The Irish standard., 1904-08-06
THE SIN OF
ANANIAS
BY F. H. LANCAST e r.
Copyright. 1904. by Daily Story Pub. Co. }

| They lived in perfect harmony, yet nei-
| Their tempered with the others individu-
atty. 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 vexing matrimonial ques-
ton:
when all women realize that wife
is not the whole shooting match in a
mans life, we will be done with d.
vorces," predicted the masculine on
lockers.
"When all men make up their minds
to the fact that a husband does not
constitute the horizon as we'll as the
heavens, We shall hear the last of the I'M
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.
II don't feel" Helen said, that the
fact of my loving a 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 feel that it gave him
the right to criticise or control my &C.
tons. I'm 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 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 a triumph when one has to preface
it with 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 year.
1t CHANGED that a friend took him
home Informally to dinner, and opened
the door with ringing: "Won QUIT"
that was met by prompt: ooh, Harry,
I'm so glad!"
IF 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. 81 suppose
he talks over all his affairs with her and
she makes uggestions-gives him ad-
vice and gets miffed if he doesn't take
1t. Good Lord!" And yet, when he en-
tered his own we'll 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 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 of
pride with her, this severe letting alone
of the other sides of her husbands life
She had nc questions to ask; the topic
was alien to her in!erest-ft 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 so
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
AA5AC uO AOoAu uAAuSCll uTGdrllY
of that line of Carlyle's: 1.-THE time to
talk little and that little from the news
papers," Was that the way he and
Helen were drifting. Well, it was her
fault. If it bored her to hear about his
work, surely he could not intrude it upon
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
it came to him from an adjoining room:
"Oh, Harry, you are such comfort.
wonder if a man ever realizes what 1t
means to woman to be able to talk out
all her troubles to him and be laughed
at for her palms," 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 blueo"
And that evening he surprised her with
the demand: