The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-26
LIE I TIERS OF
TWO WOMEN
Kate, Too, Strikes a snag.
BY ZOE BECKLEY.

New York, Sunday Afternoon.
Well, Maize. old girl, dontcher-
care! Just buck up and stumble on
and when the BARN comes all the diff
ferences and difficulties will seem like
foolish dream, too trifIing to remem-
Der. You're representative now, re-
member, and Curtis is, after ALL a good
deal of an inexperienced kid. You
yourself said, He's only a year and a
half younger than / am, but years
and years younger in experience of the
world, held in leash as he has been by
an adOring mother"
He has been trained in selfishness
but I think it will work out of his
system as he gets older and has re-
sponsibilities, just as an awkward,
untidy boy gradually grows into q
polished gentleman.
And, May, it IS hard for a rugged
healthy male creature to appreciate
what we may call infirmities of sex,
such as you're undergoing now.
Why, even I am up against some
what the same sort of thing. Paul,
for instance. is gifted with a social
body that nothing seems to impair.
He can work ten hours a day, eat an
enormous dinner, work a couple OF
hours more after it and then be ready
for an evening of socia bility or festi-
witty or physical exercise that simply
appals me.
When 1 get home from the grind
at the office land Talbot is a perfect
old devil to work for, grouchy and
hard, but I make game of it and
so get along) I'm about all in some
DAYS. Have 1 told you we're keeping
house now in a darling flat and Paul
has a really good job in the ad. de-
partment of the international Maya
zine?" Well, that parts all right, but
the thing kills me is PauPs friends
Highbrows! Literary personages;
Poetsi Artists! People with a cause!
People with a mission!
They nearly scare me to death,
Nav, 1 never felt such an ignoramus
in my life. l never pretended to
know much Now I'm beginning to
realize just how little 1 do know.
But what I'm getting at is the awful
failure I'm afraid I'm going to make
with Paul's friends. AS PauPs wife.
And I'm afraid of Paul Mentally.
1 mean Beside him I seem sort of
cross between an echo and china
doll I am utterly at loss to talk
to his highbrow friends. find
haven't read Haeckel and Ibsen and
strindborg. And I can only remem-
Der stray passages from Ellen Key
and Edward Carpenter. I stammer
| and blush and feel like fool Then
I want to run away and cry and be
among my own kind of people, not
these serious 1olk VINO all seem 10
have purposes in life, and know
everything.
But you'll never learn unless you
jump in and get used to it, says
| Paul.
II know" 1 answer, with sinking
| heart, but I'm so tired at night
when I come home that by the time
| dinners out of the way I'm ready
| just to be quiet It's such an effort
| to work nv brain"
We'll, bless its heart, it needn't
work its brain" says Paul. IT'S do
ing it's part, and more than doing it.
Don't worry. You suit me just as
you are, Kit"
| But the worry is there just the
same, Maizie. If l don't stir myself
and make the effort Paul will go his
way with his friends and we will
| drift apart. Friends are life to Paul.
And I'm an unsocial creature. Tele-
graph me instantly the kiddie comes.
KATE