Bellefonte, Pa., November 30, 1928.
te — es
NANCY CHOOSES.
East flirted with West and West
relorted in kind as the bell-boy carry-
ing Nancy’s bag pursued his polite,
proprietory course through crowded
corridors. Exotic, seductive pierret-
tes, inextinguishably feminine though
in white satin pantaloons, angled for
and won the attention of East Indian
rajas; Swiss mountaineers bent gal-
lantly over vibrantly coquettish Span-
ish senoritas; a six-foot white rabbit
stood on its hind legs and flapped
grotesque paws for the delectation of
a Dutch maiden who was none the
less demure though she used lip-stick
and powdered her pretty nose as she
applauded him.
Eye-filling, all of it, for this was
New Year's Eve gnd a carnival ball
was about to close College Week at
Lake Placid Club. But rs eyes
were very tired as she trailed the bell-
y. A new arrival, she was still hat-
ted and gloved and the spirit of carni-
val merely eddied about her, leaving
her untouched.
“Excuse me,” murmured the bell-
boy for perhaps the hundredth time,
and so they gained access to the ele.
vator.
There he smiled, friendly, at Nancy.
“More than thirteeen hundred peo-
ple here,” he announced proudly.
Nancy smiled back, but it was an
effort. She positively ached. The
elevator seemed tired too. But pres-
ently it achieved its destination and
Nancy, after the bell-boy had per-
formed the prescribed ritual of his
cratf, found herself alone in the room
that was to be hers for a week or so.
A successful young business wo-
man, Nancy. Absolutely and always.
And yet her mirror drew her. But
that, she would have said, was only
that she might appraise the condition
of her tailleur, now that her fur coat
was off.
Eleven hours in the train—she had
left New York that morning—had not
helped it. So Nancy’s blue eyes, liv
lac-shadowed under her puckered
brows, frankly informed her. But it
didn’t matter. She would doff it soon
—very soon, she hoped—to slip into
bed and begin, with a long night's
rest, both the New Year and the va-
cation that had been prescribed for
her so persistently by those overlords
who, now kindly, now irritable, ruled
her days and her immediate destiny.
They had been insistent that she
needed it. And almost absurdly de-
termined that this, the Lake Placid
Club, was precisely the spot for her.
“Wonderful place,” her immediate
superior had boomed and beamed,
with Jove-like benevolence. “Do you
world of good.”
This Nancy had protested though
not as she would have liked to .“If you
would only tell me what—if anything
—I am to get out of all the big things
to come you are all discussing so en-
thusiastically, it would help more than
any vacation,” she had felt like re-
plying.
But hadn’t, of course.
does.
Instead, Nancy
one came here, to Lake Placid Club,
and—there she stopped.
on the door was repeated. She cross-
ed swiftly to open it. Another bell-
boy stood there, with satin frivolities,
white and lustrous, over his arm. A
carnival costume, obviously.
“But—but that can’t be fcg me!”
protested Nancy.
“Miss Sayles?” asked the bell-boy.
And, Nancy admitting it, dismissed
the suggestion of error by placing the
costume on her bed.
Nancy let it lie. She had arrived
too late for dinner but had been told
that she would be served something
in the tea-room. The bell-boy offered
to guide her. In it she discovered sev-
eral of her fellow passengers on the
trip north. Notably a girl who had
slept most of the way, her spectacu-
Jarly painted mouth a little open.
“Some deb who danced all night,”
Nancy had decided scornfully.
The little deb no longer slept; re-
vitalized, she positively scintillated.
For, obviously, the benefit of the male
who kept her company as she ate. He
was already costumed as one more
pierrot; Nancy recalled that he had
been at the desk when she registered.
A rather engaging youngster, the
masculine complement of the girl with
him; belonging, as she did, by mere
One seldom
accident of birth. to what passed for!
an American aristocracy. Enjoying,
with unconscious arrogance, privi-
leges they had never earned.
These were Nancy’s thoughts for a
second. Then her interest waned.
“Now just forget the office alto-
gether,” had been the parting injunec-
tion of her immediate superior.
Forget it! It had become her life.
