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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 1924)
JO ELLEN By ALEXANDER BLACK. CofyrlRb.. km. (Continued From Yesterday.) ‘'Tou had me for a moment," Jo Ellen confessed. "I’d say you were looking well if I could really see your face. How did this happen'.’" "Happen? Hear her. I Just got there, that's aU." Myrtle carried all the elation of having arrived. x "Shut your trap'" This was a male voice, suggesting that there was too much ncise. “Gawd'." remarked one of the girls Standing near Myrtle. "They’re get tin’ worse here." . \ "I heard you were in a theatrical office,” said Myrtle. “By now you've got drag enough to get in anywhere. Listen, I'll have to look you up. Wish I was going to see you after the show. We go on In a second.” ”1 believe you're having a good time,” said Jo Ellen. Myrtls peered suspiciously through her heavily daubed lashes. "Sure. An awful workout, but the show's going big. This act has—" A word or gesture Jo Ellen did not catch set the group In scurrying mo tlon. “Listen—I want -to see you—’’ Myrtle was waving her white arm. XI. And there was the incident of Cora Vance. It had to come, perhaps. Jo Ellen, after wishing to meet Cora again, had begun to feel that she was not eager. AVhen Cora was simply Cora Vance, responding to her friend liness was one thing. It was quite another thing, after all, td be chum ming with Stan Lemur's ex-wife Nothing about Cora's previous ' life seemed to matter, so long ns you didn't know about It In particular. Probably Cora wag feeling the same Way. So long as Jo Ellen was sim ply the red haired secretary who seemed so different, Cora's Imagina tion could be enticed. But as some body who had been picked up by fltan Lamar, who was not so absurd y Innocent as she pretended — who ras married, like anybody else, and tatting around—she might easily ap jear as another consideration. If Jo ?ll'en had been told beforehand of the moment when the encounter was to happen, she would have had a dread. The incident would have stood out as one more example of twisted behavior in a world with St. Vitus dance. Cora should, Indeed, have been in Chicago, but here she was in New York again, coming up behind Jo El len to slip an arm around her waist, and to whisper, "You vamp" A collision between two cabs had es tablished a blockade. The crowd was watching the entertaining spectacle Involved In an effort to lift a fat woman, much disarrayed, from the cab that lay on its side. There had been much discussion as to whether it would not be better to right the cab before removing the passenger, but the fat woman settled that question as soon as she could get her head through the door. Some one shouted, •’Ladies first!” and the rescue pro ceeded. Then came Cora, looking charming in a tawny French frock. “Vamp" was am allusion of unmis takable origin. Jo Ellen deduced from the flippancy that Cora was still In embarrassing Ignorance of any his tory- She flushed, quite as ueual, and found herself grasping Cora's hand with a cordial quickness. "There’s something I want to tell you,” she said abruptly. Cora's eyes opened wide. "Let’s slip into the hotel.” They found a remote divan, and Cora lighted a clgaret. Perhaps because she had told no one else and because she was alto gether tired of being pent. Jo Ellen told everything—everything that did not include South America. There mtght be reasons why telling Cora everything was a little crazier than, telling anyone else. She was through with reasons. She wanted to tell. She told with a fervent relief that could not have been greater If she had been confessing the awful truth about a crime—if the Stan part of the story had been a guilty part. She did not accuse herself. She did not feel accused. This made the relief seem out of ail proportion. Circum stances had retarded something that had to come out. And everything led up to Amy Lennlng's. Cora's contralto emerged from the story “The fool!—the damn fool!"—which was rather startling, until it became clear that she was speaking of her helf. “Why—" she caught hold of Jo illen's near hand — "it wa* a chance in a million—that I should tell you—you, the one—think of that! What a shame! Hell! I wouldn't have—you see, don’t you?