The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-12-30

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the list. I'll bet I'm fill-in. She
said she'd tried to get me before
but I've been home except for the
Aliens luncheon and the bridge
club.
Probably she didn't mean to ask
me either. jeans having sinus
trouble again. Here's my street. I'll
FIX Crotch Steigerwald sooner OF
later. Call me up, Cissy.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS took a steu
backward and stopped to murmur
in Cecily's ear-"what I told you
about that Barry Nickel. Remem-
ber."
She was swaying down the aisle
and every one was staring at her
tweeds, her trim little hat, and the
gloves with their extravagant
wrinkles.
CECILY remembered. All day
~ long she remembered, various
ly. She remembered it as an unfor-
givable falsehood and an insupport-
able truth; she remembered it as
egregious nonsense, as none Of her
affair, as a cardinal component of
her life.
She remembered, conscientiously
to forget all about it and sound
happy when she telephoned to Ann,
at noon, to tell her that she had
given up the idea Of a birthday par
ty Oh-different reasons.
For one thing, Marta and Herbert
had another engagement. She re-
membered that Barry was cruel and
tickle, and that he was kind and
honorable, and that people sland-
cred him.
Throughout the day she did think
of few other things. She thought
that her pink dress and AIMS yell
low were too short; and that all
their clothes were dowdy and out of
fashion.
She thought that Barry was an
entire stranger to her, and that she
had beer an idiot to hope to touch
the far edges of his life. She never,
of course, had really hoped to en-
ter into his life.
She must have known that his
life was full before she had ever
met him. Full? Crammed with
girls, glamorouS girls who lived in
New York and who had wadS OF
money and clothes and chauffeurs
and trips to Europe, and who cried
about him.
Her pink dress was too short. She
had not dared take even a sip from
Billy's flask the other evening for
fear-since she had never taken
Sips-it might go to her head and
make her act silly.
She couldn't smoke; she had
never got into the habit of using
all this smart new slang, because
Grand and Rosalie frowned so
darby at slang.
Any man who was as Sophisticat-
ed as Barry and who was not posi-
lively brutal would have to feel at
least a stirring pity for a stupid,
dowdy, provincial person who had
shown so plainly her-well, at least
her absurd admiration for him.
DUT for Marta she, too, might
ID soon have been crying about
that Barry McKeel. Barry would
hate to have heI cry
Barry would hate to have any
one cry. Barry was gentle. Barry
was reasonable. She had played
with boys, hadn't she? Why should
not he have played with girls? Was
1t his fault that he had grown
tired?
She had done things of the sort.
Nearly every one had. Refused to
answer the telephone? Refused to
answer notes? Well, the silly things
should not have pursued him with
telephone calls and notes.
Even Ann (poor Ann, her yellow
was away too short), as sure as she
was of Phil, did not run after him.
Men hated pursuit-or so Cecily had
been informed.
She was very glad that she had
too much pride. Now if, when she
went into the street from the build
ing this evening, Barry were not
there-but he would be there. He
had said that he'd be right there by
the door.
But if he wern't? If she should
never see him again? If he refused
to answer her telephone calls?
y
THEY dined in a queer, empty
l. little place that smelled of new
lumber and was stuck on the side
of hill. The food was poor, but
the view out across the wide valley
was shifting harmony of misty
blues and grays merging into laven-