She carried a crumpled newspaper in her hand, and threw it down before him as he looked up with a pained expression.
“Why my dear,” he murmured in a conciliatory tone. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean.”
“Oh! Haven’t you? Don’t tell me you’re not responsible for that.” She pointed to a heavily typed item on the front page.
Mr. Nipperson picked up the paper and read the offending paragraph nervously. He read it aloud as though it was all a complete surprise to him. The item was headed in bold type:
THE ARGUS POINTS WITH PRIDE
Underneath, in slightly smaller type, were the words:
Beginning with the Sunday edition, we are pleased to announce a series of copyrighted, weekly articles which will be featured exclusively by the Argus. Written by an acknowledged leader of thought on the controversial subject of sex relationships among modern youth, these features are comprehensive in scope and bold in presentation. The authoress, forsaking the modern problem novel which has won her wide distinction and a host of readers, has produced a brilliant series of fact articles which will be of undoubted interest to her followers.
Watch for the first of this series next Sunday.
Mr. Nipperson laid the paper down and looked at Nip in mild consternation as he finished the reading.
“Why … why it sounds as though …” he faltered.
“Don’t pull that sweet innocence on me, dad,” Nip said severely. “You’re guilty, and you know you are.”
“Oh, no my dear!” he denied the accusation with shocked emphasis. “Porter must have … somehow …”
“Nonsense,” Nip said vigorously. “You old humbug. I see your fiendish hand behind this. Is … Valerie Ware really going to write something for the Argus?” She leaned forward.
“Why … er … I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Come on, dad,” Nip insisted. “Give me the low-down. How on earth did you persuade her to do it?”
“Well,” Mr. Nipperson capitulated, “it was really Porter’s doing. He persuaded Miss Ware to write the articles. Though we’ve agreed to withhold her identity, and publish only her initials on the articles.”
“I see,” Nip started to gurgle. “And this is how you’re going about the matter of keeping her identity a dark secret?” She pointed to the item he had just read aloud.
“Yes,” he admitted. “We have to give it some publicity of course. However, there’s nothing there which can be construed as divulging her secret.”
“Oh no,” Nip was sarcastic. “By Sunday everybody in St. Augustine will be guessing who she is. I suppose on Saturday you’ll casually mention that she has written Penthouse Passion and Elixir Of Sin?”
“I really have no intention of being so obvious,” he told her stiffly. “The Argus will stand by its agreement to the letter.”
“Oh, I’m sure of that. You’re a regular St. Anthony, and you wouldn’t, for the world, do anything that you could be sued for.” She grinned as she slid off his desk and turned toward the door.
“Then, you’re not angry, my dear?”
“Goodness no.” She waved an airy hand. “Good enough for her.” She flung the words over her shoulder as she went through the door.
Nip was whistling gaily as she peered into the cubbyhole which Bill called his private office. He was sitting at his battered desk, staring at the wall. Nip continued to whistle as she entered.
“Oh! Hello,” he said.
“Greetings.” Nip closed a drawer and sat on the desk, her long legs swinging negligently under his nose.
“I see you’ve done it,” she said.
“Done what?”
“Got Valerie Ware hooked for your newspaper features.”
“Have we?” He resumed his contemplation of the wall.
“That’s not all I know.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No! It isn’t!,” she shot back at him.
“Very well, we’ll consider that settled. You know something else.”
“I certainly do. Did you have a hot date last night?”
He turned and gave her a queer look. “Have you been reading my mail?”
“Who wants to read your old mail?” She was openly contemptuous.
“I didn’t know.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I worked last night.”
“Maybe you did work. The sort of work you like best, wasn’t it?”
“What are you getting at?” Bill asked.
“Where did you and Valerie go last night?”
“Oh! You have been snooping. We ended up at my shack.”
“I hope she taught you something.”
“Perhaps she did,” Bill admitted. “I haven’t reached any definite conclusion yet. Certain aspects continue to baffle me. Drop around later and I’ll try to tell you what I learned.”
“You needn’t feel so set-up over it,” Nip exclaimed. “I was finding out a few things myself last night too.”
“Is that so?” Bill murmured.
“I certainly did,” Nip assured him. “And you’re to blame for it all too.” She glared at him to keep from crying.
“Oh, see here,” Bill protested. “Don’t you start blaming me for something I know nothing about. I’m carrying enough burden of self-reproof today.”
“I’m glad of it,” Nip said. “And it’s your fault that I went out and did what I did last night.”
“All right.” Bill sighed. “I’m the goat. I’ll even be Father Confessor. Go ahead. Spill it. What terrible crime against organized society did you commit last night? I can take it.”
“But I can’t,” Nip said. Then she started to whimper.
Bill jumped up hastily and closed the door. He came back to stand beside her and lay his hand on her shoulder.
“No blubbering,” he said. “I’ve taught you better than that.”
Nip turned a tear-stained countenance up to him. “I’m sorry,” she quavered.
“What’s it all about?”
“Just that.” She tried to smile through her tears. It was a poor effort, and it wrenched at Bill’s heart. “Just that,” she repeated. “I can’t take it.”
