"ANN STEPS OUT"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1938, Page 12

"ANN STEPS OUT"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

MARGARET GORMAN NICHOLS.

CHAPTER XXl..—Continued. “Delighted. I like to hear you talk like that, Ann. I want you to come out of your shell. I want the newspapers to rave about what Ann Hamill wore to the opera and the races. I want people to talk about you and rave about you.” “Why?” “Because it will show people that a woman doesn’t have to be born to the purple to emerge beautiful and brilliant. Because John wanted it to be like that.”

"Are you sure?” “He told me. He drove down to the island one night and told me.”

He looked at her, his brown eyes tender. “A lot of men are going to love you and want you now.” They took a walk down the beach as they once had done. “I’m taking riding lessons,” she said. “John wanted me to ride to the hounds. No serious spills yet.” “We can get some horses from friends of mine here when they open up their house for the summer. We’ll swim and ride together this summer,” he said. She drove back to town at twilight. When she reached home the table was set for dinner. She always had to pause a moment when she looked at the big white house, somehow unable to believe that it was hers. . She went upstairs and dressed for dinner. At seven-thirty the family was assembled for dinner. Mrs Dryden was dressed in a black lace dinner dress. Jean was freshly dressed. Wang moved about serving them. Ann, sitting at the head of the table, thought, "They are secure. John did this as much for them as for me. I like to see.- them looking like this—prosperous and happy.” “Is Dick coming tonight?” asked Ann. “Of course/’ said Jean, who tried desperately to control her slang these days. “He wants to thank Nick for getting him a. job. Nick called him this afternoon and he called me.”

“Betty Reynolds called today,” Mrs Dryden said, “and wants to know if you’re coming Saturday.” “I talked to Nick about it. He thinks I should go.” “Well ” her mother said, “I know things are different now. I don’t see any harfn, do you. Father?” “I think Ann ought to make friends.” She went to her room and called Betty. “I’ve decided to come,’? she said. “Oh —splendid. I’m so glad. Dinner party, you know. And you’re coming with Nick. I wish you’d drop around to see me sometime, Ann, for a rubber of bridge.” “I don’t play bridge.” “I’ll teach you. Won’t you come around tomorrow afternoon?” “That’s my riding lesson,” Ann laughed softly. “I have to keep an appointment book these days to keep up with myself. Golf, tennis, riding and now bridge.” “We’ll make it some other time then. I’ll see you on Saturday, and I’m glad your coming.” She was on her way downstairs when the telephone rang.” . “Is this Mrs Hamill?” asked a strange voice. “Yes.” “This is Louise Hamill.” “Oh!” Ann could visualise Louise’s stern features. Her own face flushed. What did the Hamills want with her? She had finished with them. She wanted nothing from them. “Mother doesn’t know I’m calling,” said Louise, “but I was desperate. I had to call you. I had to come to you.” “You are coming to me?” asked Ann. “Yes. You know John always paid my expenses to Europe every summer. Mother is very difficult, you know. She’s ill and cross. It’s the only time I ever get away.” ■ “You want me to pay your expenses?” “Would you? I can’t tell you how much . . .” Louise unbending? It seemed incredible. “You’ll have to see Nick about it. He attends to all my affairs. If he agrees, I don’t mind.” “Oh, thank you, thank you, Ann.” The next afternoon she stopped her car in the driveway and went into the house. She was in her riding clothes. In the living room was Doug. He got up quickly and came to her. Was this Ann—this slim girl in dark breeches, black boots and blue silk blouse? She crushed a felt hat in her hand. Her face was flushed. Ann, rich now, he thought, a bride of a few hours and a great tragedy. He took a step toward her. “Doug,” she said. She lifted her eyes and looked at his handsome tanned face and dark hair. "Yes,” he said, “Ive come back.” CHAPTER XXII. Ann sat opposite Doug and passed him cigarettes from a silver box. “A lot has happened,” he said, “to you and a lot has happened to me. Somehow you don’t look as though you’ve been through so much." She took a cigarette and lit it. "You smoke now,” he said. “Yes. Nerves, I guess, in the beginning. It isn’t a habit though.” He could not help but think of Ann he had one known —the girl who had worked all day in an office, who wore inexpensive clothes and carried the responsibility of her whole family on her shoulders. He had loved her then — despite all that. She was lovelier now. ‘She always belonged in an atmosphere like this,” he thought. “How is Gail?” Ann asked. “Oh, she's fine. We’ve taken an apartment and I’m going into father’s office. I ran into Betty Reynolds today and she told me you were going to hetdance on Saturday.” “Are you and Gail going, too?” “Gail never misses a party,” said Doug. "She wants to show off some of the clothes she bought in Paris. I suppose you’ll be going to Paris yourself sometime soon.” “I hadn’t thought of it. Nick says “Nick—l was wrong about him, Ann.” “I know you were.” “I've been wrong about a lot of things and a lot of people. I treated you very badly. But if I hadn’t, you probably wouldn’t be here. Things work out strangely don’t they?” Ann kept thinking. "He isn’t happy. His romance with Gail isn’t as beautiful as he had expected. Two spoiled people married to each other.” “If there is anything I can do for you, let me know,” he said. "There isn’t any why we can’t be friends, is there?"

