PATSY CHANGES HER MIND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23061, 11 June 1938, Page 17 (Supplement)

PATSY CHANGES HER MIND

Love is Not Where You Find It, bat Where It Finds You

KENNY LEECH and Patsy Denham sat on the sloping banks of the Potomac, their young backs braced against a blossoming Japanese cherry tree. Above them the moon seared headlong the clouds, now submerged, now free, like a strong swimmer amid a BUr f! Patsy sighed. She said softly, her blue eyes winking quickly with happiness: "Kenny, isn't everything exquisite? Spring —and being in lovo—and having each other?" Kenny's (lark eyes moved to Patsy's lovely little face. Very gently he raised his fingers ami ran them lightly through the yellow curls. Ho said huskily: "You'll never be sorry that, vou've promised to wait for me, Patsy. When I'm the mofct famous crooner in the world you'll be pointed to as Mrs. Kenny Leech. We'll think back on this evening and the good old Potomac and what it has meant to us. We'll think back on these days when I didn't have enough money to take you anywhere but for a walk along the Speedway. You'll forget you ever worked as a stonog. and went to art school at night and that I had to sing for my supper. But we'll always love Washington • . . because we met here. And we'll always, love Mrs. Sablor's boarding house. .

Patsy said "Yes!" A short word, quickly said and soft with rapturo. And then she added wistfully: "Remember that first night you sat next to me at Mrs. fabler's table? You said:" 'As a man of experience to a rank amateur, don't reach for anything if you don't want a fork stuck in the back of your hand!' And then wo laughed and turned and looked at each other . . . and really saw each other for the first time. . Suddenly, with a little groan, Kenny caught Patsy quickly to him. Her young mouth clung to his and she thought, with all the wild happiness of her 18 years: '"This is why I was born! This will last for ever!"

DOUR years later Patsy recalled that evening on the sloping banks of the Potomac. By some freak of memory the* distant Washington scene Btruck- across consciousness like the reverberation of a far-off drumbeat. A lot of water had flowed under the bridge since then. To be near Kenny she had followed him to New York. She had worn her shoes thin searching for work. She had answered ads, had worked in a five-and-ten-cent store, had waited at tables. She had gone to art school at night, desperately tired out; but not too tired to walk 20 blocks to the secondrate night club near Harlem, where Kenny was singing.

r And then, almost overnight, Kenny had' skyrocketed to fame on the radio. And almost overnight Kenny's love for her hnd died. Kenny, had stopped coming to tho Girls' Club, where she was' rooming. There were no more ■walks on the Hudson and sweet silly rides atop the Riverside bus.

"Look, Patsy, I've got to sing tonight, . or, "Patsy, I hato like aaything to stand you up like this, but I promised the Rocheforts I'd sing at their ball to-night. Their daughter's making her debut. . ." Kenny bad endless excuses, and none of them. Patsy had found out, was true. The real reason had been Anastasia Rochefort. When she had learned about Anastasia, Patsy had very quietly moved from the Girls' Club.

She had left no address for Konny. That, she would never see him again, that things would never bo what they had onco been, she knew. The wound had healed gradually with time—and work. Sho had finally got a job a» a dress designer in a swanky Fifth Avenue salon. Her tamo wasn't as quick as Kenny's, nor bb spectacular. Little by little she had assumed more responsibilities at Madame Vernet's. Sho was sent to Paris for the autumn buying when was ill and could not go. Her selections and her own designs became popular. And at last famous. "That's a Patsy Donham gown," New York was saying pridefully. And then Washington said it and London and Hollywood and Paris. Every one who was any ono at all wore Patsy Denham gowns. And Anastasia Rochefort sat at the Club Etoilo, her shining green eyes on Kenny's dark face, her lovely slim body in a Patsy Donham gown of cellophane. Patsy sat at her desk now thinking back on Washington and Konny, in ppito of her will. Sho thought: "1 don't love him, of course. I'm completely over it. He'll marry Anastasia. probably, and he'll loathe it when they take her name out of tho social register because of her marriago," She wondered why she had never realised that Kenny was like this. And yet she had had reason to know. Four years before on Sunday afternoons they had stood on Massachusetts Avenue and had watched the Washington debutantes stepping out of their limousines and disappearing into tiio

Short Story (Copyright) By— PHYLLIS MOORE GALLAGHER

great Embassies and Legations. . . . Lovely young guests they were at glamorous diplomatic functions. Kenny would say: "They'll entertain us some day, Patsy. You wait and see!" And Kenny always read avidly the social column. He knew most of the debs by name and picture, what they did. whom they entertained and who entertained them. Even then she might have known that Kenny was ambitious. Deeply, burningly ambitious! "Mam'selle!" Madame Vernet rushed into the room. She was a small, dynamic, excitable woman with beady, black eyes, a thin, pinched face and a wiry body. "Mam'selle," she repeated. "I hnve one splendid idea. Last night I hoar on the radio a golden voice. A new voice! He calls himself the Cavalier. Ah, mam'selle, he sing like the birds! And what did I do? I call up his studio, I get Madame Vernet time on the radio each evening advertising tJie Patsy Denham models. And you, mam'selle, will be the mistress of ceremonies on my hour! The Cavalier, he will sing. And 1, Madame Vtemet, will have the Cavalier, tlio best crooner of them all!"

