Radio and television mirror (Nov 1939-Apr 1940)

.charming bit of make-believe." Her voice was cold and arrogant. "Fortunately Larry knows that Wally West doesn't need me or anyone else to 'feed' him what anyone can see is true." "We'll see about that," Ken murmured. He stepped out into the corridor, and returned in a moment with not only the photographer but a lean, cynical-looking man Mary recognized as Wally West himself. "If you're quite through with my photographer," West was saying, "I'd just as soon have him back." "Look here, West," Ken said, "you can clear this up. Is it true that your source of information on the private life of Mary and Larry Noble — has been Catherine Monroe?" WEST'S eyes twinkled. "A good reporter never gives away his news sources," he said. "Don't clown, West," Ken said sternly. "This is serious. I want the truth or I'll sue your paper for libel." "Don't talk nonsense," West said lazily. "There's nothing libelous in" what I printed, and you know it. But in this case, I don't mind telling you — " Then Catherine betrayed herself. She stepped forward. "But you — " She broke off, her hand lifted to her face. Her eyes flicked to Larry, and for the first time Mary saw fear in them. Wally West answered her unfinished sentence. "Sure, I told you I wouldn't tell. But I don't think much of your methods. I don't even think much of you." A harsh voice broke in from the white-faced figure at the dressing table. "What does it matter where he got his tips?" Larry exclaimed. "What does it matter — can't you all see they were true! Mary doesn't love me! She loves Paige! And now can't you all leave me alone?" For a second the stark bitterness in Larry's face and in his words held them all in silence. Mary's numbed mind refused to take in the significance of what he had said — then, slowly, its meaning came to her. "But Larry," she said dazedly, "it isn't true. I don't love Ken . . . Didn't you know? You're . . . the one I love . . . always. . . ." Afterwards — when Ken had shepherded the crowd from the room, when Catherine too had gone, proud and icy cold to hide her chagrin — Larry said: "How could I think you still loved me — after all I'd done to you? I didn't have any right to your love. And you were so interested in Ken Paige — " "Of course I'm fond of Ken," Mary said. "I always will be. But I don't love him." "Women can take an awful lot of kicking around from men, can't they?" Larry said humbly. "Of course they can," she said. "When they're in love, that is." She raised her tear-stained, happy face from his shoulder, met his lips with her own. But she still hadn't told him her secret. It wasn't until the next morning, when Larry had devoured his scrambled eggs and they had finished reading the rave notices from the critics, that she told him. Looking at the light in his eyes then, her last doubt was gone. You couldn't doubt his love in the face of that shining joy. "Mary — Oh — " his voice broke, and tears added to the shine in his eyes. "Mary, let's give up the theater and take a little place in the country." She laughed, then, wiping away her own tears unashamed. "If you were away from the smell of grease paint a week," she said, "I think you'd commit infanticide." HE scratched his chin thoughtfully. "But there are summer theaters. And we're not going to bring that baby up in the city. You're going to get a dose of peaceful pastoral life if I have to pine away among the lowing kine." Then he stood up suddenly with a shout. "Say! I've got it! We'll take the play to a country theater, bag and baggage!" "Take a hit show off Broadway?" Mary was incredulous. "Well, what's the difference?. When it gets hot we won't do any business anyway in town. But the summer theaters do. How about looking for a place today, Mrs. Noble?" Mary, looking at the new vigorous lift to his shoulders, the boyish color in his cheeks, the enthusiasm she had not seen on his face since long before his accident, was suddenly unable to answer. They had won out. Larry was himself again. She nodded her head. "Okay, skipper," she said. The End Will their child bring new understanding and happiness to Larry and Mary Noble? For further adventures of this romantic couple of the theater, tune in Backstage Wife, heard at 4:00 p. m., E. S. T., every day except Saturday and Sunday on NBC's Red network. use cosmetics, of course," says Irene Dunne. "But I use Lux Toilet Soap regularly." Its ACTIVE lather helps guard against Cosmetic Skin: the dullness, little blemishes, enlarged pores that result from choked pores. Soft, smooth, lovable skin makes a girl attractive — wins and holds romance. 5tars use Lux Toilet Soap NOVEMBER, 1939 77