Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

It seemed the end of their honeymoon and life had lost its sweetness. Why should the unhappiness of another woman fill Joan with such foreboding? THE STORY A HONEYMOON house is a world to itself, a place of laughter and happiness. But it is a fragile world, and sometimes it crumbles and falls apart when it is invaded by anyone except the two people to whom it belongs. . . . It was several months after her marriage that Joan Davis answered the doorbell to find Eve Stanley waiting outside. Eve was Joan's oldest friend, but the two girls hadn't seen each other since Joan's marriage, and in the meantime Eve had been married too — to Phil Stanley, who had been engaged to Joan until she met Harry Davis. Now In thrilling fiction form by Helen Irwin Dowdey, reod Elaine Corrington's populor rodio serial, heard on NBC Monday through Friday at 5 P.M., EWT. sponsored by General Foods Corp. Illustrations posed by the cast— Mary Jane Higby as Joan, John ftaby as Harry, Michael Fihmaurice as Phil. 36 Eve had come with an invitation to dinner. Harry agreed unenthusiastically to go with Joan to the Stanleys'. The money he made as a young lawyer, he objected, didn't allow them to run with the set to which Joan had belonged before she became his wife. Instinctively, he dreaded leaving his home to brave the scrutiny and possible resentment of the people who had been Joan's friends and who, he felt, thought she had made a poor bargain in choosing him instead of the wealthy Phil Stanley. The dinner-party was a failure. Phil didn't come home until dinner was over, and when he did arrive he was just intoxicated enough to spend the evening making pointed remarks which indicated he was still smarting under the loss of Joan. That these remarks were all insults to his wife, he apparently neither knew nor cared. He came to see Joan the next day, to apologize, and was so humble that she asked him to have lunch with her in the kitchen. It was on this unintentionally domestic scene that Eve appeared a few minutes later, when she dropped in to ask Joan to go shopping. In hurt, jealous anger, she turned and ran away before Joan or Phil could explain. Joan and Harry spent another miserable evening out, this time with Julia and Don King, two other old friends of Joan's. Without meaning to, Don in some heavyhanded raillery increased Harry's ever-present sense of inferiority. It didn't help, either, that when they returned home, near midnight, they found Phil Stanley waiting for them. "I've got to see you, Joan," he said. "Everything's wrong. Maybe you weren't so smart, getting me to marry Eve." NOW," Harry demanded, "just what is this all about?" He had switched on the lights in the living room and, as he turned around, Joan blinked. She was looking at a Harry she had never seen before. This was no tender, laughing husband. This was a courtroom lawyer — grim, driving, almost inimical. She knew suddenly how witnesses feel under crossexamination. Phil felt it too. He lit a cigarette and defiantly threw the match toward the fireplace. "Eve and I are breaking up. That's what it's about." "What did you mean by what you just said about Joan?" "I never would have married Eve in the first place, if Joan hadn't suggested it. And tonight I told Eve so!" "You what?" The cry burst simultaneously from both of them. "What are you looking at me like that for? It's true, isn't it?" "It's not true!" Joan cried. "I never did any such thing. I only suggested that you run around with Eve. I never said anything about marrying her." "It's the same thing," Phil said stubbornly. "You practically threw her at my head." "It's not the same thing at all. You've got to go to her right now and tell her it isn't true. I'll go to her and I'll tell her!" "Oh, no, you won't!" Harry's voice cut in like a whiplash. "You stay out of it. Phil's got to do it himself." "I'm not going back to that house. I've said everything I'm going to." "No, you haven't." Harry said steadily. The two men stared at each other. Although neither made a movement, Joan had the feeling they were circling one another like gladiators. "You've blamed my wife for something she didn't do. You used her name where you had no right to. And you're going to Eve and tell her so. Furthermore, you're going to make her believe you." Suddenly Phil's gaze dropped. All his sudden defiance went out of him. He dropped heavily onto the divan and put his head in his hands. "You're right," he said in a muffled voice. "I've made a mess of things." "You can undo it," Joan urged. "All you have to do is tell Eve you said something that wasn't true, in anger." "It's not as simple as that. Eve's jealous of you — terribly so. She knows how I feel — how I felt — about you, and that you've always known she loved me. Since that day she found us together here, she thinks I come running to you every time I leave the house. We quarrel a lot anyway, and tonight when she threw you up to me again I — well, I just lost my head," he said miserably. "I guess I was trying to blame somebody else for a mistake I made." Joan put her hand on his shoulder. "Please don't call your marriage a mistake. You and Eve got off on the wrong foot and you haven't been able to get back to the right one. Once everything is straightened out, you'll be happy." "You really think so?" "I'm sure of it. Marriage is big. It's wonderful. You can't toss it aside because there are — difficulties at first." "The main thing to straighten out," Harry said firmly, "is that Eve has any reason to be jealous of Joan. That's got to be done right now." "Well," Phil got up, "she probably won't believe me, but I'll try." All the careless good humor that had made him so charming in the old days was gone. He looked bitter and unhappy and — somehow — defeated. He had come here tonight full of rage, Joan thought. Rage at life, at not having things easy, at having to struggle. Now, with the rage washed out of him, strength 37