Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-08-23
CHAPTER Xxx.

A FTER a terrible silence Mr..
~ Seymour spoke, his voice low
~ and trembling. I'VE may as
well let you have it, Betsy.
It wouldn't be fair not to tell YOU
everything. Terry cracked up late
this afternoon over the Potomac. He's
in Emergency. Critically injured. He
may be blind-if he lives. We aren't
permitted even to see him."
Betsy's hand flew to her mouth.
Her face was stricken beautiful with
shock. Her blue eyes suffered. A
GOODNESS, a deadly GOODNESS, that
seemed to freeze her heart. went
through her. She gathered her
strength at last to cross the room to
her mother, to lay her hand over her
mothers hands that were nervously
twisting the handkerchief. The room
was very still until Betsy said:
Darling, Terry will be all right. I
feel it. I just know it."
''Oh, I don't know! don't know!"
her mother moaned, tears starting up
in her eyes again.
It was when a sob came from q
corner of the parlor that Betsy saw
Sonia huddled in pitiful knot in a
ricketey old chair. She turned her
head and looked straight into the girls
deep-set eyes. If ever she had had
any doubts about the little dancers
love for Terry it vanished in that
moment.
And later, upstairs, when Sonia,
restless with misery. paced the floor
for an hour and threw herself, at last
exhausted, upon the bed, sobbing as
If her heart would break, Betsy knew
that for all her sordid environment,
for all her ENHANCEMENT with Tige
williams and her warped beginning,
she was real and fine. Terry had
once said: shes sweet, Betsy-honey
sweet. She's not like those other girls
at the burlesque house" And he had
been right.
Betsy and Sonia didn't sleep. When
ever they closed their eyes they saw
Terry sweeping down from the sky,
crashing into the water, his broken
body lying there in the wreck of the
plane. Their slim, young bodies be-
meath the little Powered wolfe gowns
with puff sleeves would break out in
perspiration and they would lie very
straight and still upon the bed court
ing the relief that sleep alone could
bring.
It was toward dawn when Sonia
touched Betsy's arm lightly and
whispered:
Awake. Betsy"
Betsy turned over on her side, Eyes.
haven't been asleep. I couldn't"
Sonia said, throat-deep, not quite
knowing how Betsy would take it. Il
have $500. Betsy. It's all have, but
I want 1t to go on Terry's bill. I
want him to have every attention"
Betsy caught her hand and squeezed
1t, tears swimming in her blue eyes.
you're q dear, but-I-couldn't. III
manage somehow"
Sonia cried out softly, the words
pouring from her:
"You must! You must, Betsy!
Terry and are going TO be married,
If he gets well. I'm going to quit the
stage.
'AlI want in life now Is Terry, a
little apartment somewhere. I don't
care where, kids later on, maybe.
Please, Betsy! You've got to. You
can pay me back some day-if you
want to!"
Sonia didn't say that she had heard
the details Of Terry's crack-up on the
radio few moments after It had hap
pened and that she had gone instantly
10 Tige Williams to plead for that
money. She didn't say that she had
promised Tige to 60 to New York with
him soon, to live with him even
though she knew he had wife out
West somewhere. Nothing had mat
tered but that Terry should have
every medical attention. She knew
that the Seymours were in desperate
straits, that they couldn't afford the
cheapest ward. And even If she never
saw Terry again after he recovered,
even If her body that she had kept
sweet and clean, despite all that peo-
pie said and thought of her, became
q loathesome thing to her-nothing
mattered but that Terry should get
well.
Betsy felt sickening clutch at her
heart. pain running like fire along