"Crooner?" Patsy's eyes dilated. "Oui, Mam'selle!" "Crooner! You know what a crooner is, yes!" For a moment Patsy didn't answer. She thought: "I'll resign, of course. I won't do it! I couldn't do it!" She had never trusted herself to listen? ; to any erooner;. not since the night she had walked down the steps of tho Girls' Club and had left that part of her life behind her. At the theatre when a crooner appeared on the stage she shut her eyes and stuffed her fingers in her ears. If accidentally a crooner turned up on a radio programme to which she was listening she promptly cut him off. By doing this she had been able to forget Kenny's voice . . . to put Kenny out of her heart. It was a phobia, of course. Like being afraid of crowds or high buildings or closed-in places. Madame Vernet was rattling on excitedly. The Cavalier was going t,o sing not only on tho radio but at tho fashion shows, at the private exhibits.

Indeed, the Cavalier was going to have as much to do around Madame Vernet's as Patsy herself. When the door finally closed behind Madame Vernet, Patsy sank down deep in her chair. Sne thought: "I'd be a weak fool to quit on account of a crooner. I'm over Kenny Leech. All this crooning around me won't affect mo at all." And then she said to herself more sensibly: "Well, just because Madamo is hiring a crooner it doesn't necessarily mean I've got to marry him. I'd marry a pickpocket beforo I'd even look at a crooner 1"

Thero was a sudden quick laugh beside Patsy. Patsy's eyes opened wide. Vivian Staynor was standing by her desk, her red hair catching all tho lights of the dying sun. Vivian said: "You certainly havo a hate on crooners! What started it, anyhow?" And then when Patsy didn't answer, but only sat thero looking miserable, Vivian said: "Well, I didn't coino in hero to talk crooners or to ask yon when you started mumbling out loud to yourself in the privacy of your office. I came to ask a favour. Ronald Steele is taking me to a cocktail party lip in Connecticut to-night. He has a friend visiting him from Harvard and asked mo to get a blind date for him. Don't know his name, but he isn't a crooner or a pickpocket. Sorry to disappoint you, darling. A wealthy chap by tho namo of Dick Edwards is tossing the party. Interested?" Patsj' said: "Blind dates usually have two left feet!" And then she grinned: "But I'll go. I'm sort of at loose ends this afternoon. Even a blind date sounds better than going' homo to brood."

And when Vivian went out, olosing the door as quiotlv as she had opened it, Patsy swung around on her swivel chair and looked out upon' tho jagged lino of New York's skyscrapers. She thought, sickly: - "Kenny has spoiled all men for me. How will I ever know whether I'm actually over him or not? I never see him. 1 . . ." For a long moment she sat there with her small, lovely face buried in her palms.

T)ICK EDWARDS' party was in full swing when Patsy, Vivian and their escorts finally reached the Edwards estate. Cocktails were being served in the library. A lofty, roughbeamed place it was, with cavernous fireplaces and a miniature bar, with divans, deep chairs and walls striped with rifles of all patterns and periods. In the long medieval dining room guests were crowded around a buffet supper, and in the ballroom a swing band was blending sweet notes and sour ones and everyone was doing the Big Apple. Patsy was something more than a beauty in her own creation. She had colouring that reflected warmth. She had slenderness and ease of movement without any hint of the athlete. Above all, she had vividness that made them turn to look at her and prettier women wonder why she was more attractive. She wasn't the little girl that Kenny Leech had kissed on the banks of the Potomac at all.

They had been sipping cocktails scarcely two minutes when Dick Edwards came swinging through the door. Patsy's breath caught in her throat. She couldn't tell why, but suddenly the sight of Dick's long, rangy person made the nerves jump to her throat like tense fingers. She stood rigid, unable to give him a smile as Vivian presented him. She said very serenely, "How do you do." But she was feeling her heart pound intolerably within her and she was thinking, "What's happening to me?" She stopped thinking of Kenny and looked directly into Dick Edwards' eyes.