At nineteen, she had begun in that
0 as a stenographer. The com-
pany then, as now, manufactured
castings for automobile engines. More
recently it had developed a special al-
loy for pistons. This promised big
things but had required new capital
‘to develop its potential market. The
capital had been secured. So much
she knew. About it the overlords
talked exultantly, if still mysterious-
ly. And of a beneficent future just
ahead.
“Yes—but what will
me?” was
know.
The question was in her mind as she
ate. Phrased in bitterness rather
than optimism, for she very much
feared it would mean little. She had,
In ten years, developed a knowled e
of the company’s affairs that she
felt was as comprehensive as that of
any of its executives. This had not
passed unnoticed. She was regarded
as valuable. But always with the in-
escapable masculine qualification.
“It’s too bad you're not a man,” one
of the first executives she had served
had once told her. “You seem to
have something more than a feminine
aptitude for detail. Almost a mascu-
line breadth of vision.”
.. ‘Much obliged,” she had felt priv-
ileged to comment. “But why consid-
er vision a purely masculine attri-
bute 7”
“Well—look at the other irls in
the office,” he had Suggeston. “To
it mean to
what Nancy wanted to
| be typed.
reflected bitterly,
The knock |
them a dictated letter is something to
They get no more kick out
0” the acknowledgment of some order
t.at will add thousands to our prof-
its than the acknowledgement of a
request for a catalog. ey are all
more vitally interested in the precise
amount of stocking their skirts should
show.”
“And in their hats,” she had con-
tributed. But only that she might
add with misleading meekness, “How
about men? Don’t they ever fuss
about clothes?”
He had grinned, if sheepishly. She
had him there—she was devilish
quick. Only the day before she had
taken a letter to his tailor concerning
the cut of a golf coat he did not care
for at all.
“You know darn well what I mean,”
he had countered. “Men consider bus-
iness a career, women don’t. They
are in business merely until they get
married. You yourself——”
“I'm in business to stay,” she had
assured him firmly.
“I doubt it,” he had retorted as
firmly.
And not without reason. She had
been very pretty then—prettier, even,
than the deb with the spectacularly
painted mouth who, for all her air of
careless nonchalance, was so patiently
angling for masculine reactions from
Pierrot. Aside from her hair, which
was dusky, and her teeth, which were
exquisite, Nancy had beautiful color-
ing and, as an overlay, that definite
adjunct to charm that is so sketchi-
ly described as personality. ;
Even now, at twenty-nine—which
she was this New Year's Eve—she
was not, she supposed, unattractive
to men. For all that she had become
the determinedly successful young
business woman type, she sometimes
became conscious of a quickened in-
terest in the roving male eyes.
Just as now, with a curious shift
Unstirred herself, she merely stirr-
ed her tea.
Almost any time during the last
ten years there had been some man
on her horizon whom a minimum of
encouragement might have brought
to heel, eager to try emotional experi-
ment. None had been encouraged.
owed mother very much dependent on
she scorned her masculine contempor-
aries.
They had so little to recommend
them to her appraising eyes. Youth
and assurance alone were at their
command; they had yet, most of
them, to discover that they were born
to live and die as cogs. Whatever
position they filled was as much a
stop-gap, so far as they were concern-
ed, as typing letters was to the fluf-
fiest-headed, most frivolous-minded
stenographer.
So she had come to twenty-nine and
what, in a business woman, is ac-
counted success. Yet: “Successful!”
Nancy always felt like echoing when
| the adjective was applied to her. “If
any man in the office had worked as
; hard as I have, acquired the same
! grasp of business, he’d be recogniz-
jed as a real asset—and be paid three
| times what I am.”
The new alloy for pistons was to
| be advertised aggressively. Not just
| atization, life ana movement. And
: she could do it. She knew it. But
would they give her the opportunity ?
As advertising manager—a real ex-
ecutive ? ;
“Not a chance,” she informed her-
self, candidly and bitterly. “Business
is still like those men’s clubs which
have a restaurant for women guests.
Women can go that far—but no fur-
ther.’
They—the overlords who ruled her
immediate destiny—did not want to
give her what she wanted and deserv-
her invaluable where she was.
idea was to keep her there, propitiat-
ed by those large, paternalistic ges-
tures that so exalt the masculine ego.
So she had been given this vacation
at the Lake Placid Club, with all ex-
penses paid. And here she was.