—It was Just that sort of a thing a person would yap about and think was fun nv, or dramatic or something. Good Lord! And you—sitting there! Say ing nothing. Why didn't—? Of course, you were knocked clean over _clean! Talk about nerve! I’d have gone up In the air. You sat tight and tnol> ft " "Like a Mirk," said Jo Ellen with A frazzled smile. •‘Like a sport. I tell you, I’d have screamed. I sure would." But Cora’s mind was traveling be yond that marriage crisis. Marty was an abstraction. “You poor dear!” she muttsred •’And to think it had to he Stan.” "I suppose you mean-” began Jo Ellen. Cora pulled herself up. "Oh, It Just seemed odd. Stan. It’s so Uke him.” "Maybe It’s so like me,” said Jo Ellen, defiantly. “No.” Cora shook her head. "But ho)w do I know about you? I guess I think you're s kind o| freak. I don’t mean anything—anything In sulttpg. I'm trying to imagine how I would have felt before—before so many things happened to me. Some how we can't get hack, can we—and Imagine? The funny part Is. that you look as If you could be a wild one. I suppose It depends A goo-1 deal on home. Mine was a rotten Imitation. Ouch!" Cora made a gesture. "Pretty soon we’ll he getting to the mother stuff. Don’t you mind me.” "Perhaps were both freaks," sug nested Jo Ellen. Her confession had worked no magic. A depressing re action was setting In. . "If we are, v 're different kinds. Sometimes 1 think I’ve always done about what everybody would expect. I'm Just, a plain garden variety of damn fool. You've got a way of your own. I don't say It's any better than mine wohld he, but It's yours. As for that, I don't know what I'd do If I were In your position. I honest ly don't. I suppose I mean. If I were , you. And that's foolish. If I were myself I couldn't stand It. I'd blow.” "You mean, you couldn't hate It and stand It.” ”1 couldn't. I can't do anything complicated. I don't have to hale. But I either love or I don't. When I stop loving, the jig's up. I'm through.” “But-” "Yes, I know, there's home coining In again Hut I'd have to chuck home If It hurt. That's what I did df And all this time I’m envying you because you can fack something and hold steady I suppose that's chat ACtsr. I haven’t any character." This drew an unmerry laugh from Jo Ellen. "That sounds as If you r % thought character might he a nuis ance.” Cora mused. "Trying to feel two ways at once might be a nuisance. I can’t do anything deep. I guess I think with my skin—nothing inside.” ”1 want to live—to live!” cried Jo Ellen with a color in her voice that caught Cora sharply. ' But—maybe it's that I want a lot more than you do.” Cora nodded. "Yes. That might be it. Sounds pretty deep, dearie, for a kid like you. But maybe that's it.” Suddenly Cora looked Jo Ellen In tently In the eyes. "Stan Lamar's got to leave you alone.” “He Isn't hurting me.” “He's got to leave you alone." Real blood showed under Cora's rouge. " "You must be advising me.” "All I know is, I won't have it. I won't stand around and see—God! It makes me sick. Here you are-” ''Please don’t worry about me,” Jo Ellen cut in. “I'm sick of being wor ried over. That seems to be my big trouble. I didn't mean to start you worrying." Cora stood up. « ”1 don't blame you. 1 don't blame you at all. It’s your game. But once In a while some body on the side lines-” "Did I sound ungrateful?” asked Jo Ellen. She felt a profound need to cry. "I don't know. X can’t make you out quite. Very likely you can’t make ir.e out. That's the way it goes. It's a pretty dirty world, but I don’t know why I should butt in to per suade you of that, I,ooks to me as it you were getting some idea, of how dirty it is. That wreck at home. That shell of a husband—forgive me, my dear. I'nv thinking about you. I'm awfully sorry X had the hard luck to land on you the way I did at Amy Lenning's. That was a ghastly break. And you were a sport. You certainly were. Hello, Nick.” A sleek man in tweeds had halted near them. "Must you run?” — Jo Ellen was saying gooby. XII. Into the squirming square; wedged In the Climax cage and shot up ward by an engineering gesture that reminded her of the roof; facing Eb erly, who shouldn't have been there, and who had buzzed without re sponse; and listening to a wrangle over the subtle obscurities of a con tract and Eberly's edged voice filing the phrases; hearing Shaffer for a necessary minute and noticing again something comic In his disenchanted wistfulness; following the strut of an old actor and the tactics of a thin girl with brick red lips; admiring and loathing the unearthly coolness of Aaron; typing, tpying, stabbing the sheets; sensing with a peculiar clear nes the filtered outdoor noises. . . . Thinking that Stan was likely to In tercept her In the foyer or not far beyond. But he did not Intercept her. She had Imagined so vividly the meeting that still failed to happen as to be Btrangely disconcerted. She did not admit to herself that she was eager. She