Ho said, meeting her gaze. "I've a feeling that you and I click. Don't you feel it, too?" She saw his eyes shine first with a desperate seriousness, then with a sort of tenderness. She said, "Yes." And Bho thought: "I looked at him as J used to 4ook at Kenny. That wasn't quite fair. Ho saw something in my eyes that I didn't feel for him at all." "DUT much later it seemed tho most natural thing in the world that hi« arm should be about her, that her bright bead should be on his shoulder, that they should have been sitting deep in the shadows of his porch with the White Mountains towering beyond

them and a thin, white moon riding high over their heads. They had been talking for hours — snatches of conversation that began just anywhere and stopped the same way. "What on earth has possessed the movie companies to think that love is sheer comedy. I think love is . . . well . . . terribly serious." "Me, too. I can't quite see slapping the girl vou love down a flight of stairs or knocking her over the head with a pie." "No, I didn't particularly care for Paris. But maybe it was because I was too busy buying gowns for Madame Vernet to get around to really have*any fun."- ! . "You couldn't have been in Paris in the spring, then! With the chestnuts in bloom ... with the little tables on the Champs Elysees crowded with every nationality under the sun. . ." "Were you in Paris —last spring?" "Yes. Say-y, look here, that wnsn't fair, you being there and I not knowing it. _ I knocked around alono for days wishing . . . well, you know, what happens to a young man's fancy in the spring." "Crooners! I loathe them!" Then she said, "But let's not talk about crooners, please." Dick Edwards bent his dark head quickly and kissed her on the mouth. And because his kiss was the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to her, and because the sudden quick thump of her heart had surprised lierj Patsj' pushed him blindly away and jumped to her feet. "You shouldn't have done that," she said, her voice softly strangled. Dick's eyes were miserable. There was a muscle twitching in his lean cheek. He said, "I'm sorry. I was about to ask you to marry me. "It was reckless and impulsive of me—but I'm like that. You probably think I'm crazy. But when we first met to-night . . . even as we sat here and talked . . there was something in your eyes ... 1 mistook it for. . His voico trailed off painfully. Ho reached in his pocket, pulled out a shining silver caso, offered Patsy a cigarette and took one himself.

"Kenny Leech is singing in there, f asked him up to give the girls a thrill. Now that he and Anastasia havo broken off he's in circulation again. Perhaps you'd like to go in. JpATSY was standing very still now, slim and golden and terribly beautiful in the trailing white satin. She bad heard Kenny Leech. She had known that after the orchestra stopped abruptly'and began again that Kenny Leech was singing. Somewhere, deep in her subconsciousness, she had' known this. But just as he had begun singing Dick's lips had touched her own and in that one brief moment Kenny had gone out of her life for ever. She stood there now, stating strangely through the window, looking at Kenny through the smoky tendril of her'cigarctte. He was standing on the dais, his handsome dark head thrown back, his famous young voico filling the room and the air and the very night itself. She tried to find in him the Kenny

sbe had known on the sloping banks of the Potomac and saw only a young man who had a vteak, soft mouth ana eyes slightly ringed. There was conceit in the toss of his head and conceit in the swagger of his lean young body. She thought, "How could I ever have thought 1 loved him!" Almost before she knew what she was doing she had thrown down her cigarette, had put a detaining hand on Dick's arm. She was looking up into his worried eyes, her own bright with tears. She was saying: "Dick, I don't want to go in. I'd like to stay here for ever . . . with you . . . Dick. .

She didn't say any more. She didn't need to. It was all there in her bright eyes and on he*.. tumbling red lips. And she knew, going into Dick's strong eager young arms, that What she had fnlt for him that first moment in the library to-night had nothing to do with Kenny Leech. It was incredible —almost fantastic . . . but Bhe had fallen in love with him at first sight. And she hadn't known it.

Afterward, back in the deep porch lounge, Dick was looking strained and uneasy and something almost like panic struck Patsy's heart. She said quickly: "Dick, what's wrong?" Dick's jaw went out. "I've got to tell you something, Patsy. It's only fair. I'm not as rich as I'm cracked up to be. It's the old story . . . the crash."

Patsy sighed with relief. "Is that all?" And then, smiling, "I'm not marrying you for your money, Dick, [f you didn't have one cent, I'd still marry you." "Hey, look here, I'm not destitute," said Dick evenly. "I have a veritable fortune in stock and bonds that will undoubtedly be worth their full value some day. I have this house and another in New York. But until those stocks go back, I'll be a little short on ready cash.•Until then I'm getting by as —well—Patsy—l'm a crooner."

pATSY'S blue eyes widened. She said in a strangled sort of way, incredulously, "A crooner!" "No ono knows it. I withheld my uame because of family pride. I can't quite feel that crooning is something to be especially proud of. You see I'm —l'm the Cavalier." "The Cavalier!"

For one full moment Patsy sat digesting that. She thought: "This was Fate. This was Destiny. This was meant to be!" Then she laughed, softly. Dick said, miserably: "But you 6aid to-night you loathed crooners! You said . . ."

Patsy's blue eyes turned on Dick, loving him. She laid a soft palm against his lean bronzed cheek. She said: "Thank heavens, it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind. I've changed mine. Oh, Dick . . . Dick . ." Inside the enormous houso Kennj Leech, having seen Patsy through the tall wjdo window, was singing th« song ho had sung for her on the sloping banks of the Potomac. But Patsy didn't know it. She didn't even hear it.