The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-10-13

Something Tn the poignant sorrow | of her tone went straight to their | hearts, and for the first time Peter had an idea of the real suffering she | had borne .If I had a child. even, if Martin needed me-" Cherry said then II | might be differentf But I'm only burden to him His letter doesn't sound as if he thought of you as burden" Alix sug- gested mildly | he has a different tone" Cherry ex-'l plained, and Peter said. with glance almost of surprise at his wife: | ''Its an awully difficult position for a woman of any pride. dear!" | Alix kneeling to adjust the fire. as she was constantly tempted to do, met his look and laid a soot-streaked hand on his knee
 "Pas. dearest. of course it is. But-s and A1ix looked doubtfully from eae to tine other but divorce II is hateful thing!" she added, shak- Il ing her head. fit never seems to me juStif1ab1e!'
 Divorce is an institution Peter II said You may not like it any more II it has it's uses"
 People get divorces every day." Cherry added. Isn't divorce better than living along in marriage-wi with out love?''
 Il "Oh& love." Alix said scornfully. Love is just another name for pas | the time!" is one of the happy marriages. Cher ry said. 'It might be very different 1 if Peter weren't Peter!
 | As she said his name she sent him her trusting smile: her blue eyes shone with affection. and the exqnlslte curve of her mouth deepened. Peter l smiled back. and looked away in a liz 1 tie confusion.
 "I can't imagine the circumstances | Iv,ft 1Nryn q d Peter!" Alix summarized it, triumph antly.
 And Martin 9" Peter asked. l An well; I didn't marry Martini his wife reminded him quickly. "I didn't promise to love and honor Mar l tin in sickness and health; for richer. George,' Alix interrupted herself, in her boyish way. those are terrific words, you know. And promise is a promise!" believe people ought to separator
 sNonsense!" Peter said.
 "But you said-trat Martin
 ''No, I'm not speaking of Martin now,''
 well. wouldn't that come under worser'?' AIx asked.
 But, my child" Peter expostulated kindly My dear benighted wife there is such a thing as soul-a mind-a personality! To be tied to well. to a coarsening influence day after day is living death! It is worse than any bodily discomfort" l 'I don't see it!'' Akx persisted. II think there's a lot of nonsense talked about the fammy oncompreezy-but it seems to me that if you have home and meals and books and friends and the country to walk in, you"
 "Oh, heavens. Alix; you don't know what you're talking about" Cherry interrupted her impatiently. Some times I think your marriage is as as queer as my own
 Nothing more was said for several days upon the subject of a possible ] divorce. One afternoon Peter crossed 1.-the porch. tired and hot, and found everything apparently deserted. He dropped into a chair and was still breathless from the rapid climb up- hill, when stray notes from the piano | reached his ears; a chord a carefully - played bit of bass; then chord again. Then slowly. but with dainty gan to play a strange little study of Schumann. Peter knew it was Cherry, because Alix's touch was al ways firm and sure; more than that no longer ago than last night, and he remembered now that Cherry had asked him just what it was. He experienced as sudden and pleas
 
 lyze it. But he had been ruffled in spirit moment before; A1ix had known he was to come on this train and had not met him with the car; and while he really did not mind the walk up. he disliked the feeling that they had entirely forgotten him.
 Presently there was silence; then Cherry tried another little study and finished it. and the hot summer still i ness reigned again.
 With sense that he had been doz- ing, if only for few minutes, Peter opened his eyes. Framed in the i cabin doorway, poised like a butterfly against the dark background of the room stood Cherry. He knew that she had been standing so for some time. for full minute; perhaps more.
 They looked at each other in a si- l fence that grew more and more awk ward by great plunges. Peter had time to wish that he had kept his eyes shut; to wish that he had smiled when he first saw her-he could not have forced himself to smile now to wonder how they were ever to speak - where they were rushing rushing-before she turned noiseless- ly and vanished into the dim room
 Peter lay there. and his heart pounded. A moment ago he had been a tired man, fretted because his wife forgot to meet him; now there was something new in the world. And rapidly all the world became only background, only a setting, for this extraordinary sensation. The hills be- yond still Swam in the hot sunlight, the mountain rose into the blue but the lght that changes all lie lay over them for Peter.
 He said to himself that it was awk- ward-he did not know how he could enter that door and talk to Cherry, And yet he knew that that meeting of Cherry, that the common exchange of words and gfances, that the daily trihing encounters with Cherrp were all poignantly significant now.
 He felt no impulse toward hurry. He might sit on his porch another hour, might saunter off toward the creek. It mattered nothing; the hour was steadily approaching when -she must reappear.
 AhX drove in. full of animated apologies. She managed the car far better than he, and no thought of an accident had troubled him.
 The evening was warm, one of the two or three warm evenings that marked the height of summer even in the high valley. There was not a breath of air in the garden; roses and