Evening star. [volume], February 11, 1940, Page 5, Image 83

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
A Short Story Complete in This Issue
“ ★ ★ ★
Isabelle rushed down the stairs toward the
Old English Taproom of the country dub,
where Mrs. George Thomas was presiding
at a luncheon in honor of her niece. Isabelle
was sorry to be late. This sort of party made
her fed official — sort of like a mayor or some
thing. Besides, a person had a natural curios
ity about a new girl; and also, it didn’t hurt
for a stranger to see from the very beginning
that Isabelle Cummings was the leader of the
town’s younger set.
She reached the foot of the stairs with wide
skirted frock and wide-brimmed hat billowing
from her rapid descent There her progress
was halted by the voice of Kay Oliver, one of
her two nearest rivals in popularity and one
of her two dearest friends.
"Brake down to a walk,” Kay said, leaning
back against the oaken doorframe of the
taproom. She added as an oblique compli
ment to Isabelle’s cream-yellow frock and
bat, "Little Buttercup!”
“Come to a full stop, my pet,” Susan Clay
ton said. Susie. Isabelle’s other nearest rival
and other dearest friend, drooped beside Kay
and pretended to ignore Isabelle’s new clothes.
Lifting a languid hand toward the taproom,
Susie advised:
"Stop and look. Lode well.”
Isabelle looked. The taproom was filled
with the soprano din of the feminine members
of the younger set, and bright with pastel
colors of their summer finery. In the midst
of this gaiety stood a girl in sheer black, tall
and serene. She wasn’t pretty, Isabelle de
cided; one of those long narrow people with
narrow eyes and narrow long lips in a wise
thin face, and every line of her sweeping up
to the smooth russet hair and that divine dab
of a hat tilted over one eye. No, she wasn’t
pretty; but — the realist in Isabelle had to
admit it — she was terrifically attractive.
“We,” Kay said, referring to the girl, “are
a New Yorker. Technically we live out in the
suburbs, but — ”
“But,” Susie broke in, “we are like a fish
out of water if we are tom from our Park
Avenue, our 52nd Street and Cafe Society.”
"Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Isabelle mur
mured, while she thanked heavens that she
didn't automatically harbor ill-feelings against
any strange member of her own sex who was
attractive. Why, she liked members of her
own sex practically as much as she liked
anybody! Isabelle did not wait for introduc
tions. She went immediately to the new girl
and held out her hand, saying:
“It’s awfully nice to be here. I’m Isabelle
Cummings.”
The girl, without change of expression,
curved long scarlet-tipped fingers for an
instant about the eager hand and said:
“I’m Gloria."
Isabelle's friendliness curled around the
edges like a leaf exposed to frost. And who
did she possibly imagine Isabelle could possi
bly think she was but Gloria Tate — the
niece of Mrs. Eva Thomas, that George
Thomas had met and married in New York City
and taken home with him three years ago?
Isabelle forced the cordiality back into her
smile and delivered her greeting. Feeling very
mature and official and very, very gracious,
she said: “I — we all have looked forward to
your visit, and I — we hope you 11 let us do
everything we can to make your visit an
enjoyable one.”
Gloria Tate acknowledged this with a lift
of the eyebrows and murmured,"Thank you.”
w Before the quizzical gaze beneath the divine
hat, Isabelle found herself feeling young and
— revolting word — coy. Blindly she turned
away to the nearest person, who chanced to
be her hostess. Hiding her discomfiture behind
a barrage of small talk, she fairly smothered
Mrs. Thomas with her animation while she
demanded of herself some civilized reason
for her infantile panic. After all, Gloria Tate
was no debutante; Gloria was sixteen. Isabelle
herself was sixteen and rarely ever went out
with any but college boys, all sophomores
next year. Just what more could a girl do?
