The leader., 1904-08-06
THE SIN OF
ANANIAS
By F. H. LANCASTER


r EVERYBODY said that it had been an
eminently successful experiment.
They lived in perfect harmony, vet nei-
ther tempered with the others individu-
ality. Jim Carson was precisely the
Jim Carson he had been before mar
riage His wife lived the same free life
she had led when single. Psychologists
saw in this the triumphant vindication
of the much smiled at theory of two lives
in one; optimists heralded it as the So
luton of that yexing matrimonial ques-
ton:
when all women realize that wife
is not the whole shooting match in a
mans life, we will be done with di-
vorces," predicted the masculine on
lockers.
when all men make up their minds
to the fact that husband does not
constitute the horizon as well as the
heavens, we shall hear the last of the un-
happy married woman" retorted the
women. And they openly envied Helen
the freedom with which she rode and
read. walked and wrote.
AS for the two married people-they
were merely living up to an agreement
made before marriage,
81 don't feel" Helen said, that the
fact of my loving man gives me the
right to say how many cigars he shall
smoke, what colored ties he shall wear,
or where he shall spend his evenings.
Neither should l feel that it gave him
the right to criticise or control my ac-
tons. I'm a sane human being, and ex-
pect TO be treated like one"
Jim heartily Endorsed the decree.
Sure" he said; 81 always thought it
beastly the way wives paw over their
husbands privacy. Where are you
going, when are you coming back; why
didn't you do thus and SOP swear,
Helen, that sort of thing would drive me
as mad as a halter"
Helen had agreed, saying: 1.-TWO
perfect spheres can touch only at a
single point" And she had been very
careful not to paw over his privacy"
not to encroach beyond the point of con-
tact. Their interests fused in the home
life. There they met on common ground
and enjoyed the easy relations of love
and trust. Outside the home their
lives were separate and distinct. No
questions were asked, and only upon
rare occasions were condolences volun-
teered. 1t is not easy to tell the news
of triumph when one has to preface
it with a long explanation. BY the time
one gets to it, all the pith has gone out
| Of the victory. Jim realized something
of this for the first time when he had
been married about a year.
1t CHANGED that a friend took him
home informally to dinner, and opened
the door with a ringing: won out!"
that was met by prompt: ooh, Harry,
I'm SO glad!"
eff were to go home with such hail
as that Helen would suspect my sanity
Jim reflected, as he pulled his mustache
| and talked to Harry's wife. II suppose
! he talks over all his affairs with her and
| she makes uggestions-gives him adj
vice and gets miffed if he doesn't take
| it, Good Lord" And yet, when he en-
tered his own well appointed home, took
possession of his easy chair and dropped
into their usual semibooky talk he was
| feeling resentfully that his wife was not
as near to him as his sweetheart had
been. He made an abortive attempt to
| talk TO her about his downtown affairs
but it was like beginning tale in the
middle, or rather like talking in an I'M
known tongue. Confidence is a thing
of slow growth Mutual understanding
and sympathy is what two lives may
build up day by day, but it cannot be
seized upon suddenly. And Helen did
not help him. 1t had become point oil
| pride with her, this severe letting alone
of the other sides of her husband s life
| She had no questions to ask; the topic
was alien to her interest-it was alien
to her. She had known nothing of the
struggle. How could she understand
the force of the failure,or the flush of the
triumph. These facts that were of sc
| much moment to him inevitably ap-
peared to her as rather bare summing
up of not very interesting details. She
listened, of course, with that air of at
tention so easily assumed by cultured
people, but Jim was not deceived. He
gave up the attempt after a difficult
half hour and went back to books, but
when he sat alone with his cigar that
night he found himself thinking drearily
of that line of Carlyle's: 1.-THE time to
talk little and that little from the news
| papers" Was that the way he an6
Helen were drifting Well, it was her
fault. If it bored her to hear about his
work, surely he could not intrude itupon
her. That was all.
But it was not all. A few weeks later
he found himself again in Harry's home
listening to the voice of Harry's wife as
1t came to him from an adjoining room:
ooh, Harry, you are such a comfort.
wonder if man ever realizes what IL
means to woman to be able to talk out
all her troubles to him and be laughed
at for her pains" Then he heard Harry
laugh-a tender little laugh--and de-
cided to postpone his call.
II wonder if Helen ever has troubles
or worries, or if she ever gets blue?'
And that evening he surprised her with
the demand:
MooNSHINERS IN MISSOURI.