New Britain Herald Newspaper, March 26, 1929, Page 12

Mildred adju 1er before the mirror in one of the gum vending machir 1 curl, ng brown tform and tood rig he lamented in d away the stronger. cars to fin a new story the next station and return Her helj b ht 2 dred. The onl be many bloc were cau snatch the ried over to take a dow: She found a croy and when she had 1 officer at the center of it she for a'moment. He had e layed starting arm he held The crowd v to be geen and th of someone b helow. reached out a hand to take it. “Sorry, miss,” the officer said: t he couldn’t Id not disperse go long as there e officer knew there was imminent da ipshed of( » platform onto the Mildred managed at last to g ouw'il have to come along with the station and “Oh,” Mildred wailed, “I'm late now.” “You'll come too,” the officer said, turning 1im. Mildred had not, until then, loc r and his prisoner. She recognized the lain your proper nian beside ed at any- one ex 2 Young man now. “Dd you catch him?” “Of course,” he answered to both of then “But how did you do it € to make a way through the crowd to the street. “Weren't you on the train’ “Couldn’t have been if [ caught him, could 1? Don’t you believe me?” “Oh yes, of course.” The crowd thrust them closer to- gether. Mildred looked up at him with awe. “I'm awfully glad. But how did you do it?” The young man threw out chest. “Well, old D. A. M. —no, it's not a word, just initials—says I might amount to something if [ could take my mind off the sports page. You see, I missed the train because 1 started reading about hoekey. Then I saw this vegg grab a fur....” “And you stopped him?” Mildred broke in, her voice asked breathlessiy. * she pressed as helped her filled with admiration. “Of course you didn't know whose fur it wa added with a tiny trace of wistfulness. It would have been nice to have inspired heroism, she thought. “Didn’t I though?" the young man lied beautifully. He mself how the deuce he'd missed seeing in hat a peach of a girl he'd crashed into. hed e street now, in the wake of the iof squirming in his grasp. ' the young man with Mildied said of the law. “I'll pay for it. and- from the curious throng fur sna i, flicked his evil eyt him. “I don’t know how to thank you for what you've done already.” “Unless 1 now you get safely home with it T won't feel I've done anything,” he protested. “And since we're going to sce a lot of each other in the future don’t you think that we might....” g “1 must telephone mother,” Mildred interrupted. “She’ll be worrying.” “Here's a cigar store right on the corner. What's the number, please?” Mildred had to smile at his ingenuousness. “I'd better do n\" he demurred. “A strange voice might frighten them. Mothier's always nervous when I'm late.” Stephen beamed. “So they are not used to strange voices calling?” he said happily. Not when I'm away,” Mildred replied teasingly, A " fake a ta L7 the young man with Mildred said to the guardian of the law, “I'll pay for it.” pro- her own upon clean. nterested on Lo oy man went « f e I can find on but for practical pui ou'd be hat you're generally A I'm the public Judson.” “Now 1sn't that a coincidence, Miss Lawrence? 1T wa planning to take some work over to the Jud the moin- ing. Some nographic work.” “Surely M. she observed Mildred fiashed him a g Mettle cnographers can do your work,” coldly. He might as well get her right, she thought. Her po- sition at the hotel was a good one, the best d ever had and she took 1t seriously. “‘Some private matters,” voung man returned loftily, and before Mildred could frame an answer to that the taxi- cab had stopped at the police station. P - had to go through was shortly over with and Mildred once more was in possession of her scaif. “That's a nice bit of fur,” Stephen remarked when they were back on the street. “Don’t you think I'd better see you home so that it won't get stolen again?” “I'll take better ¢ .= of it after this,” Mildred assured : of suspicion. The routine th “Your favorite pastime is bursting bubbles, isn't it?™ tephen reproachied her. “And you're ungrateful too. You have a hom 1 a mother and 1 have only a hotel room. Be- sides, 1 need someone to look after this seratch. I'm sure vour mother could fix it up.” . He touched his cheek gingerly and pretended to wince. Mildred was concerned. “Well,” Mother I don't thi to take potluc 3 “Potluck! Why, potluck is what's at the end of the rain- bow. And to a fella whose home is out in Indiana and who hasn't had a home-cooked meal in six months your kind in- Vitation sounds like the trumpet call to a feast.” “1 don’t know how mother will receive you,” Mildred warned seriously, “when she learns that yvou're a perfect stranger to me,"” “Ah, thanks for the adjective. 