THE MARRIAGE MEASURE

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19036, 3 April 1930, Page 18

THE MARRIAGE MEASURE

Star " Serial

By

BARBARA WEBB

AVNE DOUGLAS and ANDREW WEST, employees ' of ROBERT MASON, are having dinner at the Mason home. Robert is head of a large advertising agency where Anne works as his secretary and Andrew has just been made a junior executive. Anne admires Robert tremendously and believes sincerely that he is the finest man in the world. Andrew is interested in Anne, almost in love with her, but he is puzzled at her attitude toward her employer, for EUGENIA ROBBINS. who also works in the office, has told him that Anne is in love with Robert. Andy doesn't want to believe this and does not suspect at all that Gene herself is wildly and hopelessly in love with Robert, and has been for a long time. AND FALLS IN LOVE. That s the way I like to hear a girl talk,” Robert said heartily after Anne s answer to Andrew’s quer} r about children. “ Only don't settle down to rearing a family right away please, Anne. We need you at the office, you know.” “Nothing could induce me to leave you, Mr Mason,” Anne answered, smiling at him putting more fervour into her words than she realised. “ Lucky man,” Elizabeth Mason said lightly, “ Ail utterly faithful wife and an equally faithful secretary—what have you done to merit this fate, Robert? ” “Nothing at all, I'm a favourite of the gods, my dear.” Andy watched Anne during this exchange, watched her with Gene’s sly suggestion in the back of his mind. Was Gene right? Did Anne really care deeply for Robert Mason? If that were so she carried it off with an air, surely. Not a quiver of nervousness and she sat here at the same table with his wife. No! Andrew almost shouted the word aloud in his relief, Anne wasn’t the kind of girl who would break bread with a woman whose husband she coveted. He came back to the conversation with a start, for Mrs Mason was speaking to him, asking him some question, trivial, but calling for an answer. After dinner they tried to teach Andrew to play bridge. “ My _ fingers are all thumbs,” he complained, making a mess of arranging his cards. “ I never had time to play cards when I was little and I never had any money to gamble with when 1 got bigger.” “ Didn’t you play cards in the army?” Robert asked. “ No,” said Andy with a serious shake of his head. “ I shot craps.” He looked at them in amazement when they shouted with laughter and finally joined them, not understanding the joke, but realising that somehow this put him on their own easy familiar ground. When it was time to go he added his thanks for a pleasant evening to Anne’s and went with her to his car with a very happy and satisfied feeling. Anne talked very little on the way home, and that little was mainly about Robert and Elizabeth Mason, how charming they were, how happy together. “I Want to Ask You Something.” Andy drew his little car into the curb in front of Anne's house. They were sheltered by an overhanging tree and in the deep shadow Andrew put a tentative arm across Anne's shoulders. She did not draw away, but he felt her stiffen. “ I’m crazy about you, Anne,” he said thickly, moving toward her. “ Don’t Andy—please.” “ Why not—Anne, I want to ask you something—will you ? “ Hush,” her soft hand went over his mouth and she forced herself to speak lightly. “ Hush, you’ll sa}' something you don’t really mean in a minute — something that might spoil our friendship—you see, Andrew ” her voice was firmer now and she laid one hand over his, patting it gently, as though she were his mother or an older sister. “ You see, you’ve just spent an evening with people who are happy and it makes you want that kind of happiness too, doesn't it? ” “ Yes.” “ But that kind of happiness doesn’t come easily, Andrew. It isn’t just a matter of love-making ” her voice trailed off. “Will you kiss me, Anne?” he asked. “ No.” “ Why, not ? ” . “ I don't like kisses that mean nothing. Andrew.” “ I’m not asking for that kind of a kiss. Anne.” “ The only kind I deal in, Andrew,”

(Copyright.) i she told him, " are kisses that mean j something—and I haven’t any in stock j for you.” Opening the door of the car and stepping to the pavement, she added, “ And. Andrew, don’t you think you might have helped me out of the car?” “Wait!” He scrambled after her, meaning to catch her and make her pay for that malicious question, but she was too quick for him. Like a deer she ran ahead of him and up the steps, pausing only when she was safely behind the screen. “ Say- you're sorry,” she teased him. “Sorry for what?” “ Sorry' you didn't help me out of the car.” “ Oh, that ! I'm sorry enough for that—but,” stubbornly, “ I’m net sorry I wanted to kiss you.” “ That’s too bad;” Anne laughed. Then, “ Good-night, Andy—l’ll see \*ou in the morning.” And she was gone, leaving Andrew to go back to his car alone. Someone had told him once that women were all alike. Andy wondered about this as he drove away. He had wanted to kiss Gene that evening in the office, had kissed her, not because she was Gene, but because she was a woman. He had wanted to kiss Anne to-night because she was Anne—dear to him. Andrew threw back his head and drew a deep breath. He knew then what he felt for her. Gene was forgotten. “ I’m in love with her—in love with Anne,” he said aloud. This admission seemed to release some mad desire for speed, for sensation, within him, and the usually well controlled Andy just missed being caught by a puzzled traffic cop on the way home. “./Drunk, I suppose,” the cop decided, shaking his head and giving»up the pursuit. “No mail'd be crazy enough to drive like that if he wasn’t drunk—no one on the streets now —won’t try to catch him—hope he gets home without a smash ” Andrew was early at the office the next morning. He wanted to see Anne come in. He wanted to ask her to lunch with him. He wanted to take her somewhere that night, preferably for a long drive in the country, where they could talk and he could tell her he loved her. Andrew thought being in love with Anne Douglas a wonderful thing that morning as he waited for her; and the minute after she came in he decided it was just plain misery. “ Hullo, Andy,” she said casually, and then, over her shoulder, “ Hullo, Jack —the gang's here early to-day.” Andrew followed her to her desk. “Lunch with me to-day, Anne?” he pleaded. “Nope,” very.- cheerfully, “mother’s taking a half-holiday. I’m going to lunch with her and help her pick a new dress. This evening we’re going to have dinner down in the city and go to the theatre.” “Lunch with me to-morrow?” he persisted. “ Oh, run along, Andy,” Anne said, good-naturedly; “ I’m busy.” “ When will go some place with me again?” he asked. “ Never, unless you take yourself in to your work and leave me to do mine —this very instant” Anne, told him, and to show that . she meant it she slipped the cover off her typewriter and dusted the keys with a flourish. Andrew was defeated, and he turned to go dejectedly to his desk. Turning, he collided with Gene, who cried; "Why the abstraction, Handy Andy? Your best girl give you the gate?” “’Morning, excuse me,” Andy muttered, and made a dash for the safety of the private office. Gene laughed. “ Heavens above, Anne, what have you done to the sad young man ? ” “ Just told him I had some other plans for the remainder of the year,” Anne said, grandly. Gene went on to her desk, but she seized her opportunity when she went in later to say to Andrew, “ How goes the wooing?” Robert was away, and Andrew answered out of his black mood: "Oh, shut, up, Gene! Mind your own affairs.” “Well, well!” Gene put her hands on her hips and surveyed Andrew in mock anger. "So you're taking it out “Taking what out on you?” “ OK, you’re sore because you’re landing out that what I told you about Anne is true—isn’t that it, Andy?” “No; it’s not,” he said, shortly. “ Take a letter, please ” But all through his dictation Gene’s words rankled and stung—just as she had meant them to—until Andrew felt that he must rush from the office and ask Anne point blank for the truth about her feeling for Robert Mason. , (To be continued to-morrow.)