Bill sat very quietly for a few moments. He felt like an older brother. A very much older brother. Nip’s face told him more than her words admitted.
“I suppose you want me to guess at just what you mean.”
“I … hoped you would.” She did not meet his gaze.
“All right,” he said slowly, “suppose you tell me about it from the beginning.”
“It began when I found out you had a date with Miss Ware … and that you’d lied about having to work last night.”
Bill winced. “Okay,” he said. “That was the beginning.”
“I knew a girl that was going out on a party with a gang from Jacksonville,” Nip said. “So I just decided to go along. I knew they were a wild bunch, but … but I was tired of being babied. So … so I went with them. On a beach party.”
“I see,” Bill nodded. “What sort of a party did it turn out to be?”
“Well, I didn’t know any of them except the one girl from here. There were ten of them—they brought along an extra fellow for Marge and me—and they were all older than I. And they all talked awful coarse, and they had a keg of beer, and they told dirty stories.” Nip shuddered. She lifted her eyelids to gaze directly at Bill. He was appalled by what he saw there.
“They were … none of us had bathing suits,” she went on. “And somebody suggested a swim about midnight. We were way out on a lonesome stretch of beach. And … and …”
“Go on,” Bill said. “Remember I’m big brother Bill. If I’m going to help you at all, I’ve got to know what happened.”
“Well, they … they had all done it before,” Nip faltered. “I was s-scared when they all began to pair off. It was … moonlight and I … I could see them …” She paused.
“Go on,” he said.
“They were … all used to it,” she repeated. “I g
uess I was … the only one that hadn’t … you know …?”
“The only virgin in a crowd of sex-crazed kids. Go on. What about your date? What was he like?”
“Oh, he was awful, Bill.” Nip shuddered. “I didn’t like him at first. Then I drank a lot of beer, and got so I thought maybe I could like him a little better. Then he started to make love to me before … before we undressed …”
“Don’t say he started to make love to you. Don’t kid yourself. He started to excite you. Arouse your curiosity and your passion. Go on.”
Nip hurried on with her story. “The … the rest of them were all lying around, and he wanted me to swim up the beach with him. I wanted to go with him. I wanted to … know. So we swam up the beach and he … oh Bill! He was so rough! I tried to but I couldn’t! I couldn’t, Bill! It was awful! Oh I … I can’t …” She hid her face in her hands as tears overwhelmed her.
Bill stared at her shaking shoulders compassionately. What a mess a kid can get into when she starts experimenting with sex without any fundamental basis of knowledge, he thought bitterly. And what chance have they to gain that knowledge in this allegedly free country of ours? The entire fount of sexual knowledge dirtied at its very source. The subject bound about by superstition, made complex by fetishes and by an impossible requirement for compulsory ignorance.
He took hold of her shoulder after a time and drew her erect. “All right,” he said. “That’ll be quite enough of that. Dry your eyes and get back that insouciant little swagger with which you are wont to face the world.”
She smiled up at him.
“The only possible bit of advice I can give you, is to pick your men,” he went on gravely. “You must have fallen in with an ignorant rotter last night. Forget him. You’ve nothing to worry about. We’ll have a long talk about it soon, and I’ll see if I can put you straight on anything you still don’t know about.” He smiled at her and gave her a brotherly pat of dismissal.
He wished to God, he thought wearily as she passed out of the office, that his own problem could be so easily solved.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE FIRST ATTEMPT
Vergie read the item on the front page of the Argus that same evening. The day had been intolerably long. The sense of buoyancy of the preceding day had deserted her.
She had stayed close to her room all through the day, fighting her own private battle with what courage remained to her. She took the paper to her room after dinner, and it was there that she read the item which seemed to seal her doom. She had refused to think about the task to which she had committed herself until this moment. Yesterday, after signing the agreement with Bill, she had light-heartedly cast away doubt by a belief that Bill would help her with the articles.
It had seemed to her that a date with him would point the way toward a quiet comradeship from which the articles would form themselves almost without effort.
Today, after the bitter miscarriage of her dreams, she had forced herself to believe Bill would quickly drop the whole matter. Surely, she reasoned, he would no longer believe her to be Valerie Ware. Surely, after discovering her abysmal ignorance on all matters pertaining to sex, he would cease to expect her to write feature articles upon the subject.
She read the announcement in consternation. This latest blow seemed a little more than she could stand. She was entrapped. She closed her eyes and saw a vision of Bill as a mercilessly grinning tyrant, goading her on to self-destruction with a contract which bore her signature.
In her state of mental confusion, she saw no possible escape. Legal documents terrified her. She attached a peculiar solemnity to the mere action of affixing her signature to a sheet of paper.
It was Friday night. Bill had told her the article would have to be in his possession by Saturday noon.
Vergie sat alone in her room and faced the most difficult problem she had yet been called upon to solve. She had contracted to produce a thousand words upon a subject she knew nothing whatever about. And it was evident that the Argus planned to hold her to the letter of her contract.
