” she whispered. Sylvia shook her head in reply. answered, evenly. Fay Shirley’s on the phone. What shall T tell her?” Aunt Agony asked, opening the door wide and stepping inside the room. “You don't want to talk to her, do you?” Sylvia shook her head once more. “No—tell her I have a sore throat and am staying in bed this morning,” she said. It was the truth, as far as that went. For Sylvia's throat really was sore and scratchy and her head ached with the cold she had caught yesterday sitting out in the rain waiting for Ranny to-ceme. “Phone Miss Hope, too, will you please, Aunt Agony ?” she called a second later as her aunt started down the stairs, “and tell her T won't be able to come down to the library today.” She felt that she just couldn't face Miss Hope today after what she had told her yesteraay, that she was going to be married in June. “Oh, misery!” she groaned to herself as she got slowly and painfully out of bed a few minutes later and went into the bathroom to turn on the hot water in the old tin tub. While it was filling she cleaned Ranny’s ring with an old toothbrush dipped in aleohol and packed it neatly away in a little pasteboard box she found in the spare bedroom, Aunt Agony had never been known to throw anything away, and the spare bedroom was a catch-all for old boxes, wrapping paper and string of every kind and color. “Waste not, want not!” was one of Aunt Agony’s favorite sayings. She was given to proverbs and had at least one to fit every occasion. When Sylvia, fresh and fragrant and starry-eyed from her bath, went down to breakfast, she found her aunt buried in the morning paper. She was so intent upon whatever she was reading that she did not hear her niece come into the room. /lvia stood in the doorway, looking around her at the familiar old room with its wood fire and the high, narrow windows that commanded a view of Bleak street, dismal in the rain. betrayed no sign of she sobbed , wide awake,” she (TO BE CONTINUED). R How does Sylvia feel when she realizes that Ranny Phelps has not only broken their engagement, but has added insult to injury by falling in love with her best friend? How can she rise above the fact of losing both lover and illusions ? In spite of the rejoicing of Aunt Agony over the breaking of the engagement will she be able to recover from the shock without many bitter moments? Even though Aunt Agony predicts immediate interest in some- one else, Sylvia can see nothing ahead. Does she rally from the shock sufficiently to put up a good front to the world, and how does she face the woman who has stolen her lover and wrecked her happi- ness? Read in the next installment how she lives through the humiliation of meeting her best friend, who flaunts the conquest in her face. o | ¥ \ 5 (] ! ) ¢ | | I . | 4 d