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THE K I N G ’ S BUS INE S S
Led . . .
“Oh, Mo t h e r , you promised you'd quit!"
Photograph bg Harold U. Lambert
E HRISTINE sat still, f eel i ng S teve’ s ang r y words beat against her aching head even down the hallway. ? “What’s the matter with us, any way?" she moaned, pushing her empty coffee cup aside and reaching for a cigarette. “We quarrel for no reason at all.” She ought to be more patient with him, she knew, but it worried her so when he drank like this. The doc tor had said he must stop drinking or be a wreck within a year. She wasn’t blaming Steve. “Something is driving us both on,” she thought wearily, “and there is no escape. Even moving out to California hasn’t helped any.” She had known that Steve was drink ing when they had begun their dance For the purpose of this account , the actual names have been withheld.— The Editor .
last night at the club, and the knot of worry had tightened. The memory of the evening 1 lay like a stone in her mind, now, though she knew it had been no different from any other eve ning at the club. Steve had' not been unpleasant. He had danced just as brilliantly as ever, and the applause from the onlookers had been as spon taneous, but there had been no ex hilaration in it for her. . It was hard to remember the time that she had once thrilled to applause when she and Steve had first begun dancing as a team. Then she had thought the atmosphere of a night club exciting—the room wrapped in smoky blue dusk, murmurous with laughter and the quick, moving music. She didn’t see the tables littered with half-empty glasses, tom matchbooks, and overflowing ash trays — not at first. She didn’fcnotice that behind the flushed gaiety of the men and women
there lay fear and dissatisfaction— and the desperate urge to seek happi ness in pleasure. She wasn’t conscious of the smoke that hurt her eyes and made her head ache—not until she began to hate the dusky, artificial room and wish she need never go back. And yet, for some reason, it seemed > terribly important to dance the hours away, and the mad whirl went on. A startled exclamation at the door brought Christine’s attention back to the untidy apartment and the need to get Maida’s breakfast. “Oh, Mother, you promised you’d quit,” Maida said reproachfully, her eyes, wide with hurt, on the cigarette in her mother’s hand. Christine hastily ground the ciga rette in the ash tray, quick resentment flaring as she did—resentment that her six-year-old daughter should point the way of conduct for her.
after his' footsteps had died away
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