The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1918-06-21
Confessions
3SN1i&e/s
THE LOVE OF TWO WOMEN.

THE LOVE OF TWO WOMEN.
Il give you my word, Mar
gle, | never intended marrying
YOU" wrote Dick. Don't mis-
take me, dear one, l loved you
entirely and absolutely. but l
knew that 1t was the only manly
thing to do to marry Eleanor.
You see Eleanor and | had
been everything to each other.
and with the impetuousness of
youth, | had claimed her as
mine.
1.-THE whole thing happened
when We were out camping one
summer, and | will always say
that poor Eleanor and | were
the least to blame. A party of
young people were at the camp
and mother had gone with us as
our chaperone.
You know, Margie, with what
responsibility mother would look
after a party of boys and girls.
She always seemed to think that
all the young people she knew
were kind of denatured race, at
least that is the only way can
excuse her for the lax way In
which she looked after us.
THE summer that I was nine
teen years old and Eleanor was
seventeen, we were at the camp.
All the others were about Mol
lies age. Mother was. as usual,
over at the hotel, about ten miles
from the camp most of the time,
and she left the smaller children
in Eleanor's care. l am making
no excuses for myself. was old
enough to have had some self
control, but mother knew that
Eleanor loved me devotedly and
she should have protected her
from her love and me.
But you know, Margie, that
mother always went on the theory
that Just because we were her
children we could do no wrong.
That is why she never would
blame Jack for anything and hon
estly, Margie, l think if you had
not made friend of Mollie, she
too might have made mess of
her life"
Dear, dear Dick, my only re-
gret of it all Is that you did not
tell me all of this as we went along
over the thorny way-and yet
wonder, little book, if l would
have understood then as I do
now. Besides, according to his
code-a mans code-Dick could
not have told me of Eleanor
FaiIIow then, in fact, he says in
his manuscript
II could not even have writ
ten all this about Eleanor Fair-I
low and me to you had you not
known more or less about it'll
years ago. l am telling you the
rest of it so you not only can see
my side Of the story, but poor
Eleanor's. You know she had
lost her mother and her father
had been more or less unap-I
proachable even by his daughter. |
He never forgot he was a Judge
of the supreme court and he
judged everyone and everyone'sl
actions as though he were on the
bench.
"Eleanor's heart was broken
the day she found out l was go
ing to marry you. did write
her, Margie. l was man enough
to do that, not to let her hear
of it from someone else.
THE day after l told you I
loved you and you innocently
took it as proposal of mar
riage, I was the happiest and
most miserable man in the world. |
/ called myself every terrible
name in my vocabulary, for l knew
myself as | was--a cad.
II have often tried to reason |
it out. Margie, and no explana-
ton that l could hit upon has
made me able to see why
should be singled out by fate to
have the love OF two such wo-
men as Eleanor Fairlow and you
lavished on me. You may not
think it, but Eleanor Fairlow
was a splendid woman, dear, and
l ruined her life.
when I wrote her-and I was
man enough to tell her the
whole story-how you had taken
me by storm and how for the
first time I knew that propin-
guilty was the great factor in our
childish interest in each other for
l had now met the woman that
was my mate.
II know now how awful these
words must have seemed to her,
although at the time ! salved myl
conscience with the idea that
nrnhahly she felt the same about |