Radio romances (July-Dec 1945)

Now goes on with smoother, lovelier color l-oasme^ powder! 72 • Today's intriguing glamour news — a "sheer-gauge" face powder! It's Pond's luscious Dreamflower Powder — now made "sheer-gauge" by a special suffusing ingredient that spreads out the tiny particles of soft color . . . blends them with new "sheer-gauge" smoothness over your skin ! That's why Pond's shades look so much softer "on" ! Why they suffuse your face with sweeter color . . . smoother color . . . more "glowy" color. Compare Pond's new "sheer-gauge" powder with the powder you're wearing now. See the thrillingly sheer, subtle color-smoothness it lends your skin! PONDS Dreamflower Fbwder — made "sheer-gauge" by experts in beauty! "Sheer-gouge" means More glamorous color for your face, too! Two stockings — exactly the same shade in the box — but so different "on"! Now — Pond's Dreamflower Powder shades look lovelier "on'' because they're so beautifully "sheer-gouge" ! I remained in my trance-like state. Nothing seemed real or clear, and I only went through the motions of living without knowing exactly what I did. I went to work, I kept house, I talked with Woodie. He, too, seemed unreal. He had a new job now and was doing well at it. The dreaded shadow haunted me, but though I watched him carefully he seemed better than he had ever been — more stable, happier. Once I went out to see Dr. Blythe. I told him I was going to stay with Woodie. "That was for you to decide, my dear," he said, "and it's not for me to say whether you were wrong or right. But one thing you can always know: your faithfulness and care of your husband during the last two years has played a great part in his recovery. No matter how unhappy you may be, or how unfulfilled, you can always know that." But knowing didn't seem to mean much at the time. Nothing did. The night that I had made my choice between what I wanted to do and what I must do, had left its mark on me. It had been as if youth ended that night — youth and all its bubbling wellsprings of expectancy. riNCE Woodie said, "What's the mat" ter, Nancy? Lately you seem so absent-minded — as if you were miles away from me." I roused myself and smiled at him. "Nothing, dear. I'm just tired." But after that I made an effort at least to act as I had before. If Woodie ever suspected the real truth, then my sacrifice would have been in vain. His faith in me must be kept intact, no matter what the cost, for all our sakes. I tried not to think of Don — it hurt too much. But I dreamed of him constantly, sometimes seeing him clearly and as he was, sometimes in some dim, fantastic guise. Once I dreamed that Don and I were being married in a big, shadowy, cathedral-like place where the only sound was the minister's voice, repeating over and over the words of the ceremony; then suddenly the place grew light and I saw the minister's face, and it was Woodie, smiling and nodding at us. I woke from that dream, weeping. It was so close to what I wanted! At Christmas, a card came from Don. It was the first I'd heard from him since the note giving his address. There was no message — but I knew what he intended it to say. It told me he was well, it told me that I was still and would always be a part of him. And I knew that even if he met and married someone he could love, as surely some day he would, we would still be an irrevocable part one of the other. Real and for forever, our love would still live, even though denied. It was right after Christmas that Woodie decided to change jobs again. He wanted to start selling insurance instead of cars. I didn't like the change. He had good arguments for it, as he always did, but I was fearful of what it might signify. Everything he did, I had to question and examine in the light of his past illness, lest it might, somehow, bear in it the seeds of another recurrence. I tried to talk him out of changing, but impatient and impulsive as always, he refused to listen. "But I'm contented as we are," I told him. "Please, dear — " "You deserve the best and you're going to have it. Everything bigger and better — that's what I want for you!" And that was the frame of mind in