expected to meet him, and until she met him she would be keyed and prepared. It was aa if he had opened a window or had held her up to look through one that was inaccessible without him. She had tacitly ac cepted his plea for a meeting that was not accidental. Perhaps none of the encounters, excepting that first one hand, had been accidental. At an earlier time, when she was feeling differently, she believed him to have a sinister shrewdness that was cap able of making things come about as he wanted them to coma about. She wondered whether this conviction had been shaken, and if it had not been shaken why It no longer annoyed her. Did this mean that she had become shameless? Could she think at one moment that he was the kind of man who would bide his time, and see again and again that he never pressed her beyond « certain point, without feeling convicted when she found her self willing to go on? Was this rest lessness blinding her to very plain truths about herself and shout him? It was odd that he did not follow up that wish to see her very soon. She had never before given him so good an excuse for finding her. In that thrilling dance . . . What was he thinking? It would be worth everything to know what he was really thinking. Nothing that Cora. Vance or anyone elae might say would count if ah# could know that. Really know . . . knowing would ba like having Fata backed againat the wall. She agreed with herself tb • was unfortunate to have expected him. But the next day, at noon, and again In the evening, something like a gen uine premonition prompted her to await a touch anon her ar- The tense premonition was a counterfeit. She reached the roof in a state of tense uneasiness. At the door she repeated a formula she had adopted, which was to the effect that no mat ter what happened she would hold fast. Sometimes It seemed Ilk# the childish prerautlon of counting ten before retorting in anger. Yet even if it meant that she was deficient in some fiuaiity she ought to have, it was a safeguard. i Mrs. Simms had a headache. JAe emphasized her attitude of maAVr dom by bringing out a little bottle met the word for the first time and were spelling it out. His mother snatched away the hot' tie. "You act like a fool,” she said. "It Just seemed funny." returned Marty, gaping at her. "Like you W'ere taking --" "Mind your own affairs," admon ished his mother. Silence followed. The dinner was painfully silent. Martv's father had noticed the chill when he came >r and made one or two efforts to alle viate It. Ho had yet to lose an air Implying that Jo Ellen wai a guest. Jo Ellen felt the kindliness, though it actually strengthened Mrs. Hi nun s Implication that she remained, and must remain, an Intruder. Simms eyes might easily have been detected in their (baring estimate of sore spots. He considered Marty and Jo Ellen. ■ — ■I ... ■ 11 — ^ _ Then Jo Ellen and his wife. He cams last to mother and eon. and this wbs puzzlln*. To him silences we«' al ways a threat. He liked healthy talk, and was quickly at a loss when checked. The evening papes became r a grarruloim refuse. (To Hr fonliniied Towftrrnw.) THE NEBBS a big fish in a small pool. Directed for The Omaha oee by ^oi ness 1 '■ 1 11 'i 1 __ .'mm . «r. , k«r n il/ u iiMrv% « ATTORNEY UiBLiCK UMMGLOCvMEC *Hue>esas MVS TouRvuG CAR AwD wnw A 6000 W>\_L\N1^» MAO *j) 'TwER.E'S UO~TWUM<S TOR TANNlY Wo,Do BOT EkMOV uerselt /''STEP INTO-rue PoVAL *CHAR'OT" / CHARIOT, QUEEN Of NORTHVILLL ^i6HT- VT LOO/E \ and WELL-TA^E a vSPin uv^C it NHC>V-cr I AROUSJO VogQ IX^NAW° URve. 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II I'll!! mmm S(.opyri|hl. 1924. by King Feature* Syndicate. Inc C«r«*t Britain right* reacrvwT DDIM/^ITVT/''' I TD CATUPD R«*ut«r«d see jigcs and maggie in full Drawn for The Omaha Bee by McManus DlxirNvXifNVj U* r/\inni\. U. S. P.l<nl OIUm PAGE OF COLORS IN THE SUNDAY BEE (Copyright 1924) FATHER -THAT HORRID COOtST OE TOOK S'o HERE AHQ MOTHER WAJST ME TO ENTER TAIN HIM • I DETECT HIM - HE TRIED TO PROPOSE TO ME v_ . . ■ CYOUR MOTHER »>A.T«> HE »^> A. 7 , FINE LAO • - bAY • D(NTY • C.tT READY TO <,0 MY BOND AM’ tsetSD Up Ain ambulance Lm c,onna HAvH A CUSTOMER EOR A MObPlTAL ' ' 1:550—u iv Int l Fraru»c Scftvicc. Inc []__ Great Britain right* reserved. . 1 ^ ^ JERRY ON THE JOB ' , soft instructions Drawn f°r Ib't5)n;aha B" by Hoban ■ r . • rrtil IS Allege. AAACINTTOSm » HELL Bt, ooR“>lssirrA^ .-mu "rue •Burrs* get .take minl ABoowo A.m> SUckm w^-tuf 4^0 fe'tflAiKL UlS . *——7 C\nies To Uim. ) /^tossT^1—-Ty yT/MFETCHA,^) I /MensrNoF) . 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