"Well, I'm sure whoever she was, she must have been a tramp, but I'll find out. Marva will have seen who she was. She only talked to me for a few short minutes this morning, but she said they even steamed up the windows of that new car of his. Little tramp was all she could have been.

"No, Ralph rides to school with him sometimes, but they don't mix socially, they have nothing in common. Oh, yes, two completely different groups.

He hardly realized she had completed her conversation and had set toast and eggs in front of him. Unusually quiet, she had become quite pensive. Only a moment before, he was sure as soon as she had a thought she opened her mouth and it fell out into the telephone. No wasted action with her news was meant to be disseminated no matter who it hurt. "The News Must Go Through”—the little Latin phrase had been a gentle chide when his father had hung it over the kitchen extension; now it had become her motto.

"Boy, did old Alex fall into a trap when he gave women a telephone. Must have been some woman pushing him to find a speedier method of getting information around town," he thought.

"Ralph, I said what are you doing after school? I've asked you twice!" "Oh, I don't know; sort of thought I might go swimming up at the lake.” "Now you be careful," she was saying as he drifted back to last night. "It's dangerous up there this early in the season. Not many people go up there in the early afternoon."

"Yes, I know," he nodded and glanced across the newspaper.

Bon-bon fat hung limply in a second chin and puffed up around her eyes. Curlers always adorned her faded blonde hair. Make-up with no lipstick and the faint odor of Blue Mist perfume. "Yes," he thought, "you can tell people by the kind of house they keep.'

"Ralph . . . Ralph! It's for you.

He hadn't even heard the phone ring. He had succeeded in putting it so far out of his mind by now that its presence meant almost nothing to him. "Hello..."

"Hi, sweetheart, just checking to see if you were ready for school. I also wanted to apologize for keeping you out in the car so long last night. No one noticed when we came home the second time, did they?"

"I don't think so; at least the 'agency' hasn't reported it yet."

"She listening again?"

"Always!"

"Still want to go swimming with me after that fabulous evening we had together last night?"

"More than ever.

"Well, Darling, I'll honk in a minute. . . I . . . I . . . Oh, hell, I love you. . . ." "Same here, bye."

"Who was it, dear?" her voice rasped an invasion into the quiet of his misty smile and brought him back to reality. The gleam in her eye told him she was not to be denied.

"Oh, it was Jim. He wondered if I was ready for school and what I was doing after."

"Now, don't you get too chummy with him. Why, I heard only this morning that he was out necking with some cheap little thing right in front of this very house until 4 a.m. this morning. I'm certainly glad you're not like that. . . ."

A cheery smile parted his lips as the screen door slammed the voice inside. The voice faded and the car door chopped off its remaining struggle to reach him. They took each other's hand and said nothing, just drove down the street.

one