The Harlem News

"Faint Heart"
By EVELYN GORDON
McClure Newspaper Syndicate
WNU Service.

MILT MARRICK'S fingers drummed with soft impatience on his desk.
Then he got up and for the tenth time stopped to listen at his open door.
No, she wasn't coming yet. Past nine now.
Ruth Royal during the two years as his secretary in the Marrick Advertising agency never had been late. Until this morning.
And this morning of all mornings!
When fate lay in what would be revealed in her lovely face when she would emerge through that door connecting their offices.
Would it be yes, or no?
For months he had been like a timid swimmer atop a springboard, but with insufficient courage to take the actual leap.
And now it was as though he had positively cast off by proxy. Because of yesterday; yesterday, when he had walked firmly out and bought an expensive engagement ring.
He wrote a letter then and placed it inside the velvet case beneath the ring.
Now, how to get it to her? It was like a voice from Paradise when on the way out at five, Ruth said, "My mother's with me for a week. She's keen to meet the man I'm working for.
Couldn't you drop into the apartment?"
Ruth had the merriest fire crackling in the grate when he arrived.
Some one said, quietly. "Miss Ruth, the coffee's served."
And Milt decided that when the ladies preceded him to the dining room he would place the precious box on her pillow as he passed Ruth's bedroom door where she would discover it.
He had not slept, thinking of Ruth and of Joe Allerton--he'd seen them together lately more than enough.
The electric light button clicked in the adjoining room!
Instantly Milt's eyes focused on the connecting door. His heart leapt like a racehorse taking final hurdles in competition with other aspirants. He yearned for the light of acquiescence on her face. Some one was with her.
"Let it be anyone but Allerton," he prayed.
"It's serious, Ruth." The voice was low, secretive: and Milt knew that voice--Joe Allerton's. "We've simply got to get together," (he failed to catch the next pleading words but read his own suspicions into them) "otherwise the bottom will drop out of everything."
After a curt "Good morning,"
she said firmly:
"Let's get these orders straightened out first, I've had so many complaints about mistakes. Her words all pertaining to business, bumped up in a huddled mass in his brain through a telephone buzzer on Ruth's outer desk. She hastened to answer it.
And suddenly he was alone again when the door opened gently. Some one peeped in, then entered noiselessly.
Milt's face paled. "Why--Anne!"
His eyes were gray clouds.
"You!
What have you come here for?"
"I'm glad you're going to marry her, Milt.
Any girl would give her ears to marry you.
You've always been so fine, staunch."
She hesitated as though her throat were blocked.
"Only -she doesn't know yet."
"You see, Milt, it's my one bad habit.
I'll always steal. Because I can't seem to help it, somehow. I took Miss Royal's ring: found it on the pillow when I went in to turn the bed down.
I go from place to place, you know. But I left there this morning."
An aching void for the girl he had once adored gaped in Milt's gentle heart. He had helped her so many times to escape punishment.
Anne opened her purse, took out the square-cut purple box with reverent care; put it safely into Milt's hands.
It was only then that her dark eyes misted. "Don't do it this way, Milt,"
she begged. "I mean--not the writing part.
Tell her. She'll like it better, Milt.
It seems sort of cowardly to do it this way."
Milt looked hard into her thin face.
"Thank you, Anne," he said with difficulty.
"I will."
Suddenly he straightened up to his full six feet and slapped his thumb over the buzzer mightily.
Ruth came running in.
Her eyes were red, strained.
Without a doubt