New-York tribune., 1922-11-05
A Rotter and His Wife
BY Isabel Paterson

nor repentant; but his vices have worn
him out and his light women thrown
him out. He comes to his wife for
blackmail. A very consistently bad
egg; Mrs. Caldecot knows him well
enough to know that appeals to his
Sense of decency will be vain, because
he has none. She pays up to save her
former lover from being dragged into
1.-THE divorce courts. It would ruin
Rodbourne, not only with his young
wife, but with his parliamentary con-
stituency.
But that is not all. Mrs. Caldecot
has another admirer, dry and tena-
cious barrister who has pursued her
for twenty years. Desperate with the
long. wait, the barrister, Britford, uses
the deplorable Godfrey and is used
by him to compromise Mrs. Caldecot
still further, and so force her to a
divorce and remarriage with Britford.
Godfrey Caldecot decides that after
all he will not sue for divorce, but will
insist upon Mrs. Caidecot taking him
back as her husband.
And she does. Now that is too
much, and it is beyond everything
when she pats him on the head pity
ingly and says: "Poor old Godfrey"
The patient Griselda could not be more
abject; all the sympathy which has
| accrued to Mrs. Caldecot for her gal
lantry in losing fight is swept away
by her final surrender. And 1t is not
| IN character, either; any woman with
an ounce of self-respect would have
seen all three Of her gentlemen friends
! in much warmer climate before being
disposed of in this fashion. Let the
| roof fall in, throw Godfrey out Of the
second-story window, "sink Rome" but
no surrender under such abominable
coercion. Mr.. George throws much
more lurid light upon the psychology
of HIS countrymen than upon women
in contriving such o situation and such
an issue, and he justifles to the hilt
| the widest fights Of English femin-
| ism.
Nevertheless, there is. one highly
dramatic situation and several crisply
| amusing and wholly lifelike encoun-
ters before we come to this sad end.
And then 1t is all such delightfully."-
easy reading. Mr.. George has rare
talent for making pleasing pictures for
the inward eye; his characters have
substance, form and color; they speak
with a. deceptively naturalistic accent,
which is really art, because, unlike life,
their conversation never becomes bor-
ing. They are vivid; one takes sides
with them, cares what happens to
them. One quarrels with their creator,
not alone for his failures, but because
his successes seem to make failure un-
necessary. He does 30 we'll: why
should he not do better7
srUgBLE. BY George Looms Double
day. Page s. Co.
We refuse to believe that human
| beings can live the existence which
George Looms depicts In his "Stubble." !"
Any newspaper reporter could And
more feeling. more depth, more ro-
nance and struggle In the lives Of
these people than has Mr.. Looms. He
has rambled along, never letting the
reader feel that he understands the
characters passing before him ON the
printed page: he has stated his tale. IL
such it can be called, in such cut
and dry manner that one would believe
he were wading through the news
paper reports of the lives of these
people, never catching q glimpse into
the why's and wherafores or the con-
trolling forces which brought about The
results which are presented in aStub-
ble." A reader ss bored and eT.
aspsxatad hafsse shs book 10 6nished.