Nancy glanced about her, blue eyes
contemptuous. The carnival was
about to begin. Male and female
were pairing off. The deb with Pier-
rot rose quickly.
“Ill change in ten seconds—be
down in a jiff,” she promised.
She passed Naney’s table swiftly,
her painted mouth still open, but
eager and avid now. Pierrot lounged
by more leisurely. Briefly his eyes
encountered Nancy's. Blue eyes, too,
but definitely masculine—and rather
nice. They seemed, almost, to be
asking some half audacious,
amused question of her,
preposterous. What question—amused
or otherwise—could he, looking scarce
twenty, costumed and eager for carni-
val, ask of tired thirty who, feeling
twice that age, was eager for bed?
Which was where Nancy was going
as quickly as possible. The costume
which, designed for carnival, lay on
her bed, was quite forgotten.
Nevertheless, it challenged her at-
tention the moment she switched the
light on in her room. But she ignozr-
ed it. A few seconds later she had
slipped out of her tailleur and in that
irreducible minimum of lingerie that
even the successful business woman
wears these ays was forcing herself
through her daily exercises. This was
part of her ritual. Not to preserve
the slim and lovely contours that the
mirror caught and reflected, but to
keep herself fit. For business!
Not until they were finished did her
that she removed the costume, pur-
posing to drape it over a chair. Yet
as the silken folds clung to, caressed
her fingers, an instinct as old as Eve
gave her pause.
“It’s beautiful,” she mused as, her
slim arms extended, she held it be-
fore her. “I wonder if—it fits.”
Twenty seconds later she discover-
ed that it did. Exquisitely. The low-
er extremities: sheathed ankle and
knee tightly and then swung out, co-
quettishly, flaring like riding breeches.
The bodice, with its black buttons
fastened, swung up from waist to
in her own interest, she realized that
Pierrot, not wholly engrossed in the ,
deb who displayed her wares feminine |
fashion, was actually observing her. |
One reason was that she had a wid- |
her. Quite aside from that, however, |
in the trade publications for which .E
she had prepared many advertise-
ments—coloriess technical stuff—but EB
a national campaign, requiring dram- ;
ed. Yet at the same time they found °
The °
half |
But that was .
attention turn toward the bed. From b
shoulder as if she had been poured
into it; a tiny ruff fitted snugly un-
der her chin.
This much her mirror informed her.
And business woman though she
might be, a subtle intoxication, au-
thentic as alcohol, glowed in her. She
was, briefly, enamored with herself.
A mask had slipped
from the costume’s folds; she bent to
retrieve it and discovered, inevitably,
that she must try that on, too. It
shadowed her eyes and quite conceal-
ed her straight nose; yet, revealing
her amused mouth, added to the hint
of youth and carnival that seemed to
permeate the night and place. And,
swiftly, gave her fresh impulse,
She removed the mask but only
that she might powder her nose,
The elevator boy gave her a grin,
half friendly greeting, half frank
masculine admiration that was some-
how startling. She suddenly became
self-conscious, might have retreated
had that not seemed awkward. Aec-
cordingly she carried on to where the
orchestra was playing something riot
ous that Carmen might dance with
Pilgrim Father, Franciscan monk
with Columbine. There she discover-
ed that masks so soon had been dis.
carded and so she must remove hers
too.
Feeling absurdly like another Cin-
derella, she slipped swiftly into a seat
well to the rear of those who merely
watched. A spectator.
The carnival was just a swirl of
color for a time. Then among the
dancers she discovered Pierrot. His
partner was the deb who had slept
so much of the trip north. She wore
a costume akin to Nancy’s, but of
black satin, to accentuate the bland-
ness of the sleekly shingled head that
was bent back that she might glance
to the floor hi
and who, at the end, had bade her
good night.
“Of course you skate—everybody
does,” he had said. “But do you
ski?”
“It’s been forever since I skated
and never since I skied,” she had told
im, eyes and voice aglow.
“Then you have a new thrill com-
ing to you. May I introduce you to
skis tomorrow ?”
“Tomorrow,” she announced firmly,
“I shall be a hundred and ten. And
skis, I fear, are not for me. I'm not
as young and elastic as I used to be
and——-"
“Then appearances are once more
deceitful,” he inserted deftly. And
added an audacious, “Are you really
ore than twenty? You don’t look
it.
