The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-08-19
|EYSUN-TA1N - a2lS N NARD JONES Q es, NEA s~-ssa ha
sYNoPsIS

goes to Crest Lake and later Bret arrives as Q life guard.
 Douglas Marsh's eccentric mother disliles Jo. PETER
 FRAGONET, film actor, pays JO marked attentions and asks her to marry him as soon as he can get Q divorce, Jo becomes friend ly with LOLA MONTH";, film actress.
 Prompted by his mother, Marsh asks Jo to leave Crest Lake. She decides to go to Holly wood to look for job and Fra gonct persuadcs her to go with him by plane. He takes her to an attractive hotel, promises to call late to take her to dinner.
 Jo waits, but Fragonct does not come. She learns he Is at the theater with Mrs. Fragonet. Later he arrives, makes explana- tiOns. Fragonet tells Jo he has leased an apartment for her.
 CHAPTER XXXVII
 Without word to Fragonet. Jo walked to the telephone, lifted the instrument from its cradle.
 What are you going to do?" he asked, moving across the room.
 Jo spoke quickly into the mouth piece: Hello? Please let me have the cashiers office"
 Fragonet reached out as if to take the telephone from her hand, but Jo turned guardedly. Cash ier's office? This is Miss Darien in 71S. There's been little misunder- standing about my account. l want the statements to come to me-and not to MT. Fragonet. Thanks so much.
 Replacing the telephone, she turned to F'ragonet again. Il may as well stay here untll the end or the week. But after that, Peter, l want you to be a sensible person and not try to find my new ad- dress."
 But, Jo, its so foolish not to accept my help, Alter al, 1 brought you here-anu I'm responsible"
 Jo smiled. I'd rather be re- sponsible." She held out her hand. Good night and goudby Peter."
 He took her hand. It's not goouby, Jo. You cant dismiss me so easily" His eyes were cloudeu with talnt anger, and Jo was lear tul ot one oI hls unreasoning out bursts. But with obvious effort ne held himself silent, anu lett With out further protest.
 If Jo Darien lived to be a hun dred she would always remember them In conglomerate nightmare detail. m her mlnd she nad not dismissed tragonet as completely as she wanted him to belleve. m her heart she knew that Ii ne prov ed himself really nnished with Edna tragonet, IL he was sincere in not caring tor the public table Of Peter tragonet, she would be willing to sec nim again. It could be true that he loved ner, as he said; and, after all, nothing that hau happened was really his fault. Poor tragonet was caught up In the complications ut ms own tenuous fame.
 But, despite these conclusions, Jo was resolved to carry herself in Hollywood. Just how this should be done, she hadn't the slightest notion. Ihe morning after kragonet's revelation that he was still ineXtricably imprisoned with in the destines ot Edna t'ragonet and the Atlas organization, Jo took inventory Ot her resources. When she had paid week In advance at the expensive apartment on Wiltshire boulevard sne 1ound to her alarm that she had less than $lU0. She recognized too late that she should have moved Ut once, and spurred now by the swiftly ap- proacning necessity, she spent hours in the bright sunlight or Hollywood, hunting for a JoD.,
 By bus ana street car and on foot she searched through the shops and the stores ana the res- taurants-sometime guioed by want adds" ana sometimes going it blindly, hoping by sheer luck to run into something. But there were thousands like her in Hollywood thousands who had come for money and fame and who were now anxious enough to settle into the security of a low paid job at almost anything.
 Her pride kept her from taking what little she had left and escap- ing with it to Weston. And in q few short days her money dwindled to the point where escape was im- possible and job-any sort of @ job--was more important than ever before. She had not even advised her parents that she was no longer at Crest Lake, for she didn't want to worry them until she could as- sure them she was safely situated in a city which her mother had all ways regarded with more or less suspicion.
 Jo knew that an appeal to Fra gonet would surely find her some- thing, and she suspected he was waiting for this appeal. It was this suspiciIn which made Jo all the more stubbornly set against asking his help. At the end of the fruitless week she left the luxurious apart ment he had selected. Leaving no forwarding address, she moved into a single narrow room in an out moded stucco bungalow owned by a widow who had descended to roomers in order to hold her prop erty.
 It was in that dingy, narrow room that the desperate Jo de- cided to make an appeal-not to Fragonet, but to Lolita Montez. With considerable trepidation she wrote her a note in care of the studio, for Montez, like Fragonet' had no listing in the directory. It seemed hopeless, for Jo felt cer- tain that some secretary would answer her letter, that Montez her self would never see 1t. But Jo reckoned without the fact that To- lita Montez was a star who took the time to glance at her fan-mail.
 "A lady called while you were \gone," Jos landlady told her an }vening or two later when the t -~s.l xaf,,rnad UeariIv from another