Radio and television mirror (Jan-June 1942)

was not in any sense prosaic. It made her eyes look deep and dark and transformed her hair into a shining cap. In her hand her hat swung gaily. She bubbled over. "I can hardly believe it's almost here. In another ten days I'll be on that stage — I know I'll be nervous." "Don't think about it," John said. "Youll give the best recital this town ever heard." Marianne grasped the lapels of his coat in her two hands. "If you believe I can do it, John, then I can," she said. John couldn't resist touching her hair with his hand. "If you don't win them with your singing alone you will with the way you look," he said. Before he could move, before he could say yes or no, Marianne had risen on her tiptoes and kissed him swiftly, fleetingly, squarely on the mouth. Then she was gone across the street, through traffic, and had disappeared into the crowd of late shoppers. John stood there for a moment, a half smile crinkling his face, feeling the touch of her warm young lips. He turned about and went back into the store. It seemed dull and musty, robbed of all its freshness. Even his work was stale, though he could scarcely afford now any sense of disinterest, and in the evening, instead of going out, as he had thought he wanted to the day before, he found he simply wanted to stay home. Nothing Elizabeth proposed sounded good to him. The next day at about the same time, John caught himself wondering whether Marianne would come again. At four, when she had not appeared, he went downstairs alone for tea. But the bare lunch room seemed today a cold, uninviting place, and he left hurriedly. SEVERAL times that night, as he lay restlessly in his bed, he awakened to hear the muffled night noises of the city coming through thickly falling snow. And each time he found difficulty in going back to sleep. The even, quiet breathing of Elizabeth irritated him and he wished she would wake up so that he wouldn't have to hear her. Nor was it any easier, the following afternoon, to concentrate on work. As early as two o'clock he found himself beginning to wonder whether Marianne would appear. Once he put his hand on the telephone, intending to call her, but drew it back before he made the call. At three o'clock his secretary said the words again, "Marianne Phillips to see you, Mr. Perry." Magically the late December afternoon sun streamed in the window with new force. "Show her in," John said. Marianne entered and as she did so the office door swung closed behind her. John stood up and Marianne came directly around the desk toward him. "John!" said Marianne, standing very close to him. "Would you do me another favor?" "What?" John smiled. "I've been working on the program all day and I've just about decided to do an aria from 'Faust.' But I'd like to see the hall first and sing a few bars just to see if my voice is big enough to fill it." John thought rapidly. "We can arrange that," he said. "Wait here a FEBRUARY, 1942 *'See that woman? — I'd swear she buys a different laundry soap every week 'Know how she buys? — She comes in and asks me, 'Which one's having a sale today?' So I tell her and out she goes, pleased as Punch, with a bagful of bargains. . . . And next week she's back again — ^buying somebody else's soap." "Some day she'll try Fels-Naptha Soap and she'll be done with all that. Instead of saving pennies here, she'll save dollars at home you wait and see." f 53