It was late when she awoke the
next morning and she didn’t, as she
candidly infermed herself, either look
twenty or feel it. But that was a
merciless appraisal and in it Pierrot
did not share.
“Who's
morning ?” he demanded
met in the lobby after breakfast. “I've
been waiting an hour for you,” he
added without waiting for an answer
to his question. “Is it geing to take
you another hour to get ready?”
To that she might have answered
that she was practically ready now.
She had planned to do more than a
little skating; a white sweater and
cap, with scarf and gloves to match,
was, with the short
the extent of her sports kit. She had
been feminine enough to realize that
that would seem inadequate here and
at the same time enough of the busi-
ness woman to remind herself that
it didn’t matter, really, in the least.
SE — 8 SE. aw -
1 i
had cut in and out of the last dance
a hundred and ten this |
gaily as they !
skirt she wore,
collegian about him. But the thought
got no further. The blonde little deb,
costumed for outdoors, swung near.
“Going out this morning, Tommy ?”
she demanded, addressing Nancy's
companion—and definitely ignoring
Nancy.
“Later,” he answered—and turned
back to Nancy.
The little deb passed on without
another word. Yet Nancy knew that
she had become the object of a bit-
so if childish and unreasonable hat-
red.
“Why don’t you go out with her?”
she suggested impulsively, and with
no thought of coquetry.
“Because,” he answered, “I feel it
a duty—and a privilege as well, if |
may—to get you started right.”
He was a nice child. She could not
deny him that tribute. And she had
been wired a hundred dollars for in-
cidentals and commanded to use it.
0:
“I'll probably be all of an hour,”
she warned. “I've got to buy every-
“Ill wait,” he promised.
And ridiculous though it was, she
did get a kick out of that assurance.
It wasn’t quite an hour, after all,
when she appeared, a little self-con-
scious but measurably pleased with
herself. She had chosen one of the
severely smart little skiing costumes,
black like the deb’s. It fitted ex-
quisitely.
“You look simply ripping,” Tom-
my assured her boyishly. “Let’s go.”
Ski Hill was black with skiers. Or
rather crimson and orange and every
other color that ever was on land or
sea, for the costumes, against the
white background, were like confetti
scattered across a table-cloth. Some
of the skiers could, like Tommy, do
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' up, provocatively, at Pierrot. :
They danced a few steps while Nan-
cy watched, and then a Cossack cut h
‘in. Pierrot surrendered her with a
smile and let his eyes rove.
| Evidently they sought another
| partner. But they seemed in no hurry,
nor was their inspection confined to
the dancers. And so it was for the
second time that night that his eyes
met Naney’s.
Ten seconds later he was
down at her. “May I?” he asked.
“It’s been years since
she protested. “I—”
“It’s been years since anybody danc-
ed,” he assured her, confidentially.
“I feel very sure you won’t find it dif-
ficult. Won’t you try? Please?”
At any other time, any other place,
she might have given him a flat re.
fusal. But the orchestra was gor-
eous, stressing the challenge that
ance-music ever carries to mortals.
She hesitated—and was lost.
“And you said you couldn’t dance!”
he murmured.
“I rather suspect it all depends up-
on whom you dance with,” she heard
herself reply, never realizing that her
head, sleek but unbobbed, was tilted
back much as the little deb’s had
een.
of that dseory tested out,” he remark-
ed ruefully. “I have no luck tonight.”
“What do you mean?” she demand-
ed, puzzled.
“I am about to be cut in on—darn
it,” he explained.
Incredibly, it was true. And as in-
credibly it was after midnight when
Nancy agan confronted her mirror.
In the interim, rediscovering a for-
gotten ecstasy, she had danced with
all manner of men, in all manner of
costumes.
It had been Pierrot, however,
who
age I
smiling
I danced,”
“You are about to have the truth
If you have a relative or
interested in what is going on in Centre county, who
means of contact than through the oc-
casional letters you write him or her we are sure
they would enjoy having the Watchman. It would
many things that you forget to mention
yourself into answering that
letter you received weeks ago.
Christmas is coming and the problem of some
little rembrance will be to solve before you know it.
Why not accept our suggestion that you send
a year to that friend or relative.
It will cost only $1.50 and be fifty letters, teeming
with news, that anyone would be glad to receive.
