Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 28, 1928 — page 128: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

558 - were hurting again, tortured by the slim, high-heeled pumps. Some grop- ing hand had knocked her hat awry. As the train thundered out of the ‘Times Square station Annette straight- ened her hat and managed a glimpse at the small mirror in the top of her bag. She saw a petite young face with wise gray eyes and smooth blond hair in soft wings in front of her ears. Her lips were a scarlet Cupid’s bow, her throat slender and white above her soft fur collar. She pulled her hat a shade further over her nose and forced the faint look of fatigue from her eyes. Her thoughts went back to Jerry, to those heavenly nights when he had driven her home in his cozy runabout, to the plays they had seen together, to the rapture of dancing, held close in Jerry’s arms. He had liked her then, she was sure of it. Why had he changed all at once? Why, why, why? Perhaps he decided that a beauty parlor assistant wasn’t quite the sort of wife for a rising young physician. Thought she was a bit common and cheap and brainless. Ske could have sworn that he was on the point of asking her to marry him. ‘Then his resolution didn’t jell some way. Something made him change his mind. In spite of her stoicism Annette could not restrain a tear from trickling down the side of her small straight nose. , She couldn’t get to her handkerchief and had to dash the tear away with the back of her glove. A fat, round-eyed man over in the corner was ogling her. Annette let go of the strap and turned her back in frigid disgust. “Tord, I’m getting absolutely goofy!” she told herself scornfully. But she couldn’t scem to drag her mind away from its painful contempla- tion of Jerry. ; _ She remembered the first time she ever saw him. ‘That day madame took ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. a fainting spell and Benjie sent ‘An- nette down to call old Dr. Wharton. Jerry was in the office and took charge of the waiting patients while Dr. Wharton came up to attend Mme. Rejan. Madame and the senior doc- tor were old friends. She remembered the first evening Jerry called to take her home. She remembered his brown eyes, his quick smile and the way his hair waved back if he let it get long enough. She had thought that she knew what it meant to be lonely before she met Jerry—and lost him, but she hadn’t really. _Never in her life before had she known such a positively frighten- ing sense of desolation. 3 “ve got to have something to think about,” she decided. “ I’ve got to study something and get a different job. Something that'll take every ounce of brains I’ve got. Something so hard that I can’t think about anything else. You have too much time to think at madame’s and nothing special to think about.” If she could only. afford a small apartment, like Benjie had, Annette yearned. A place where she could cook her own meals and have her own fur- niture. But she didn’t have a cent ahead now. She’d been spending everything on clothes so that she would look right to go out with Jerry. And there was the blue and silver dance frock that she hadn’t even worn. She probably never would wear it now, she thought. A decent girl couldn’t go to dances alone, and she’d never meet any more nice men, living the way she did. Working over women’s faces and hair all day and then dashing home in the subway, going to bed, and getting up to rush to the shop again in the morn- ing. She didn’t want to meet anybody but Jerry, anyhow. But if she could, it might help her to forget him. If she had an apartment like Ben- jie’s, it wouldn’t seem so desolate. Ben- COLMMUCE NOOLKS (E@