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Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 162, 12 July 1939, Page 12

Synopsis of Preceding Instalment: Jocelyn (Josh; Kelvin, a year out of college, fears the worst when she is summoned by Harlow L. Buell, editor of the newspaper syndicate for which she has been writing a column of advice to the lovelorn under the byline Mary Lou Temple. Just before her graduation with her twin sister Jacqueline (Jake) her once well-to-do father, well-known corporation lawyer, had died and Josh has been the support of her beautiful blonde sister, her unpractical mother and her 10-year-old, tomboyish sister Suzie. To Josh's great relief, “H.L." has called her in to tell her that Airs. Temple (Mary Lou;, now 70 years old, who had edited the column for 40 years until she took a year’s leave of absence, has w'ritten from Europe that she can no longer handle the column. After questioning Josh to learn her background and family history, Buell says Mrs. Temple recommended that Josh be given charge of the eolumn as she has shown unusual tact and understanding. She blushes 'becomingly when he asked her to remove the horn-rimmed glasses she has worn to add dignity, and the man vho is the office bugbear laughingly exclaims, “You are young, kid." The ice thus broken, lie asks her whether she has a boy friend. When she says no, he tells her he'll give her a permanent chance at the column and outside work at extra pay, saying that the most useless thing in the world is a woman in love. Lincoln Laine, the syndicate'e most successful cartoonist, has left a note asking her to cook the usual Friday evening fsh dinner at his studio.

Lincoln Laine grinned at the look of concentration on Jocelyn's face when she looked up from her typewriter. Through her horn-rimmed spectacles her brown eyes looked like twin saucers.

“Gosh, how you do suffer for your art, Josh." He threw himself on her desk and picked up a handful of copy. She slapped his hand and took it away.

“Layoff! There's a bit of my heart, and several quarts of tears wrapped up in those few pages. You just wouldn’t understand."

He sat back and laughed at her, his warm steel-grey eyes gay with amusement. •

“You're a most complex young lady, Miss Temple. A love expert who kaoweth nothing of love. By all the rules, you should have been in and out of love every week since you were four, in order to do this job up proper. And you should have been married and divorced twice a year for the last four or five years."

“Dry up!" She got up and closed her typewriter. “I suppose a doctor ought to suffer every ailment known to mankind before he can prescribe properly. Your philosophy is just about as sound as your mind."

“Mayhap?" Line swung himself from the desk and walked over to where she stood putting on her hat. 1 ‘But—." He grinned in the mirror at her, and she saw that he was just a head taller than herself, and still brown from his March spent in Florida.

“But which?" She ran a powder puff over her face lightly, but used no lipstick. * ‘ But I been thinking your job does have one great advantage." She pulled on a shapeless brown tweed coat and gace her old tan beret another twiai on her short, boyish bob. ‘ as? "

* * Well, if you should ever fall in love, and have any serious heart problem of your own to solve, how simple it will all be. You can sit right down and write yourself a letter." “And make believe it came from you," she laughed, dimpling. “But I'm not likely to need any such advice from myself."

Line sobered and threw an arm around her shoulder in a gesture of comradeship. She looked up at him a moment, waiting, a little surprised at the change in his manner. His lean, vibrant face was so close she thought he was going to kiss her. But instead he rubbed his cheek against her beret. “You're a swell guy. Josh." She pressed her shoulder against his in answer. He was silent a few seconds, then he said thoughtfully: “In fact, you’re the most perfect gentleman who ever wore skirts. I don’t know what I’d do without you in this crazy world. Don’t pay any attention to me when I kid you. You're the only gal I know who can take it. If you knew what it means to have you come down end mess around the studio and listen to my foolishness. You’re the only girl I feel as if I don't have to make light love to when she drops in. And I want you to stay just ae you

Jocelyn was deeply touched. She scarcely knew what to say. To turning it off lightly, she drew a woebegone face, but before she could think up an answer the telephone rang. “Now what?" she sighed, “I’xa starved. 1 hope whatever you have to eat won’t take very long to cook." Shs picked up the 'phone. 11 Hello. Oh, mother."

He shook his head swiftly. “Tell her," he whispered, “you have a date.'* Josh broke in desperately. “But mother, you know 1 always go down to Line’s on Friday evening. He’s here waiting for me now. There must be someone you can get to stay with Suzie. ’ 1

There was a long silence. Then Josh shrugged dismally. “All right, mother. I’ll be out. Yes, as soon aa the subway can get me there."

When she hung up Line looked exasperated. “If I may make so bold, darling, you 're too easy. Why does your mother always try to get you to come home on Friday evenings? Is she agin' me?" “No, of course not. The maids wants to have the evening off, and she and Jake both have engagements. They think mine can be broken more easily',

I take it.” Lincoln Laine felt ho knew the real reason. Several times, he had learned, Jocelyn had called a messenger and sent her pay envelope out. to her mother on Friday afternoon before they went out. It wasn’t possible Mrs. Kelvin could be that broke. Josh was the sort of girl everybody imposed on. She seemed entirely unable to speak up for herself.

Obviously, she bought almost no clothes. She looked like a stepchild in those awful tweeds. Many times Line had wanted to express his feelings. But he couldn’t quite gather up the courage.

