The Washington herald., 1914-10-05
THE MARRIED LIFE OF HELEN AND WARREN
By MABEL HERBERT URNER
or 4 Tier Married Life" AuthoE of ~Ths Journal 4 Neg
Ieced WIFE" %Tks Woman Alone" Etc
THEY FIND WAR RATES AND CRIPPLED SERVICE
IN THE LONDON HOTELS
loU1AGM NLl

ren's dinner coat.
Then she made list Of the, soiled
clothes for the laundry. She would
look up one outside-hotel laundries
were always high. Her handker-
chiefs and gloves she washed out in
the basin and hung about the room.
Then came the dreaded task of
washing her hair, which was clingy
and sticky from the sea air. On the
wall by the telephone was the sign:
Ladies' hair dressing parlor on
first floor. Shampooing, 4 shillings;
facial massage, s shillings; manicur-
ing, 2 shillings.
But much as Helen hated to wash
her own hair, she felt that the should
not spend four shillingS to have it
done.
In her own bathroom, with the
spray and every convenience, it was
hard enough, but here, without even
running water, she found it a tor
turous process.
Every time she changed the water
she feared the heavy bowl would
slip from her soapy hands. When
they were here before Warren had
dropped one on the slop jar. She
still had visions of that crashing
catastrophe.
STOPPING over always made her
head ache, and when she straighten-
ed up from the final rinsing water,
she was sick and dizzy.
The mirror reflected her pale face
and dripping, stringy hair. Why
did the English invariably place the
dresser in front of the window? The
glaring light from the unshaded up
per sash would make any one look
hideous.
With a sudden resentful strength
she showed the dresser from before
the window, topping over a bottle
of toilet water. She could have
cried with sheer irritability.
II was not often that Helen gave
way to temper, but now her eyes
filled with angry tears. Her head
throbbed-she was wretched
That her first day in London
should be spent like thisl All the
way over she had wondered what
changes the war had made in the
streets and shops She had planned
her first excursion through Piccadil-
ly and up Oxford street.
And low she had wasted the
fussing over her clothes
and hair. She had given herself a
sick headache and spoiled the whole
day.
A wad of paper lay on the rug
before her. II had served as a
wedge to Tip forward the mirror,
and had dropped out when she
moved the dresser. As she picked
It up to replace it. she caught the
headlines: So. 1
Reads her husbands name among
hose killed thea wandsrs- through
streets insane.
Mrs. w. F. Edwards, of ~ Buck
nghsm road, was found wandering
he streets in a pitiable condition.
Her husband. a lieutenant IN the
Third Lancers, was killed At the
iiege of
The rest was torn off. With a
-uSh there came to Helen the real
zation of her own petty irritability.
Her eyes were still wet with temper
sh tears. She had worked herself
Ip-oYer what?
How much she hadi How deeply
grateful she ought to be-if only
because Warren was coming back
% her at sevenl She thought of this
woman, of the countless women to
whom seven o'clock was now an
hour of anguish. How insignificant
all other worries would seem to
:hem-if only their husbands were
home at seveni
From outside came the sudden
angling notes of a hurdy-gurdy.
The air was God Save the King. >"
Helen looked down to the street
below where a weatherbeaten old
was grinding out the tune
from an organ draped with an Eng
ish flag.
Unmindfui of her wet hair, Helen
;aught up her purse and stepped out
IN the narrow iron balcony. The
woman, who kept an appraising up
ward glance on the windows, saw
Ter and hopefully held out her
Helen had nothing smaller than a
.hilling, but she threw it down. She
lad saved four shillings by washing
Ter hair-and perhaps this old
yoman had a husband in the war!
As she stepped back through the
window it dawned upon her that the
Foman's husband, if she had one,
would be too old for the war. She
vas merely a professional organ
yrinder-a foreign one, too, and the
organ was but a clever
ppeal
Helen's eyes met their amused re-
lection in the mirror. How foolish
y emotional she wasl
A few moments before she had
'een wretched because she had seen
Ierself with struggling hair, in an
light. Then she had
cen swept to an emotional height
y a torn newspaper item. And
ow-
Impatiently she shook back her
air. She would stop dissecting her
motions and waste no more of the
sy. 1t was just two, her hair was
lmost dry, her headache better. She
yould still have time to see some-
hing of the London streets and
noos before seven.