The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-01-21
@ i9st D.,
 Doubleday, Ooeaa and G

plty Ior Stupio, doWuy, pr0Vlncfal person who had shown so plainly her-well, at least her absurd ad- miration for him.
 But for Marta she too might soon have been crying about htta Barry McKeel. Barry would hate to have her cry. Barry would hate to have anyone cry. Barry was gentle. Barry was reasonable. Everyone should be reasonable. She had played with boys, hadn't she ? Why shouldn't he have played with girls? Was 1t his fault that he had grown tired? She had done things of the sort. Nearly everyone had. Refused to answer the telephone Refused to answer notes? We'll, the silly things should not have pursued him with telephone calls and notes. Even Anne (poor Anne, her yellow was away too short) as sure as she was of Phil, did not run after him. Men hated pur- suit-or so Cecily had been in- formed. She was very glad that she had too much pride. Now if, when she went into the street from the building this evening, Barry were not there But he would be there. He had said that he'd he'd be right there by the door. But If he weren't? If he refused to answer her telephone calls? | They dined in a queer, empty little place that smelled of new lumber and was stuck on the side of a hill. The food was pood, but the view out across the wide valley was a shifting harmony of misty blues and grays merging into lav- ender and deepening to violet mar gins in front of sunset spread like a Japanese fan.
 | The waitress came and brought the ash tray Barry had asked for, and brushed at some crumbs and moved the catsup bottle two inches and departed.
 l Barry said, "Cecily, do you know you are the first real friend feminine-that I have ever had ?" | Frail Constance and her chauf- feur walked in and sat beside him on the right, and Bea, beautiful though weeping, sat beside him on the left.
 Barry opened his cigaret case. Sure you won't have one?" he asked.
 Cecily, tired of looking at Con- stance and her chauffeur and Bea, looked again out of the window. No, thank you," she said.
 He lighted his own. eff you smoked" he said, 'I'd think 1t jolly and friendly; so, consistently, I'm tremendously glad that you don't" Constance and Bea were both smoking likd real comrades and be- eomingly by now, so the best Ce- cily could do was to make fun of them. Tt seems so old-fashioned for women to smoke, nowadays, she said. It didn't ring right, and she knew it and could only hope desperately that it had not sounded as if she were foraging for praise.
 But you are old-fashioned," he said. "You are as old-fashioned as dignity, and good manners and loy- alty, and" the hesitation was just prece eptible-''love."
 Since never before had he so much as mentioned love in her connection to Cecily 1t could only be supposed that either Bea or Con- stance and her chauffeur had put him up to it.
 She continued gazing out of the I WkuuOW. VT d5 LDllllhCA5s VI cruets, or chaperons?" she said. B stance and one for her chauffeur
 He laughed appreciatively. "Yot are as impersona1," he said, "as { librarian or 8 lily-the two most impersonal things on earth. I like 'em. They are cool and calming You are cool, but-well, not always calming. You never say, Why am II?' The easy lead into personali. ties. It's fun when you won't; but it trips me up and throws me head long. You know. You should have said, when I told you that you were the first real girl friend I'd ever had, Why am I?' or at least, Am I, really?' and given me an oppor- tunity to step along in my conver- sational stride"
 But that wasn't what I thought just then"
 He pretended to sigh with re. lief. 'I was half afraid you'd an- swer that with, Is that what girls always say when you make that speech?' No. l can't trap you into the obvious, can I, no matter how banal I am? Please do tell me now what you thought when you didn't think, Am l really?'"
 1T thought" she answered, "Oh wel--one hypocrisy doesn't make a hypocrite, nor one fib fibber'."
 He aghedeetaoi shrd lletaoin dd
 He laughed again, less appreci- atively. "Yes, but actually" he in- sisted. "I'm not saying that haven't played with girls. I'm not saying that I haven't thought had a bad case, once or twice and for short time. am saying that I've never before liked girl. thoroughly and unreservedly Liking is much more important than love, you know"
 "No," Cecily disputed brazenly That's like saying that the alpha bet is more important than poetry One has to be learned before the other can be approached-that' all. People have to be friends be- fore they can be lovers. Love is liking-intensified perfected"
 "Wrong as wrong!" he declared But I'm glad you think so. Oh, boy, but I'm glad you think so!' And with that, and nothing further except, Shall we go?" he was up and holding her coat, and in Q great hurry to be out of the place
 (TO be Continued)
 Last Times, Lawrence Tibbetts in