They walked slowly to the elevators. Jocelyn made a gallant attempt to excuse her mother's last-minute breaking up of their plans, but it fell on deaf ears. The artist had his own opinion. Maida Kelvin was a spoiled, fading beauty who would go to any lengths to put up a brownstone front and try to hold her place in society. Up until the market crash in '29 had swept away Panning Kelvin's comfortable living, the world had been her oyster. Line knew it was impossible for her to believe that the oyster was slipping away from her, and that sooner or later she would have to face realities. Jacqueline, he hadn’t seen since she had grown up. But ho gathered she was a spoiled, grasping little beauty who was as willing as her mother to see Jocelyn take up the burden of the family. At the subway Josh and Line said good-bye. All the way down to Washington Square he pondered the wisdom of trying to open Jocelyn's eyes to what she was letting herself in for if she let her family continue to impose on her. But in the end he felt he couldn’t speak his mind. Josh was a loyal little thing, and he would only hurt her.

Once, in a confidential moment at his. studio, she had told him of the death of her father. Of how, just a few hours before he passed away, he had sent for her and asked the nurso to leavo the room. It was then he told her she was the only one of the family he was leaving behind with the ability or the stability to look after her mother, her twin sister and little Suzie.

Lincoln remembered how her eyes had filled when she told him of her promise. And how, since that time, she had thought of them almost as her children. Tenderly she had laughed at the helplessness of her mother, and told amusing anecdotes about how little Maida Kelvin knew about taking up the reins of the household after Panning Kelvin's death.

Line had kept silent, except for small expressions of sympathy, and a firmer pressure on the hand sho had slipped into his. In the light from his fireplace he could seo her round little face lit with a fanatic light of noble sacrifice. It wasn’t a good thing for a girl of Josh Kelvin's age to be saddled with a job like that. Of course her father hadn't realised what he was doing.

Back in his studio after dinner Lincoln tried to work. He was doing a series of advertising cartoons for a cigarette company. But he found it impossible to take his mind off Josh, if she were the marrying type of girl it would be nice if sho met the right man and settled down.

She was just the sort of girl who would make a go of marriage, if the man.she loved could appreciate her for what she was. Josh mothered tho whole world. She would probably make a slave of herself for a husband and children.

But somehow, in spite of the wide maternal streak in her make-up, she wasn't the marrying type. She'd never even had a crush in her entire life. He wondered how Jocelyn would respond if someone really took an interest in her in a romantic way.

Just why was it no one had ever been able to overlook her plumpness, the awful skirts and sweaters she woro that made her look much larger than she really was, he wondered. Tlenty of girls much stouter had not been wallflowers.

Finally he decided it was because Josh was too eager and willing to please. Too good a fellow. Every boy she had ever known thought sho was a “swell guy"; in fact, they could wax quite sentimental over “good old Josh," but when it came to a college prom it was some impossible dried up little bookworm who asked to take her. And she always said yes becauso she was afraid she would hurt his feelings.

Jacqueline was notorious for her heartless treatment of a suitor when she was through with him. But they always seemed to come back for more. It was impossible to believe, looking at the two girls, or knowing them, that they could be twin"*, born of the same mother.

Lincoln fell to wondering what Josh would look like if she were not overweight, and if she bad the right clothes. His artist eye painted a picture of her in his imagination. Her hair, which she made a great mistake of wearing like a boy, could, he believed, be very beautiful. Ho presumed she affected the boyish bob partly because she wanted to look literary, and partly because it was no trouble to keqp neat. By all the rules, Josh should have curls. With all her brains and ability, she was a baby type—with her round face and big eyes. Not a boy type. Her complexion was like a flower, so there was no trouble there. Except, perhaps, she looked a little too healthy for the modern standards of beauty. Without glasses, Jocelyn’s eyes would attract atteutiou anywhere, with tbeir warm friendly brownness. Her mouth was a warm red, and when sho broke into a smile her teeth were sparklingly white.

No, Lincoln decided, staring at his drawing board, if Josh Kelvin weighed twenty-five or thirty pounds less, and would stop being such a saint, there was no reason that he could see why someone couldn’t fall in love with her and make her happy. Ho didn’t take her long outbusrts about being married to a career very seriously. Even though he pretended to agree with her to save her face. He didn’t believe in marriage, for himself. But good, wholesome women were

always better off married. Josh was worn out when she had fought the rush hour crowd, standing on her small feet all the way out to Lighty-second Street. Hurrying the four long blocks to the house, sho indulged iu one of her rare bursts of selfpity.

It seemed to her that, for once, her mother might have found someone else to stay with Suzie. Friday nights were about all she ever asked. She had wanted to tell Line all about her talk with Mr. Buell and how wonderful ho had been to her. Thero was so much she had to get out of her system at the Laine studio on Friday evenings. Josh stopped short when she turned the corner of the street where she lived. From the line of cars she knew there must be a big crowd there for some reason. Surely not another cocktail party! But on her way around the house she looked in through the Jiving room windows. It was a cocktail party all right, and there was a mob. So that must be the reason mother insisted sho come right home. That party w’ould cost plenty. There were probably a couple of extra maids to be paid, and Maida was out of cash again.

Josh stood at the kitchen door a few seconds, fighting the tears that stung her eyes, and the Jump in 'her thioat. Then she almost ran through the door, and up to her room by tho servants’ stairway.

Locking herself in her own room, she threw herself on her bed and gave way. Soon she was sobbing hysterically. What would become of them if mother and Jako didn't wake up and realise that money didn’t grow on trees? (To be Continued.)