_was_ so attractive! And, well anyways, I waited and he brought out a
letter from his overcoat pocket and it was the very one he had wrote me
first and I had returned it to the hotel clerk.

"Please just open it!" he begged, and I did and nearly fainted because
inside was a letter in Jim's handwriting addressed to me and introducing
Captain Charles Raymond who was with him in France, only being gassed
was now home on leave and would I show him every courtesy as he had
been good to my ever loving husband, Jim!

"And really and truly I wouldn't have been so persistant, Miss LaTour,"
Captain Raymond was saying as I looked up. "I had intended using it when
I got to New York of course. But when they put me in charge of this
entertainment for the benefit of the blind, and I discovered you were
here, I was simply determined to get you to take part in it. Couldn't
you do us just one little dance? It would be such a drawing-card, your
name would. That was all I wanted, really!"

Believe you me I didn't know what to think or how I felt. Did I feel
flat? I did! Did I feel relieved? I did!! So it wasnt a mash at all, and
for a moment I felt a lonelier war-widow than ever. Then I remembered
how Jim said in the note to be nice to this bird, and I could see, now
that I looked at him good, that he was the sort which it is perfectly
safe to be nice to. Not that he didnt admire me, either, but that he was
just as refined as me and more so and was Jim's pal beside. So I says
yes, of course I would dance, and we talked and talked and the sun went
down, and got to be real friends and was it good to hear about Jim,
first hand? <b>IT WAS</b>! And after a while we commenced to walk back toward
the hotel, pushing the chair, and the lights was all lit along the walk
like Fairyland, and also in the shops so they was more like show-cases
than ever. And then I got the second shock of the afternoon because at
ten past six with dinner at seven, there was Ma in the Ocean Lunch
eating griddle-cakes, fish-balls, Salsbury steake and coffee, with a
little strained honey and apple-pie on the side! No wonder she could
diet so good! And I take it to my credit that, since she did not notice
me, I never let on that I seen her, not then nor afterward at dinner
when she refused everything but two dill pickles!

But it wasn't until afterward when I was in the star dressing-room at
the Apollo Theatre, putting on my make-up for the benefit that the real
blow cam