Radio Mirror: The Magazine of Radio Romances (Jan-June 1943)

FIBS Kotex Tampons Cost Less! ONLY 20^ a package— and with Fibs you can be free as a breeze. Slip into slacks, shorts or even a swim suit with nobody the wiser. Worn internally, Fibs provide invisible sanitary protection ... no pins, pads or belts ... no chafing, no disposal problem. Only FIBS are Quilted "QUILTED "-to avoid danger of cotton particles adhering to delicate tissues — to prevent undue expansion which might cause pressure or irritation. That means greater comfort and safety! And Fibs have a smooth, gently rounded end for easy insertion! 20* a package had clearly lost hers. But now 1 didn'e care. I guess I was learning a sense of values. When she had gone, I started my packing. When I had called the bellboy to take my bags, I sat down at my desk and wrote a note. "Dear Stefan: I have thought things over, and decided you should not take such a step in haste. There are things to be made clear between us. If you want to see me, you will find me at home." I gave him my real address. And I caught the early morning train. I do not like to remember the next few days. I went back to school and faced a new class of rosy clean children who were eager to begin. My heart ached to look at them. Why I loved them! Why had I ever left them? 'T'HE days went by without my hear-* ing from Stefan. Or from Bill. But naturally I would not hear from Bill. Why should I? Then Stefan came. Seeing him come in the door of my school room that Friday afternoon gave me no sense of triumph. It gave me no sense of anything at all. I stood there watching, with a sponge in my hand, water dripping from my elbow, as I washed my blackboard. I said, "Hello, Stefan. Want to help? There's another sponge over there." "Lisa, please," he said as if actually in pain. "It has been a shock sufficient without your joke." "Joke?" I raised my eyebrows. "This is my job. It is no joke." His shoulders moved in an actual shudder. "No, in that you are right. It is not a joke, though I am yet incapable of comprehending the entire truth — " He broke off, helplessly. All the week I had been afraid he would not come. And when I had thought that he might, this was what I had dreaded: his disillusion. But now I saw the facts on his face, and I felt a calm that was almost relief. "It's perfectly simple, Stefan," I told him gently. "I'm not the sort of person you thought I was. I deceived you. But now you know the truth. I'm just a provincial school teacher." He frowned, for. a moment. Then he shrugged and held out his hand. "Come away," he said. "Let us talk in some less depressing atmosphere." "All right," I told him. "I'm through here, anyway. You can walk home with me." I thought that he would finish what he had to say to me, and be gone, long before we got there, but he only said, when we got outside, "We will not talk of this on the streets, of course." And so we walked the three short blocks to my boardinghouse in silence. When we entered the shadowed coolness of the living room, I turned to face him. "Let's finish what we have to say to each other — get it ovei with, Stefan." "Finish?" He grasped my hand and held it tightly. "Lisa, do not use that word." He looked really alarmed. "But Stefan," I protested, "you needn't be chivalrous. I understand how you feel. You are free to go." "But I do not wish to go," he said and put his arms around me. He still wanted to marry me! 1 waited for the flush of elation, of triumph, which should have come over me. But I felt only still and cold. Stefan's hands on my shoulders made me lose my calm. I felt trapped and panicky. "Stefan, don't you see I can't? I faltered. "Don't you understand that I couldn't be just a legal convenience for anyone? You see, Stefan, I know." I had expected him to deny it. I was not even sure that what Maris had said was true. I was wrong on all counts. He did not deny it, but it did not make things easy. He said, "Then we are — what you call — 'square.' You deceive me, I deceive you. It is all clear, as you said it should be. We can make a sensible marriage." "I'm sorry, Stefan," I almost gasped, struggling to free myself from his arms. "I've told you I can't. My job and my home may seem unattractive to you, but right now they are all I want." BUT they might be most difficult to keep," Stefan said smoothly, "under certain circumstances." "What are you saying?" At last I twisted out of his arms. "I have the understanding," Stefan said, "that in your cities the teacher of children must be above reproach." I stared at him, uncomprehending. "But I am. I mean, I have done nothing wrong." He shrugged. "I believe that, too. I should hate that they should hear tales of certain happenings at the Spring." I looked at him, unbelieving. He was threatening me. And I realized that a malicious tongue could tell stories that could sound very ugly. There was the night, for instance, that I had spent in the mountain shelter when we missed the bus. "Stefan," I said, almost in a wail, "you wouldn't — " "No." He took me in his arms again and I was too numb to struggle. "No. I would not, because I shall be married to a sensible woman, who is also a sweet and charming — " I pushed away, crying out, "No! Tell them anything you want! If they be lieve it, I'll go away. I don't care how far I have to go, but I'll never do 58 +*^£&y&£&^~J&&J£*&?^S*^**&&^ ayr*ew0 7c & «*-A t<^K^. WALTER CASSEL, who is featured on the Keep Working— Keep Singing America program heard Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6:30 P.M., EWT, over CBS. In 1933, in a town named Council Bluffs, Iowa, this handsome, blond baritone kissed his wife good-by and hopped aboard the caboose of a cattle train headed for New York, with the praise and encouraging words of the noted Lawrence Tibbett still ringing in his ears. Once in the big city, Walter obi tained a radio audition and within a few weeks his excellent voice was featured on a sustaining show, and shortly after he was singing on the Hammerstein Music Hall of the Air and others. He sent for his family and settled down in a quiet suburban Long Island home