The Girl Next Door (Crimson Romance) Read Online Free

eyes, almost hating them for their clear sight. If only she could give them to Pete!
    His train was due at ten o’clock. She got under the shower, towelled herself vigorously, and reached into the closet for the cherished frock she had guarded so jealously for Pete’s homecoming. But even as she touched the crisp pink pique, with the white buttons marching down the front, the little white cupcake of a hat, the brown and white sports pumps, she drew back, and once more her heart was twisted with pain.
    She had yearned for the moment when she could stand before Pete, in all the glory of being grown-up, and see the look of delighted surprise in his eyes. His letters had told her that he still thought of her as a long-legged, coltish brat with braces on her teeth and carrot-colored hair. He wouldn’t know that her hair had darkened until now she wore pink and it was vastly becoming. He wouldn’t know that her skin was clear and fresh, faintly tinged with a very becoming tan. Pete wouldn’t know anything about her. And suddenly it seemed to her an unbearable thing that to him she would always be just an awkward, freckle-faced child.
    No, it wouldn’t matter to Pete what she wore. Shorts, slacks, a peasant-dirndl such as she wore for every-day around the house, a party frock all white and silver and buoyant above small silver slippers — whatever she wore, however she looked, she would always be to Pete a kid in a gingham play suit… .
    Her mother’s voice called up to her:
    “Betsy, aren’t you ever coming down for breakfast?”
    “Be right with you,” she called back, trying hard to sound gay and casual.
    She got into a blue and white print dress left over from last summer. It had faded a bit in the wash, and was one of the cotton dresses she kept for work in the garden, or when she was “playing around” with the gang on pursuits that did not require formal dressing. She brushed her hair back carelessly, made a face at herself in the mirror, and went down the stairs.
    George, standing with Edith at the door, was leaving for the office. He grinned at Betsy.
    “Hi, chum,” he greeted her. “You look about ten years old.”
    She tried to smile at him, muttered something, and went into the dining room. Edith and George exchanged anxious glances.
    “Oh, how I’ve dreaded this day!” Edith confessed.
    George nodded. “I know. Thank the Lord it’s only twelve hours long. His train gets in at ten?”
    “Yes. Mrs. Marshall said he’d rather not be met with a reception committee or anything, that he just wanted to come home as though he’d been away for a short trip. I guess his nerves are pretty well banged up,” said Edith.
    “Then the kid won’t be there?” asked George hopefully.
    “Nothing short of a broken neck could keep her home.”
    George sighed; then he kissed the top of Edith’s head and said, trying hard to be gay, “Well, we’ll have to look on this as a sickness. We pulled her through typhoid, remember? And double whooping cough, and a few less serious childhood ailments. I guess we can see her through this.”
    “I hope so,” said Edith, and managed to send him away with a smile.
    She watched until he turned to wave to her, and then, the morning ritual complete, she went back to the dining room. Betsy was pushing one of Edith’s nut-brown waffles about on her plate.
    “What’s the matter with that waffle?” Edith asked.
    “Don’t be a dope. Nothing’s the matter with it. It’s super — same as always,” answered Betsy abstractedly.
    “Then eat it, darling, while I fix you another one.”
    “Oh, for Pete’s sake — ” Betsy caught her breath and paled a little. Secretly, she had always enjoyed the absurd expression which her world accepted simply as a mild expletive, but which, to her, always held a romantic flavor. She avoided her mother’s eyes, and went on, “I’m getting too fat in all the wrong places. Waffles have calories, or something. I’ve got to diet.”
    “I