Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-03-09
Beginning a New
Serial by the
Author of Dark
Lightning. "''Long
After Midnight"
Next to My
Heart" and
Other Popular
Novels

II
went to her breakfast Rosemary marked
a red cross through the date on her little
calendar.
March twentieth. Thirty-one red crosses
and now her bags were packed, her riding
boots that she had used but once snapped
into their leather case the skis that she
had not used at all dashed together
All her hats were tucked in tissue in their
red vanished boxes The last morning - and
the feeling that she had was the same feel
ing with which she always greeted last
morning with her mother, vaguely mingled
confusion of regret and relief
ALWAYS before she came north she had
an anticpatory glow, a thrilled hope that per-
hans this time things would be different, some
lovely thing would happen some change, so
that she could grow to know really, the
beautiful woman whose child she was.
But though much had happened and to
most girls of twenty all of 1t might nave
been thrilling Rosemary had again the same
feeling of fairness and futility with when
she always marked the red cross on the
calendar. a feeling that grew and thickened
till her bags were packed, and her little car
sent around to be serviced for the trip south.
She washed her hair-brush and laid 1t on
the windowsill in what thin sunlight there
was Down South everything would be spring
ing into bloom, and the hooking birds going
sweetly mad in the camphor trees, but mere
on this avenue facing the park 1t was still
Winter. and grey smoky fog drifted, yellow
and chill across the acres of bleak ROOFS
below.
Tomorrow, Rosemary was thinking, she
would be far away. Tires singing as she
fed through the Virginia woods, the sandy
hills of the eastern Carolinas, and the day
after she would smell again the salty, hshy
reek of the marshes that she loved and her
blood would run faster. But today she was
still in Washington with the monument
silhouette in opal tints far down the sky
and down the hall things that had to be
settled The question of going back at all,
the matter of Haynes Hills.
Not but what they were now definitely
settled so far as Rosemary herself was
concerned But her mother was another
problem.
Rosemary put on a Russian coat of blue
with gilt frogs over her red pajamas shook
back her hair-which was neither gold nor
red nor brown. but tawny mixture of all
the shades with a stubborn cowlick over
each temple that would never be properly
disciplined into the sculptured perfection her
mother wished for.
Along with the rebellious hair Rosemary
had other features that disappointed her
mother also There were her eyes dark
that in spite of long bronze lashes would not
take on allure. They were too level, too
steady too frank and honest. And, as Victoria
Mallard had mourned for years, they were
too big for Rosemarys triangular. piquant
face
Your father has two beautiful sisters,
Alice and Winnie. You could have looked
like them so easily, darling why did
you have to inherit everything from Emory
- even his cowlicks and his horrible propen-
sity for speaking the brutal truth"
The brutal truth. so Rosemary was think
ing. wryly. was going to have another inning
now in a moment And her mother was not
going to like any Of it,
Victoria would be in bed of course. She
hated energetic people Just she hated cold
water or walking anywhere. Rosemary tapped
on her door, then opened it without waiting
and slipped in. Victoria having her face
done by an operator from the beauty parloi
downstairs. But even under the stufy towels
and cold cream, it was apparent that Rose
mary's mother was still a singularly lovely
woman.
Her eyes were big and brown and he
mouth had soft curve still, for woman o
forty. though her lower lip had a -trick-e
Strengthening into dominant line. and he
chin was a trife too firm. She sat up oil
her elbow and flung off hot towel and said
bit fretfully:
Rosemary. such an awful hour! Haven
you any gift for relaxation and Incidence a
all? haven't even had my coffee yet
I'm bring 1t in" Rosemary bent an
kissed a strand Of her mothers honey-colore
hair. I'm having my breakfast now. An
I'm starting south, you know, as soon a
my car comes around"
10