Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

I heard his step, the outer door opening, and there was a little blank few seconds when I knew he was very carefully putting away his expensive, immaculate white Panama hat. In that time Bruce and I separated, our hands dropping empty to our sides — terribly empty. I had never felt such an aching sick sense of loss, such a miserable slow deflation from the glorious tension of the minute before, as when we stood there trying to get our breaths and make our hearts quiet down to normal, hoping Dr. Dale wouldn't notice our emotions. What a hope, under a glance as experienced as Dr. Dale's! You could tell he knew exactly what had happened, by the very tactful way he did not seem to look at us, but settled his spectacles on his nose with a much too business-like frown and riffled through his papers so elaborately. It would have been funny if anything could have been funny to me right then. "Mmmm . . ." he murmured with a great pretense of absent-mindedness. "Oh . . . Good morning, MacDougall. Excuse me if I seem to plunge into the maelstrom of duty. You see, these days are busy for those who make even a feeble attempt to offer common sense to a world so sorely in need of it." His benign voice lifted slightly, waiting for the laugh his little jocularity was meant to evoke, and I gave it. Bruce never could respond the way he ought to, to Dr. Dale, and now he just made some kind of mutter meant to be respectful but accompanied by a dark, uncomfortable frown, as I eased him to the door. Dr. Dale was too smooth for Bruce, I guess, too fluent with his words, and any man who isn't very articulate himself distrusts those who are. "The darned old mealymouth," Bruce whispered in the corridor. "Don't you let him start handing you any of his common sense." Funny, Bruce said that, when the same thought had just come to me. "Why should he?" I asked, and gave him a quick kiss on his rough shaved cheek just before the elevator door opened. "See you after work." His eyes were suddenly very bright and happy as the door clanged shut. But I felt queerly nervous as I took my notebook to Dr. Dale's desk and sat down. I waited, dreading his first words like a guilty child with a teacher. I smoothed my skirt and lifted my hair from my hot neck so that the breeze from the harbor could cool my damp skin. I held my Ups together, tensed against what Dr. Dale might say. We were good friends, close friends, Dr. Dale and I, the way a secretary and her boss must grow to be in years of working together. I laughed to myself, sometimes, at his funny, school-teacherish way of talking, but just the same I admired him deeply for his truly unselfish wish to do good in the world. Not everything he did brought in such high returns in money as his radio program. He interested himself in other causes, making speeches for different kinds of war relief and serving on committees to help refugees and other people made homeless by the war. He was exactly right for this benevolent role. XT IS voice was deep and softly resonant and his figure in his beautifully tailored suits was firmly rotund. His face was as pink and smooth as a baby's, perfectly barbered, and he always brought into the office a pleasant fragrance of bath soap and talcum powder and freshly laundered expensive linen. But today I felt an unreasonable wish to get away from him. I wanted to rush out of the room before those quizzically pursed-up lips of his should open and he should start to speak to me. And I wished, very much, that I hadn't told him, long before now, so much about myself and Bruce. He was a long time beginning. Usually he had no trouble finding words, having studied the letters at home and decided • on his advice. But today Continued on page 74 19