Send us $1.50 and we will mail the Watchman
a year to any point in the United States,
has no other
tell them so
when you finally prod
the Watchman for
for
will also mail a Christmas card to the
pressing your good wishes.
What could be nicer?
| The Deniodiatia Watchman
A Country Newspaper that is different,
Yet now, with Pierrot smiling at her,
something long disciplined did stir in
er.
“Ready for what?” she demanded
evasively.
“To ski, of course.”
“I told you I couldn’t ski.”
“You told me you couldn’t dance.
If there is anything you lack, there’s
a shop here.”
“Thanks,” said Nancy dryly. “I’ve
seen it.”
The words had no more than pass-
ed her lips when a bell-boy approach-
ed. “Mis Sayles,” he paged. “Miss
Sayles—-"
She beckoned him to her. “Tele-
gram,” he explained.
Nancy ripped the yellow envelop
wide. To read:
Am wiring one hundred dollars
for incidental expenses. Buy what-
ever you need in the way of sports
equipment and enjoy yourself to
the limit. Remembe you are only
ycung once and this is our party.
“Not bad news, I hope,” she real-
ized Pierrot was saying.
She glanced up at him, lovelier than
she guessed.
“Do you believe in fairies?” she
demanded. “Or fairy godmothers?”
“Absolutely,” he assured her.
“Even when they're bald and more
than fifty and wear Masonic charms
and, when they are supposed to be
engaged in conference, are telling you
why they failed to break a hundred at
golf ?”” she persisted.
“They,” he asured her gravely, “can
be either the worst—or the nicest
kind of fairy godmother.”
It was at that second, somehow,
that she realized that he must be old-
er than she had first supposed. Twen-
ty-six or-seven, perhaps. Boyish he
i might be, in manner and appearance,
, Yet there was nothing of the callow
What could be nicer?
incredible things with
: new ambition,
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friend who might be
We
recipient ex-
incredible ease,
like Nancy, spent
most of the time gyrating madly,
riding for a fall. After it came, usu-
ally catapultic, they rose, powdered
like doughnuts, gritted their teeth and
—prepared to fall again. They were
all victims of that strange virus that
affects the neophytes of skiing. And |
80, soon, was Nancy herself, |
but a majority,
Long before dusk settled over the
Sentinels, with an afterglow in the
west and one incredibly clear star
riding above their lofty horizon, a
momentarily eclipsing
had taken possession of
all others,
er.
“I'll master these darn things,” she
assured Tommy as they poled their
way back to the clubhouse, “or die in
the attempt 1’
“You did wonderfully well,” he
told her. i
“Polite—but insincere,” she flashed
back. “All the X’s in the world
couldn’t cover the spots where I fell!”
Not until later, as she bathed, did .
she discover how tired she was. And
again she considered an early retreat
to bed.
“But you musn’t miss the ice car-
nival,” protested Tommy. “Get a cos-
tume and join in.” i
This she negatived. Instead, snug-
gled into her fur coat, she sat on the
side-lines, again a specator. The rink .
was brilliant with vari-colored lights; I
sky-rockets and aerial bombs were |
being set off continually. Then the
band struck up and ‘the costumed
skaters came upon the scene. A rag-
bag of color. |
They circled the rink thrice, then |
ranged themselves along its farther |
side. Nancy caught her breath. An
exquisitely graceful figure, sheathed
in black velvet, short-skirted and with !
|
; here at this season he
{at anything,
a a a
white fur at neck and wrists, swooped
onto the ice.
“She took second at the Olympics
last year,” the woman beside Nancy
remarked to her companion.
A bull-fight on the ice followed;
after that a football e. Then
again a single figure oe out of
darkness to challenge and hold the
eye.
Masculine, this time. No swirl of
skirts but a marvelou cleanness and
length of limb. A slim: ipped, wide-
shouldered surge of power and surety
that, with a breathless speed and
with no apparent effort, defied all
laws of gravity. She caught her
breath again and again as the flying
figure left the ice altogether, turned
in air and came down, gracefully and
easily as thistle-down.
“Tommy Stirling,” the woman next
to her murmured. “They say he's
Olymbic material, although he’s only
been doing figure skating a little
more than a year.’