Vergie had written many short stories. All of which had been summarily rejected. Unread, she supposed bitterly, by the editors to whom they had been offered. She had worked upon a monumental novel in a desultory fashion for many years. Probably it would never be completed. These matters have little bearing upon our story except that they explain why she was not hopelessly appalled by the task now confronting her.
A thousand words! A thousand words along the lines Valerie Ware might write under similar circumstances. She examined the newspaper item carefully.
“… the controversial subject of sex relationships among modern youth … a brilliant series of fact articles …”
These two phrases leaped up at her from the printed page.
She moved about the confines of her room, holding her head in her hands and desperately trying to think. The incidents since leaving Random fled through her mind in a ghastly procession. She wondered if anyone had ever been more poorly equipped to write such an article than she.
But it had to be done. It was a definite obligation. Vergie entertained certain passionate convictions concerning one’s duty.
She sat down in a chair and picked up the worn copy of Penthouse Passion. She studied the cover dully for a moment before opening it. She must write something which the readers of this volume expected. It fell open naturally about midway between the covers, and she read listlessly:
“That’s the way it is,” Eloise went on defiantly. “I’m going to have a baby and Herbert’s the father, and he can’t deny it. And I can tell you the time and place and the posture assumed if you’re interested in details.”
Herbert recovered his poise first. “This is most extraordinary,” he murmured. “Sheer blackmail, of course.”
“Is that so?” Eloise sneered. She was trembling with rage. “You can forget the blackmail angle,” she told him angrily. “I don’t want anything from you. And I promise to blow your dirty guts all over this swell rug if you ever breath a word to a soul that you had anything to do with it. That’s the reason I came here tonight.” She appealed directly to Mona. “To get you to keep him in his own backyard and his private affairs to himself. My God! He should get a zipper instead of buttons.” She laughed hysterically.
Vergie laid the book down with a sigh. And she was supposed to write a column in the manner of the author of the above.
She shuddered as she moved to her typewriter. Her lips were sternly compressed as she rolled a sheet of paper into the machine. She hesitated only an instant before she typed the heading in bold capital letters:
YOUTH LOOKS BACK
Contemporary youth has today reached a turning in the broad highway of progress. It is incumbent upon them to hesitate here, and ponder well the turning they wish to take. Grievous sins of omission and of commission weigh heavily upon their consciences.
There can be no retrogression, but there must be a study of the pitfalls of the past that the dangers of the future may be ascertained and guarded against …
Vergie wrote on steadily for a time. Then she paused and pursed up her lips. The steady flow of words had deserted her. She felt suddenly helpless. Thus far she had set down a series of generalities.
Guidance came to her as she sat before the typewriter. A sense of rebellion gripped her. Here was her opportunity to strike back at the indefinite forces which had gathered against her in her desperate try for freedom. She felt that Bill was mocking at her, and she was given the strength and opportunity to strike back. The typewriter keys started to clack again. Slowly, then faster as her resolution grew more stern. She did not cease until five manuscript pages were covered with double-spaced typing. She tried to smile as she drew the last sheet from the roller and gathered them all up. It was a pathetic attempt at gallantry.
She folded the pages, and found a long envelope which would contain them. She did not want to read what she had written. She was afraid to read it. She sealed the enve
lope with shaking fingers, affixed a stamp and wrote an address with ink.
It was nearly midnight when she slipped out of the house and walked to the mail box on the corner. She put the letter in the box, and turned back to her room.
The manuscript was delivered to Bill just at noon the following day. He ripped it open, without realizing what it contained. Then he whistled, and leaned back in his chair to read it as the heading caught his eye.
He was midway of the third page when he sat up a little straighter and rubbed his eyes. Thus far the manuscript had disappointed him. As his gaze raced along the typewritten lines his mind had been wondering if Valerie Ware could possibly have written it. Had he been mistaken after all? His trained mind worked while his eyes absorbed the import of the writing.
It seemed incredible that Valerie Ware had written such bosh. Two pages and a half of vague allusions to nothings. Five hundred words of stilted abstractions which obviously concealed no clear understanding of what she attempted to say.
He tried to remember everything about Vergie as he read. She had, he recalled, stoutly maintained her identity to the last. Had he been an utter, blind fool?
It was when he entered upon the second phase of her article that he gasped. The paragraph which met his eyes was acidly accusative:
What, then, is the answer? Who is to blame? Who to charge with deliberate misrepresentation and with evil intent in fostering this atrocious habit of wrong-thinking and misconduct in the youth of today? There can be only one answer. Those who seek self-gain by such a course.
To be explicit: These may easily be divided into two classes. Those unattached males between the ages of thirty and forty whom the adolescent girl follows willingly to the depths of sinful depravity which the active mind of the man may devise. This type of perversion of youthful morals may be simply ascribed to the lustful pleasure the man derives from such debauchery.
The second type is far larger, and more sinister …
Bill shuddered as he continued to read Vergie’s sweeping indictment of all the modern writers who fell naturally into the same classification as Valerie Ware. She mentioned none by name. She did make her meaning extremely clear.
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