Radio television mirror (July-Dec 1951)

say or do anything to keep his faith!" "That's not quite the whole story, Suzanne. There's George — do you think Tom is justified in punishing George for something he knows George didn't do? Have you decided that it's' right even to hurt others in order to protect yourself?" Suzanne stared at me from strained, tearless eyes. "Who can help me now? Who can make me feel better except myself? In the last analysis everyone must look after himself — " "Oh, Suzanne — this from you? After — " "Yes, after everything!" She pressed her hands over her eyes fiercely. "After all this I can only help myself, I can't look to anyone else! That's why I'm going away. Nobody can give me back my faith or my love — nobody cares enough to bother. I can only make myself well again . . . I'll be sorry about all this one day, Nora — you know that, don't you? I'll want to apologize, ask you to forgive me and forget all these mad things I'm saying. But you'll have to allow me to get it out of my system." The phone shrilled, galvanizing Suzanne into action. She threw the rest of her things into the suitcase and looked wildly around for forgotten items. "Bag," she muttered. "Gloves? — wallet, here it is — Nora, if that's Durosha will you tell him I'm already gone, please?" Obediently, when Durosha's assertive voice rolled richly through the receiver, I told him Suzanne had already left. "Excellent, fine," he said. "We keep her moving, eh? Keep her so busy she drops from exhaustion. Many broken hearts I have cured this way." I spoke softly, so Suzanne couldn't hear. "I gather you know about her trouble?" "How avoid knowing? The little face is pale, the figure droops, the hands are uncertain— and between us, Miss Drake, my impulse is to apply the type punishment one would give to, say, a three-year-old." He chuckled. "A fine mess, is it not? But I will not have this, career ruined ! Not for a dozen young men with tempers — or whatever is the trouble, I don't know. This love . . ." He made a peculiar sound half-way between a snort and a laugh. "And yet no artist can do without some. She has it now — the love, the soffering — so she gets over with it for the next five years." "I hope you're right," I said. "No, I'm not right." Durosha's voice became suddenly impatient. "With Suzanne is different. This is not to be got over in five years or ten. Tell me, Miss Drake — is it not possible to find this young man and perhaps beat him gently with a whip until he consents to make Suzanne happy? When she is unhappy she cannot play." "I wish it were possible. But it's — well, even more involved. It's not just Suzanne and To — and the boy." "Don't tell me," he pleaded. "Enough I have already watching after the music. Ah, these children!" Out of the corner of my eye I saw Suzanne hurry from the bedroom. "I'm off," she hissed. "Wish me luck." Then the door closed behind her. From the other end of the phone, which I had almost forgotten I was holding, came a rumbling, "So . . o . . o. She has left, has she. Miss Drake, they are corrupting you! Take shame!" Poor Suzanne, I was thinking as I cleared up the debris of her whirlwind departure. I felt too remote from whatever had been going on with her and Tom to have any notion that I could help. George's trial was coming up the very next week; Charles was so harassed he couldn't be spoken to; Tom had now made tragedy inevitable by refusing to have anything to do with the proof of his father's wrongdoing. And he had ruined not only George, but Suzanne, by the refusal. I found myself almost hating him; there was no room left for open-minded sympathy. It was the worst possible time for Tom himself suddenly to materialize before me. Suzanne had been gone about an hour when he walked in. He still walked with arrogance, but his face didn't show it any more. I saw that he was almost as drawn, almost as tormented as Suzanne had been. "You might have rung or knocked," I said coldly. He didn't bother to answer. Striding through the room, he peered into the empty kitchen, and turned and saw the open bedroom doors. "Where is she?" he demanded. I said sharply, "Tom, please mind your manners. You have no rights here at all, you know, particularly after what you did to Suzanne today. I've never seen her so wretched before, if knowing you is going to do that to her, I'll use every influence I possess to cut this relationship short." "Knowing her?" Tom said. "Didn't she tell you I'm in love with her?" I wonder if Suzanne knows and believes it. For that she was in love with him I knew I had realized all along. "Perhaps she was ashamed to," I said. "You." Tom's voice shook with resentment. "Haven't you done enough to me already? I won't let you poison Suzanne the way you've poisoned everything else that meant anything to me. I love her. I didn't know it till she went out. Till she looked at me like that and just — went." He snapped his fingers. "That for you, Tom Morley. Do as we say, betray your father, dirty up his memory, or else I walk out. And when I wouldn't do it, out she went. But she'll be back — she's my kind, you hear me? You and your lying envelopes and faked lies — forged like that check of George Stewart's — " "Tom," I cut in sharply. "Have you forgotten how that check was forged — that your father engineered the whole thing? That George signed it in ignorance, thinking it was a joke? You told Charles Dobbs that yourself." "What's the difference? It'll serve." B • eautifully," I agreed sarcastically. "It will serve to put an innocent man in jail. It will serve very nicely to destroy Charles Dobbs' faith in himself. That's a very important point to you. Not to mention the brutal offense you've done to Suzanne. She believed you were — something you're obviously not. Now that you've shown yourself otherwise, you've shattered her. But I suppose you know that." "I don't know that. I don't know anything about Suzanne except that I — that she's in my life now and I can't go on if she leaves it. And you know — " he frowned. "It seems so long ago, but it was barely a month, isn't that strange — you know I planned it all, don't you? You must know that, you always believe the worst of me and you've been so right. I planned If you're TALL you need this FREE Style Book It tells the story of Lane Bryant's new "over 5'7" Shop" specialization . . .Glamour clothes in TALL SIZES 10 to 20... the newest dresses, coats, suits, jackets, lingerie, negligees, blouses, skirts, slacks ...to fit your TALL figure to perfection ! ...and priced like fashions in "regular sizes" J™ccl> Lane Bryant, Dept. 710 RT 465 Fifth Avenue, New York 17, Please send me your "Over 5'7" N. Y. Shop" Style Book. Name. 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