And swiftly an unathorized yet
authenic thrill ran through Nancy.
. “He’s a millionaire,” woman be-
ss her added, “but quite unspoil-
ed.
And Nancy suddenly felt cold,
somehow.
A dance indoors,
nival. But for that
linger.
“You did a Cinderalla on me last
night,” Tommy reproached, the next
Morning as they met in the corridor.
“Where did you disappear to?”
“To bed,” retorted Nancy. And
added deliberately, “As Cinderella
would have after a day on skis had
she been thirty instead of barely six-
teen.”
He gave her a swift glance. “You
do feel your years don’t you! he
commented. Why ?”
This was unexpected. She had felt
the need of—well, disillusioning him.
Why he had sought her out she could
not guess. That he found her attrac-
tive and so was drawn to her seemed
followed the car-
Nancy did not
x too optimistically feminine an expla-
‘nation for her
# had suggested
B 2s she had lain awake the night be-
to accept, although it
itself to her insidiously
fore
“You might feel your years too,”
she assured him now, if you had to
work for a living as hard as I do.”
Briefly, amusement flickered in his
| eves, quirking the engaging line of his
lips. “Why work so hard, then?” he
suggested amiably.
“Some people do have to,” she ob-
served. “Have you ever worked your
self—at anything 7”
“Now and then,” he grinned. “But
I have never really been convinced
that business should be permitted to
interfere with pleasure.”
Of course he wouldn't be. To come
must have had
not only money at his command but
the leisure as well. Which meant, ob-
viously that he did not work seriously
or without frequent,
casually taken vacations. Unspoiled ?
Hardly, according to her creed.
“Especially,” he was adding lightly,
“at a place like this! Surely you
didn’t come here to think of business ?
Can’t you forget it—altogether ?”
Nancy might have replied that she
had done that at odd moments. But
the truth did not suit her purpose
now. “When it is my whole life—
fills my days and nights—how can
1?” she asked.
“As bad as all that?”
“Why should it be? I can name half
a dozen men of fairly large affairs
here right now who seem to have let
them slip completely from their
shoulders.”
“0, men!” conceded Naney. “Men
can !”
“Why men—more
he asked.
“Pm afraid
he protested.
than women?”
your business experi-
ence is secant!” she replied. “Else
you wouldn’t ask that. A woman in
business can’t hope to win advance-
ment by being just a little better than
the men around her. She has to
buckle down, show herself three times
as capable before she’s given any
consideration.”
She shrugged slim shoulders, pre-
pared to let the matter rest there.
But through her voice ran a thread
of bitterness that did not escape him.
“I suppose that’s so,” he began but
was interrupted.
“Well,” the little deb was demand-
ing addressing Tommy and again ig-
noring Nancy, “what’s on the pro-
gram this morning?”
“I'm trying to persuade Miss Say-
les to take a second lesson in skiing,”
replied Tommy, with a glance at
Nancy.
“Sorry—but I've got letters I sim-
ply must write,” announced Nancy
and, with a smile, definitely detached
herself.
(Concluded Next Week)
a Aseseaes——.
The Orchestra Baton Caused the
Death of Its Inventor,
The orchestra season is again well
under way and the baton is in full
swing. Though simple in construe-
tion this invaluable equipment of the
orchestra conductor was not a simple
invention It even caused the death
of its inventor, the composer Jean
Baptiste Lully.
Until Lully’s time the custom was
for the conductor to tap on the floor
with his foot in Barking time. Lully
while conducting Louis XIV’s band o
' “Petits Violons,” found it wearisome
to mark time with his foot for a long
period, and he sought to find a sub-
stitute for it. One day he appeared
Yejore his orchestra with a six-foot
staff.
At one prominent court function
when Lully was called upon to direct
his band the composer-conductor was
'so intent on making a great im-
ression on his audience that he
DE down the end of his pole with
unwonted exertion. During the ecli-
max of the composition being given
he brought down the pole with such
force that, striking his foot, it caused
a deep wound. Lully was so engross-
ed in his conducting that he paid na
attention to the injury. Blood poison-
ing set in and spread rapidly to the
heart, resulting in Lully’s death. The
pole, or baton, adopted by other con-
ductors, was steadily made less and
less unwieldly until it was brought
down to its present size.
—Subseribe for the Watchman.