THE FEMININE VIEWPOINT

by and about women

An Incident

by Diana Sterling

floor

Jan tossed her coat over the straight-back chair. Without taking the time to look through her mail she switched on the floor lamp above the phone; squatted Indian fashion on the green carpeted floor and balanced the phone between her crossed legs. She sported the functioning half of the telephone between shoulder and ear. "I'll give Phyl a ring. Maybe she can keep me company till Dellie gets in." But the thought hardly had time to scamper across her mind when she put the phone down abruptly.

Phyllis was certain to be in her apartment, and the invitation almost certain to be accepted. Still. . . it might not. And it was just this doubt that made the inviting desirable.

Phyllis had lately become a friendly part of their household;

one

animated the place while Dellie went into one of her books, "keeping up with the market, up with the market," Dellie would say, "an effort to know what I'm selling in my shop." Jan smiled to think of Dellie tucked comfortably in her easy-chair, rimmed reading glasses framing her eyes, while she and Phyllis played cards on the floor. floor. Their hands touched sometimes; sometimes, eyes. "Only last nite. Jan picked up the phone again. "What harm would there be if I called? This place is so quiet it gives me the creeps. Too early for quiet. What harm if I had company till Dellie got home?" The phone was replaced by the time the last phrase of that thought was half formed.

.

Radio music came quietly from Mr. Jamison's apartment next door; a motorcycle churred by. Farther

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