During lunch Isabelle was glad to play
the innocent bystander, while Gloria was
kept busy with Kay and Susie. As demurely
as a blind kitten lapping at a bowl of milk,
Isabelle steadily consumed her food and
thanked her lucky stars that she possessed
' neither Kay’s “Hi’ya, pal!” heartiness nor
Susie’s languid-lily composure. When Gloria
toffrd off remarks about night dubs and
“21” and the St Regis Roof, Isabelle didn’t
have to give out either humor or droopy
stmew silk
This time our irresistible Isabelle
finds herself up against somebody her
own size—a dark menace named Gloria
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sophistication. Isabelle could just make her
eyes a little wider, her smile a little more
remote, and her silence a little silenter. A
person didn't often say the wrong thing if a
person said nothing.
After luncheon, lipsticks and powder puffs
appeared and a new alertness filled the air,
for drawing near was that moment when the
boys would arrive. They arrived with loud
laughter and a great flatter of big feet on the
stairs: Wally Bowen, Kenneth Taylor, Ches
ter Armstrong, and Clifford Reed. As attrac
tive a foursome as any girl would want to
meet anywhere, Isabelle thought with a mix
ture of pride in her home town and personal
gratification; for these four, like most of the
other boys, considered Isabelle the girl of all
girls. They gave proof of it now by turning
their eyes first to her as they entered the room
with a genial, “Hi!”
Isabelle did not join in the answering
flutter of greetings. She merely smiled on
each young man and sat relaxed and very
beautiful beside a brown-spotted porcelain
cow placed on a ledge beneath a window.
With a gentle animation' that gave no hint
of her interest, die watched while Mrs.
Thomas introduced the boys to her niece. A
person never really knew another girl until
she saw that girl with the opposite sex. It was
only then a person got a slant on what a girt
was aiming for; what ideal the girl was trying
to live up to.
It was quite an ideal, Isabelle decided,
watching Gloria. Glamor girl and humorist
with a of the duchess thrown in. Her
condescension was reserved for mere girls.
Contentedly Isabelle smiled to herself. Gloria
was terrific, but not too terrific.
“Hey!” Clifford Reed turned from Gloria
to Isabelle. “What are you sitting here amiling
to yourself about?” His tone was the tone she
usually evoked in the masculine voice —
orotective and caressing.
“Yeah!” Kenneth joined in. “String here
smiling all to yourself!” Wally brake off in
the middle of a sentence to Gloria to beam on
Isabelle, looking so small and helpless in the
lag oak chair, her skirts spread wide about
her, her enormous hat set squarely on the
back of her blond curia.
“Little Buttercup!” Kay Oliver, out of
habit, took the little jab at Isabelle, and
could have immediately bitten off her tongue;
for Gloria Tate went swiftly to Isabelle,
"New you're perfect, dear,” said
Gloria, her dark eyes glinting
lifted the porcelain cow from the shelf and
put it in Isabelle’s lap.
“Little Buttercup!” Gloria agreed. "Now
you’re perfect, deer.” She turned to the
boys, her blade chiffon swirling about her tall
slenderness, her dark eyes glinting beneath
the divine small hat "Isn’t she adorable?”
"Sure. Sure.” They agreed faintly. Guys
might think a thing Idee that, but heO’s bells,
they wouldn’t come right out and say so, in
so many words.
Isabelle sat with chin uplifted as if the
porcelain cow were a bit of limburger rheme.
Never had she felt this particular kind of
awful! She felt not only young and coy. She
frit — she felt like a yokel.
Normally the girls didn't mind seeing
Isabelle occasionally reduced to embarrass
ment. But they wanted to achieve that feat
themselves. This way, they felt that they too
were somehow induded. All of them except
Letty Scoggins. Isabelle was Letty’s idol and
Letty’s distress was for Isabelle.
"Mustn’t touch the ornaments!” She
joked to Gloria and picking up the cow, she
put it back on the ledge.
It was fifteen minutes before Isabdle had
recovered sufficiently to note that Gloria had
gathered the boys about her in a group before
the fireplace. Isabdle saw her opportunity.
It was risky, it might not work—but she
decided to take the chance. Her temper was
ablase, and when Mbs Cummings was bias
ing or desperate or both, die was prone to
takerhksinber belief that the best defense is
attack. Her attack was as usual camouflaged
as prettily as a bombing plane in the guise of
a dove. She drifted over to the group before
the fireplace and spoke blandly to Gloria:
“It’s been so nice seeing you. I hope I’ll
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