1t makes it easier to be called a strang “Fresh, aren’t he chang “No, ¥ I'm not, Miss Lawrence, and 1 think it's oveat of vou to let me go home with you even if T have sort of forced thie invitation. But T don't see any sense in wasting tlot of time cetting acquainted when vou know who 1 am ow who vou ave, ... ” it I don't really know who you are.” e you do. You know I couldn’t he with the Mettle if ... well. don't vou sce, that's a recommendation, honesty” compels me to admit old Dam—I beg vour old D. A M. doesn’t always agree with my point of she said hesitatingly, “we live very simply. t oiten prepared for unexpected company. In fact, there will be much dinner now but if you care you”" Mildred took him to task. Sudden- Mildied nodded. “Well, you seem dctermined to meet mother. Cone along and let’s phone. But when 1 tell her I'm brin A man home to dinner that | didn’t know an hout Ago voing to have an old-fashioned moment, I'm afraid. “I'm all for the modern kid, myself,” Stéphen declared. “Lots of pep and knows how to play an old ganie a new way.” Mildred Jooked ot him. He saw the question in her eyes. “Getting what you want,” he explained. “That’s what people always have been doing. Only the giy re franker ahout it now. The way I feel, if a girl liked me 1'd O. K. her letting me know it. We fellows are finding out that we haven't got all the original ideas by any means. We appreciate a lead or two to save time.” Mildred felt unee She hoped he wouldn't talk like that in her mother’s hearing. Of course she understood him. She heard a lot of such modern opinions. But they shocked her mother. “Well, don’t let Connie kriow you're looking for leads,” she laughed, “or she'll have you naming the @ate before din- They were back at the subway now “We’ll change for an express at Seventy-second street,” she said. “I told moth- er we'd hurry.” x % % When they jeft the train Mildred stopped at a delicates- , sen store and made a few purchases which Stephen wanted to pay for and was not allowed. ] “You'll have to carry them up four flights of stairs to pay for your dinner,” she told him. 1929 B + Service Inc. “Four flights of stairs! Why, my dear girl, I take a walk to the moon and back every time 1'm feeling happy.” The stairs were somewhat narrow and not very well lighted but that did not seem to put a damper on the young man’s spirits. Mildred was glad of the dimness; it hid the dirty handmarks on the walls and the uncleaned corners of the stairs. o Her mother welcomed them with poorly concealed agi- {ation. She wondered what any young man would think of her daughter in these circumstances. In her day . . . “Did you cook the chops?” Mildred whispered in her ear when she kissed her mother, “There's only one,” the mother whispered back; “but it's got kidney, I wouldn’t let Connie have it, She had it last time.” “This is the young man mother. Mr. Armitage.” “Pleased to meet you Mr. Armitage.” She gave him a welcoming hand that felt rough to his touch but had a sin- cerity in its pressure that left a pleasant feeling in Stephen's memory. He knew the difference between gentle friendliness and the glad hand. Well, usually he made a good impression. Someone once had told him it was his curly blond hair that awoke a ma- {ernal instinet in the women he met. Why men liked him no one had as vet told him. “The conquering hero comes,” a voice mocked from the living room doorway. “I've a notion to break my date.” “For goodness sake, Connie,” the mother snapped. “Mr. Armitage will think you don’t know how to behave.” “You must excuse me a moment,” Mildred said and left her mother to cope with the incorrigible Connie, A few minutes to get into simple lilac chiffon dress, a few magic touches before the mirror to hair and complexion and Mildred was ready to entertain her guest. She found Connie lighting a cigarette for Stephen, perched on the arm of his chair. Mildred knew it wasn’t a studied pose. Connie was far beyond posing in her strides toward modernism. She let herself follow instincts and act on impulses. If she wanted to sit on the arm of