New Britain herald., 1928-01-27
"And youl-Yoa comnsna HttIs vamp!"

Too late to 90 to him now to try to comfort him. even if staley did leave pretty soon. And Staley showed no sign of leaving. He stretched out his legs to the fire. puffed at his cigar and reached out an arm for Lily.
 You don't care what happens to him and his company. do you?" he asked. Not that had anything to do with the deal. anyway. for I didn't. just happened to have some money in Scintilla, and they just happened to want to buy out this other little company. The whole thing is pretty small potatoes"
 Lilly nodded. T suppose it does seem like small potatoes to you." she said quietly. but it was life and death, almost. to Pat. know. He's thought of nothing but that piston ring ever since I've known him."
 Staley grunted. "He thought of you long enough to get you away from me last spring." he remarked, moving closer to her and laying hts arm around her shoulders. and Lily had nothing to say. although she knew 1t was not the truth.
 Pat had not taken her away from Staley. She had taken herself away from him. and then she had set about marrying Pat who knew that fn
 Well. he can't marry now for a while, even after divorce him." she told herself late that night. lying in bed and staring at the stars in the dark-blue sky outside her windows. He'll be too poor. even for Eliza beth Ertz. who probably isn't used to much in the way Of money"
 The next afternoon, while she was mending her stockings for the first time in her iife-and doing a very poor job of 1t. too-the idea of going to Pat came to her.
 Wasn't 1t the very least she could do? To so to him and tell him how sorry she was that all his fine plans for the piSton-ring had come to nothing? And also to tell him that, even If staley Drummond had put money into the Scintilla company, he had not done 1t because he wanted to send Pats own company on the rocks?
 "Of course I ought to tell him those things" she made up her mind. and dropping her mending basket on the floor beside her chair, she ran upstairs to dress.
 She dressed very carefully for . woman who is going to see a hus- band for whom she no longer cares, supposediy-a husband whom she k getting ready to divorce. It took her an hour and | half to bathe and shampoo her hair-Pat always liked to see her hair lisht and fluffy-"wild looking" a he called it. Then she got into soms new scarlet clothes that she had just charged at Angouleme's. where Florence France would know about them, and put on a new red slicker and hat.
 Looking as gay as a red bird in the rainy gray day. she started out at four o'clock for the humble. crowded part of town where Pat lived.
 It was five when she reached Roy Jetterson's garage. where the La France piston ring was still adver- tlsed on cardboard signs all over the painted brick walls
 But neither Roy nor Pat was there. Probably over at the shop. gittin' things cleaned up down there." suggested the mechanic who was in charge. and over to the shop where the ring had been manufac- tured. went Lily.
 She was shocked when she saw fl. with Its soot- -blackened walls. its lop- sided roof. and the mud that waa all around it.
 So this was the sad and gloomy place where Pat had been working at night for months, after he had finished his days work at the garage! She could have groaned at the sight of it. No wonder he had wanted hot bath the minute he stepped into the house after hours in place like this. No von- der he had wanted a decent meal and a clean. quiet, cheerful wife!
 No wonder he was out of patience on those nights when he did come home early only to find his fiat dark and cheerless and his wife absent driving around with Staley Drum- mond and making her plans to ret away from the little flat and from him and from his poverty!
 "Oh. l wasn't very nice to him. was I?" Lily asked herself, as she crossed the muddy yard and rapped on the weather beaten wooden door Of the ramshackle building.
 After long time-three or four minutes-there was a sound of slow, dragging footsteps within, and . man pulled open the door. He was a very old man in a ragged brown sweater, a grease stained old hat, and dirty overalls. A dirty yellow dog was at his heels. and it srowled at Lily.
 'Is Mir. France here?" she asked,