The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-04-30

Chicago millouaffes cOmIOrtS her after a disagreeable exper- fence with . prospective employ CT. Susan's AUNT JESSIE, old- fashioned and strict, encourages her friendship with BEN LAMP MAN, moody young musicians. Ben takes her to a studio party. She is lonely but repulses the Hfrtations advances of JACK WAKING, who works in the same office. Bob Dunbar asks her to lunch and tells her he is going abroad. Susan realizes she is in love with him.
 NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY
 CHAPTER xI
 Denise Ackroyd, slim. and perfect in her tailored suit of black faille, continued to stare insolently at Su- san but her words were addressed to Bob Dunbar.
 Where have you been keeping yourself?" Denise went on in that high, sweet, agreeable voice. which had rung out above the others that night at the Strinsky's studio. Bob said rather uncomfortably that he had been with the family at Lake Geneva, that he had got in some golf
 You look it." said Denise sur veying him with what Susan thought proprietary gaze. Susan felt out of it. The other girl, with the ease and smoothness of long practice, had taken control of the situation. Susan was suddenly con scious that her rose pink shantung was all wrong. She wondered, dis 11r, t~. rH |. . l. out of place in this big, cool, shin- ing room where all the lunchers seemed to know each other and stopped to talk and laugh in little intimate groups.
 If the other girl was aware of any rudeness in ignoring Susan she gave no sign. She monopolized young Dunbar completely. It was only when Susan, raging in her heart. gathered up her gloves and said she must go that Denise ap- peared to notice her.
 "Oh, you have a job, suppose?" she said in surprised, faintly dis dainful tone. As if, thought Susan angrily, there was anything wrong about having a job!
 ''No, don't come with me-" Susan insisted to the young man. Really, must rush and you may as well stay and talk"
 Surely he won't take me at my word, the girl thought. Surely he'll finish what he started to say before that hateful Denise inter- rupted!
 Womanlike, Susan insisted that the young man should do exactly what she hoped he would not. She did not really believe he would take her at her word. But Dunbar by this time was bewildered by her silence and sudden coolness. He began to imagine the flash of under standing which had passed between them was nothing but mirage. He walked with her as far X as the lobby where, puzzled and annoyed by her new, distant manner he left her and returned to the restaurant and Denise.
 Walking across town, Susan ragged in her heart. The click of hei heels kept time with her fur ious thoughts. "I hate her.. I hate her. hate her." she stormed in- Wardly.
 She was hard put to it to keep back the tears. The day which had seemed so perfect an hour ago was uncomfortable. The sun beat down on the pavements, the big police man at Adams. and Clark looked fairly wilted. No wonder, thought susan, that girls like Denise Ack- royd always managed to look so exquisitely turned out. They had their half hundred little French frocks, their efficient maids in the background. They had swimming and tennis. They had adoring par ents who existed for the sole pur- pose, apparently, of paying bills. For the first time in her life Susan began to be really sorry for herself She wondered rebelliously if life needed to be so utterly unfair. The corrosion of self pity ate into her soul.
 tered the office, hung up her hat, into Mir Heath's private office to take dictation. Yesterday all this had seemed quite thrilling.
 She had imagination to see the poetry that lay behind the prosaic talk of stone and mellow beams and steel work. Yesterday Susan had thought of herself as a cog in this important business machine. A small cog, it is true, but still a necessary one. Now she wondered duly why that had seemed to mat ter. She wanted passionately to be the sort of girl Denis, Ackroyd was. She wanted to be able to laugh and talk fiutin1ly of the end less nothings which seemed to make up the conversation of that particular crowd.
 Ernest Heath wondered what had happened to the girl. She was Sc quiet and pale, so subdued. Quite unconsciously he had come in the last few weeks to depend upon and to expect the flash of glowing under standing, the ready response that was half Susan's charm. To-day all that was absent.
 q wonder if the girl is ill Heath thought, for the moment vaguely annoyed at the idea. Fol the first time since she had been 1T his employ he began to speculate idly, on the girls life apart from Ernest Heath, Incorporated. Like most men of his type-correct, dig. nified, rich and unimaginative-his secretary of the moment alway: SGCtuCu LO itAAl SO AAoNS DSNh NAS ated for the sole purpose of arriv. ing promptly at nine each morning discharging her duties crisply and efficiently, and departing on tht stroke of five into some din. limbo he neither knew nor cared to know about.
 Miss O'Connell whose place Su san was taking had always seemed to him the veriest robot. It hat never occurred to Heath to wonder what her life outside the offic, might be. But then Miss O'Con nell was nearing 40. She wore rim less eyeglasses and. as Ray. Elan nery had devastatingly announced had worn a hair net. Susan was diff ferent. Heath, sedate and proper a he was had not realized what al inspiration there had been for hin in this girls eager. upward glance