"None whatever.” He arose to go. Ann went to the door with him. “I’ll see you on Saturday,” he said. A silver dress, which fit her like a sheath, lay on the bed ready for Ann. Susan, housemaid, personal maid, moved about the room. Sitting at the dressing table, Ann told Susan to get her jewels—the emerald, the diamond bracelet, and the diamond pin. At last she stood before the mirror. ‘Cinderella,” she thought and smiled at her reflection. She put on long white gloves, and a silver wrap trimmed with ermine; and went downstairs. Nick was waiting. “Am I seeing right?” he asked, coming toward her, thinking, "John should see her now — Ann, the ’ finished product. He’d be proud of her. He wanted her to look like this.” They drove to the Five Farms Country Club in Ann’s town car. Many people stopped twice to look at Ann Hamill when she entered the club house with Nick. Many who had been at Betty’s New Year’s Eve dance —the party that was the beginning of the end of her long romance with Doug—could not believe it was the same girl. Strangers asked who the tall girl was dressed in silver, and young men made mental notes. Ann was seated at the right of Betty’s fiance, Ralph Burton. She looked at Nick down at the other end of the long table at Betty’s right and he smiled at her. She saw Doug and Gail—Gail in a flowing white Grecian dress. “Gail looks marvelous,” Ralph was Saying, “but it goes hard with a girl who was as popular as she was to find herself a young matron. She’s not the kind to accept it. She loves to be admired by- men. She likes- a lot of attention.”

After dinner people danced in the large, dimly lighted ballroom, . and couples walked on the grounds outside and sat in chairs under the trees, and had drinks served to them out there.

Ann slipped her arms through Nick’s and they went outside. “What are you beaming about?” she asked. “You. You’ve knocked them cold. I told you you could, didn’t I? Ann, this is your social debut. After tonight you’ll get more invitations than you can handle. When you walked in there tonight in your silver dress, your social future was made.” He knew that the popularity that would undoubtedly come to her would take her away from him. Since John’s death, they had been inseparable. No other people would claim her—‘other men. “Did you get Louise straightened out about her trip?” she asked. ( “Yes, and believe me, she was "genuinely grateful. It took . courage or nerve, I don’t know which, to phone you after the way she treated you. I think,” said Nick, smiling down on her, “that we should go back to the club houre. -There are a lot of young men waiting to dance with you.” Nick stood on the side watching her dance with first one man, then another. He saw the way the light fell across the folds of her silver dress and how gracefully her sandled feet moved to the rhythm of the music. Gail was at his side. "Watching your protege?” she asked. “Beaming over her,” he said. “She’s my sister-in-law, too, you know.” . “A new butterfly,” said Gail. “Let’s dance, Nick. I’ve always said you were the most evasive bachelor in town — and the best dancer.” The same Gail, he thought, quick to flatter! How she resented the end to her flaming popularity! She shrugged. “Probably standing off watching his old flame.” “You mean Ann?” “Who else? He’s been raving about her. I don't see why, if he thinks she’s sc marvelous, he didn’t marry her. She wasn’t Ann Hamill then. She wasn’t anybody.” ■ “I never thought,” said Nick coldly, “that you would join the vast army of catty women.” Ann knew that another young man had ‘cut in.’ She looked up and saw Dougl. “Like old times,” he said. She still remembered the easy, graceful way he danced —but it seemed so terribly long ago! "You’re a great success,” he said. The perfume of her hair was near. ‘Tve always liked to dance with you,” he said. “Remember —we learned how together in your parlour to phonograph records?” “And when you’d come home from college, you’d teach me the new steps.” Another young man cut in. Ann had noticed how very good looking he was. Dark-haired, blue eyed, athletic looking. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said. “I’m Gary Hinton. But, of course, I know you're Ann Hamill.” When the music ended, Doug came to her again. Nick saw them go out on the grounds and sit in chairs under a large tree. "You’re lovely,” said Doug. "It’s like old times to hear you say that.” “I hate myself when I think of the way I treated you—like a jealous schoolboy.” "It’s over now and forgotten.” ‘Forgotten?” Her eyes met his. “Yes, forgotten. You’re married to Gail. Have you forgotten that?” She looked at him, remembering how many times they had said they loved each other, how many, many times he had bent his dark head to kiss her. Moonlight nights in a canoe —promises smothered in kisses. Was it too deep a love, she wondered, to be cast aside?' Could she never put behind her that old love for him? Would she never get over it?” Brieflly their eyes met. The music played softly from the club house. "I can’t forget that I’m married to Gail —nor can I forget that I had you and let you go.” As Nick had wisely predicted, after Betty's dance Ann’s telephone rang constantly. "Golf at two at the club. Don’t forget, Ann,” or "We’re riding, the whole crowd of us, at six tomorrow morning.” She had sent her mother and father on a trip through the Panama Canal, and the big house was filled every afternoon and evening with people. Roadsters lined the driveway and Wang was kept busy mixing his incomparable cocktails. Gary Hinton, the son of a prominent banker, was one of Ann’s most devoted admirers. There was a swimming pool on his father’s estate and I when she wasn’t golfing or riding, she

was at the pool with Gary and a host of other friends. She met many other men. A midshipman from the Academy who said. “You’re invited to all the hops next year —in advance.” And yet around her always, hovering near, was Doug—at the club, at the pool, cutting in on dances, with Gary Hinton, manoeuvring to be with her. (To be Continued.)