a chair—any- one’s chair—she sat on it. f She wasn't bent on mischief, however, and when Mil- dred appeared she went out to the kitchen, ostensibly to help her mother. In reality to rave about Stephen. “If only Mildred had a little more snap,” she remarked, *she might be able to hold him. But I doubt it. Pity.” “Connie. Aren’t you ashamed the v you talk?” her mother reproved her. **Mildred is simply being nice to a voung man who was of service to her. But I'd rather she hadn’t got acquainted with him so easily. He might think she isn’t very particular. . .” Connie laughed. “And how you know men, mom. As though any man would criticize a girl for picking him up. Some other fellow, now—that's different.” “Go set the table and don’t talk so much. You'll learn a lot some day, miss,” her mother answered irritably. “Well,” Connie said to herself a moment later, glancing into the living room, “maybe there are more ways than one of getting your man.” Mildred was applying an antisceptic lotion to the scratch on Stephen’s cheek and he scemed to like her ministrations, Just then the telephone rang. Connie went to answer it. Most of the calls that came in were for her. “Hey, Mildred, it's for you,” she yelled from the hall and put down the receiver with an impatient bang. “Wouldn't it be just like Pamecla Judson to call up when Mildred had a new boy friend!” Pamela’s unexpected calls and sudden demands upon Mildred's time were bitterly resented by Connie, who con- sidered that Pamela took advantage of her sister. Mildred had a foreboding of what was to come. “But I've only just got home,” Stephen heard her say. “I was delayed and I can't possibly go out again tonight. Can't you get somebody else?” Evidently the person at the other end of the wire had plenty to say. It must have been convincing, too, for after a while Mildred agreed, wearily, to do whatever it was that Pamela needed her for. She came back to Stephen in a little flush of temper. He thought it most becoming to her. “I've got to go down to the hotel this evening,” she said apologetically. Stephen rose. “May T go with you?” he asked. “Oh, not before dinner,” she assured him. plenty of time.” “Dinner’s ready now,” her mother called from the dine ing room. “Why don’t you tell that pain in the neck to go to blaz- Ingict, “Connie!” Connie subsided. who saved my fur for me, “There’s * s s “Pamela wants me to be at the door in the reception room tonight,” Mildred explained te her mother. “The junior dance. They don't want anyone to crash it.” “But what can you do?" her mother questioned. “I know by sight all those who are invited,” said. “In, but not of, our best society,” Connie sniffed. “Well, it's too bad she couldn't have let you know before the last minute.” “Oh, Pamela never thinks of anything before the last minute,” Mildred said good-naturedly. She didn't want Stephen thinking they were catty. But if he just knew Pa- mela! “Are you talking about Pamela Judson?” he asked and Mildred felt as though heé had read her mind. “Say, I know her. Sald her a car last fall. She saw a model in the show window that she liked. Walked right in and signed her check and then asked how much.” “Yes, she’s just rolling in father's money,” Connie re- marked sarcastically. “I'll say she's rolling in a lot of it when she takes that cight out,” Stephen said. A four-speed baby, too.” “Wha . ..at?” Mrs. Lawrence gasped. “Er ...1 meah the car, Mrs. Lawrence. It takes some driving to handle fou® speeds.” Mildred got up to carry out their plates and bring in the dessert. Pamela wanted her early—there was always a lot Pamela wanted other people to do for her. Not that serving Pamela was any part of Mildred’s duties, but she had begun that way to be obliging. Now she had a feeling that if she refused, her place at the hotel would not be secure. So long as Pamela did not carry her demands too far Mildred was willing to accede to them. But tonight she was slightly resentful. Stephen Armi- tage was good company. Her resentment prevented her from hurrying, but after they’d finished their coffee she said they must go. At the hotel, when she was saying good night to Stephen in the lobby, she saw his gaze go past her face and his smile suddenly broaden in delighted surprise. Mildred turned. Coming toward them, with a wave of jeweled arms and flying silver feet was a honey-haired girl in a red tulle evening gown. (To Be Continued) Mildred