Evening star., 1934-05-06


know. He's my roommate"
We'll" Edna pcndered Immediately removed
from the ward room and the young officers and
the girls with whom she had lunched. Well
that brings on more talk.
1t brought on more talk because Harry Logan
was tall and red-haired, and his eyes were
buer than blue 1t brought on more talk be-
cause he had dved out of the curtaned floor
way which hid the four rooms of the de-
stroyers officers and. with scarcely glance
around the festive ward ROOM had raced up
the ladder to the deck And his excuse? He
had to see a sick friend in s. o. Q. at the
hospital Very plausible, that Very.
Edna, the only unattached girl felt the in
suit keenly. Not for pearls and diamonds
would she have admitted that of the rea-
sons why she had allowed Serena to drag her
&ere was that Serena had displayed snapshot
to her yesterday snapshot showing Tommy
the deck of the destroyer, with flag wav-
ing patrioticay from the ships bow his
head.
But Tommy merely Of group. The
others in the group the Exec; Lieut.
Bradland, the married one, and Harry. And
Serena had said pointing. That's Tommy's
roommate. If you go with me tomorrow. you'll
probably meet him don't know much about
him. but he doesn't look bad"
No. he didn't. Pipe in his mouth Tall and
lean. Gold-eagled cap set at rakish angle.
He didn't look bad at all
- A ND now here she was Wearing a keen
navy blue dress trimmed with lacy white.
Wearing bright shade of lipstick and fetch
ing wave in her windblown- -bobbed hair.
Wearing a smile and looking swell.
And what did that guy do? He walked out
of his room. mumbled something about a sick
friend-the unoriginality of it!-and disap-
peared And she was left high and dry in
q ward room full of officers and their girls
with nothing to do but twiddle her thumbs
1t ridiculous to think that he had meant
the thing as personal insult. He didn't know
her-had probably not even glanced at her
when Tommy introduced them.
Yet she blushed and burned and wanted to
get even.
p Being told that he was woman hater didn't
make things any better. But it did, madden
ingly, set her mind working on the knotty prob
lem of why all the best-loking men seemed to
hate women.
the taxi that Serena's Tommy had provided
She knew that Tommy would call at Serenas
only an hour or two from now and take her to
a decent play. She felt like cents herself
No one was calling for her. She could have
made a date, but she had half convinced her
self that Harry would suggest falling in with
his roommates plans.
Sap that she was! Woman hater that he
Vas!
1t was a painful experience, this sitting at
home of Saturday night. She sat in her own
room and tried to read Then she thought of
slipping out to a movie, but the memory of
the Broadway show that she had been optimis-
tic enough practically to plan on embttered
that too much. She knew she wouldn't have
enjoyed it.
So she simply sat, stared at printed page
whereof no single word made sense. And she
plotted. nlogically, way to get even with that
darned red-headed woman hater
light across the driveway in Helen At
kins' room. gave her an idea Helen Atkins
was about her own age-with this difference:
That while to Edna staying at home on Sat-
vrday night was torture, to Helen it was a
matter of course
Helen was Latin shark and Greek hound
She could give you the square root tripled or
something, of Pi square, or some stupid thing
like that, in less time than Edna could name
the snatch of new song she had heard once
over the radio.
She could, this Helen with her spectacles
and her poetry, give you the dates of the reigns
OF all the HenryS who were their consorts
and which they had divorced or beheaded
without even grinning. To her it wasn't scan
dal-it was history. The sum of the difference
between herself and Edna.
That, and a little matter of personal appear
2nce. Where Edna had wide, velvet brown
Eyes, hers were small and pale and kept be-
hind glass. Where Ednas nose was puggy and
tiptilted ever so slightly, hers was pronounced
and heavy. Where Ednas mouth was a rouged
little soupcon of laughter, hers was just a
mouth. A mouth to eat with and spout Latin
cOnjugationS out of.
CTARING across into the lighted window,
- Edna that Helen was bent over her