1932-10-31 — Page 47

HANSI

ply enchants me. I've no business to feel all this." It seems to me ridiculous and deplorable that, I should feel it, but be patient with me-be patient.”

She put au urm about his shoulder, and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. 别

"Don't be a fool," she said to herself. "Soon she'll be only a memory-she's not for this place for long." And after a little struggle to vanquish her tears and a flourish with a handkerchief 'be- hind Charles' back, she said, smil- ing: "But don't you sometimes meet the others there? Sam and Frank?"

"Sometimes," sal Charles. "Doesn't she think it very funny 7"

"She's so used to admiration. She accepts it just as Else does."

"Charles, you're a dear," she said, "even if you do, at the mo- ment, prefer someone else."

"I don't, Vanessa." For heaven's sake

+

"Hush," she said, laying a hand over his mouth. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave you. I'm going abroad."

He walked about the room, anxious and upset.

"Where? Why? What do you mean? For how long?"

"Perhaps I'll do a Mediterranean cruise. I've always wanted to. I'll take Margaret."

"But how long will you be away?"

"Until you tell

me it's over. Until you want me back."

CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS NUMBER

Continued from Page 24.)

"But I don't wand you to go." "It's slightly humiliating to me." be better away. she said "all this, I think I'd I like Hansi enormously, in spite of everything; but I don't want to stay here and look on. Besides, it's interfering with my work.”

"I won't see her again. I swear I won't. Or I try not to."

"No, no," she said. "That's no good. I'd better go. Perhaps' it- will soon be aver."

And she went quickly out of the room.

"What would I do," she asked herself, "If I were in Edna's place, completely dependent on Sam for · her daily bread? What gesture would I make? Probably just the one she's making. I'd take to my bed. And what would I do if f were Bertha Tanner? I expect she's put Frank on "starvation wages. If he were half a man he'd go to London and get a job. Or runoff with Hansi. But I doubt if she'd go."

When Charles and Sam met on the 8:40 train in the morning, they would smile at each other a little

shamefacedly but would

avoid conversation. Sam looked worried and was worried. Edna's doctor was advising her to go to a London nursing home for rest and complete quiet, and she was refusing on the score of expense. it seemed to Sam that all the hap-. piness he now had came to him from his visita to' Hansi, his atrolls with her, her gayety and And lately he had jeo. pardised all this by one day im-

nonsense.

.quence.

By Susan Ertz

ploring her for a kiss, and then trying to take it by force, and- his face lightly slapped in conse- But he couldn't keep Away. She didn't encourage any of them; she merely let them come and talk to her walk with her, play with Else, or listen to her playing" Strauss" waltzes on the piano she had hired. She seldom spoke of their wives, and ever Vanessa's visits had become rarer. Except for the three men, she would have been lonely enough.

Then one day, near the end of July and

near the day when Vanessa was to depart with Mar- garet for her cruise, each of the three couples received a note from Hapsi, in her curiously tall and angular writing. She wrote:

Dear Friends: Now I have my decree, I am so happy. I give a "dinner party. Please come. It is Wednesday night, eight o'clock, and we all wear our best clothes, and forget all our troubles.

HANSI...

She sent a special note to Edna: Dear Friend: I so hope you are better. Please come to my party Wednesday; all spoilt unless you come. Please wear that white

be a great occasion for me. dress, so becoming it is. It will

HANSI.."

Edna said she thought perhaps she'd be well enough to go, and it might do her good. Also she told Vanessa that, quite frankly, she didn't think she could trust Sam there alone, as he seemed to have lost all sense of decency. Frank

Tanner was as nervous as a cat when the evening came, and Bertha spent an hour and a half over her dressing...

"I'm only going because you want me to," she said to him, «

Hansi received them in a pale: pink chiffon gown that awept the floor and made her look both ex- tremely girlish and extremely looked lovelier, thought Charles," dignified. Certainly she had never and Bertha experienced the same that she had felt the first day 'melting of the heart toward her they met. Frank hardly dared. look, in Hanai's, direction. For him it was worse than for any

of them. Only that morning he had, begged her to run away with him, had implored her again and again, had even sobbed unmanfully st her feet.

h

"Not twice do I. du such a folly," she had said. "And so good to you is that poor, nice Bertha!”

"I ought never to have married her never, never!”.

" "Maybe so, maybe not. I think once you think you very lucky, no?"

She had cocktails "read for them, which List brought in. Everyone .. noticed

that there were, eight glasses, but only Sam spoke of it:

"Hullo! Someone else coming? Not Gooch? I saw his car at the door to-day."

"No, not Mr. Gooch," she said. with her lovely "amile, "But I 'like Mr. Gooch. If he would come to my dinner, I very pleased."

(Continued on Page 34.)

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