Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 28, 1928 — page 129: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JUST RELAX, PLEASE. jie’s mother had died recently and now the daughter was alone. Benjie wasn’t so young any more. She must be around forty, though she managed to look about thirty. She had been at Annette to come out to the apartment lately, but Annette hadn’t gone. She’d been busy going out with Jerry, and then she had a notion that it was just as well not to see too much of the people you worked with every day. You got enough of them at the shop. Why prolong the agony? Benjie acted kind of queer lately, too, and got on Annette’s nerves more than usual. She was forever moving things and then forgetting what she did with them. Only that afternoon Annette had jumped on her about that. “ Benjie, if you lose that shampoo again, I’ll get you fired!’ she had threatened. She didn’t mean anything of course. But it was a nasty thing to say. And suddenly Annette remembered the look in Benjie’s eyes when she brought the shampoo. It was a hurt, frightened look. An- nette began to feel remorseful, to realize that she had spoken sharply more than once to the quiet, older woman who worked in the next booth, Benjie was looking tired, too. Ma- dame had spoken about it. And you —you couldn’t look tired in a beauty shop. It wasn’t good for the trade. A faint natural blush crept into An- nette’s cheeks under the careful make- up she always wore. Now, what if Benjie took that se- riously about getting her fired? What if the woman was worrying over look- ing older and losing her beauty and maybe her job? Benjie had a nice face. Thin and distinguished looking. She had a nice voice, too, and she was a very patient person. In imagination Annette could hear Benjie’s voice. “Now, just relax, 559 please. Oh, yes, madame’s chin line is much improved. Very youthful, in fact. No, madame, I don’t think the lines show at all worth mentioning. Even young girls have these faint lines around the eyes now. Sports, you know, and motoring so much. They give character really.” The sort of thing everybody said at Mme. Rejan’s. Benjie said it with unusual patience and convincingness in the stuffy booth next to Annette’s. Day after day, day after day! And she’d been worried over her mother’s illness, and never showed it. And now she was alone. “T’ve been darned snippy to Ben- jie,’ Annette confessed to herself as the subway train roared into One Hun- dred and Sixteenth Street. “ I’m going to see her to-night and—apologize. We can have dinner together,” she thought. “I'll find out what she has, and buy some stuff if she'll let me.” She felt mean to have refused Ben- jie’s repeated invitations. “Gosh, she must be lonesome! And I*never even went to her mother’s funeral!” said Annette, with belated self-accusation. iil. ANNETTE hurried up the subway stairs, treading on the heels of a peev- ish woman and apologizing absently. Benjie’s apartment was over toward Lenox Avenue. It would be quite a walk, but An- nette didn’t have the price of a taxi. Only about a dollar in change, and she wanted to buy something for Benjie. To-morrow was Saturday and pay day. “T’ll get some nice grapes and ap- ples,” she decided. “ You can always use fruit, and I won’t wait to see what she has.” She raced across One Hundred and Sixteenth Street and ran down the steps into Morningside Park. Midway down the long stairs she slowed up, half consciously, one of madame’s COMIC OOO KS (C@