Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-02-08
THE WIFE CHEATER
A New Romance
BY HAZEL DEYO BACHELOR
CHAPTER LIV
The Final Test

~ H, that dance! l shall never forget it!
1t wasn't that 1 looked better than
~ ever had before in my life. I don't
even believe that my dress was as beautiful
as the one / had selected for that memoir
able occasion shortly after our marriage,
when Norman had been able to see ne%one
but ALICE. But there must have been
something else about me, something that
up to now I had lacked.
Nothing seemed to take away the effer-
vescence that kept bubbling up in me.
I Not even when Edith confided to me that
Herbert was to be at the dance did I feel
!, any chagrin. l somehow felt that no mat
ter what happened, I should be equal to it,
and I wasn't disappointed.
Alice had never been more radiantly,
wickedly beautiful. Laura Benedict had
never sparkled more deliciously, and Edith
with new sweetness about her, a sub
dued happiness that made her seem more
than ever like a flower, was perhaps the
lovelfest of all, but it didn't seem to mat
ter.
When Norman danced with Alice l
danced with the man who had trailed her
from the west. And this time my eyes did
not follow Norman around the room to
see how he was responding to Alices
charms. Instead l looked up into my part
nerS eyes. l apparently had ears for moth
Ing but what he had to say, and once
when Norman and Alice passed near us
and I happened to glance in their direc-
ton, my heart leaped at the expression
on Norman's face. He was looking at me,
and there was an expression of doubt in
his eyes as though he were not quite sure
of me- 1t fired my blood like champagne,
and L redoubled my efforts in my partner
behalf and deliberately avoided looking
at Norman again.
The result was that in a few minutes
Norman cut in on us. He caught me al
most fiercly against his breast but even
while I thrilled to the possessiveness of
his clasp, l feigned indifference and re-
fused to meet his eyes,.
1t was the same when Herbert and
sat out dance on the veranda. We had
been talking about Edith, and I could
see that although Herbert had not made
up his mind in any way his opinion of her
had changed. Herberts brief flare of
recklessness had died away, and he was
once more the slow-thinking, conventional
man that he had been when I had first
known him. He carefully avoided any ref
erence to the past, and our conversation
couldn't have been more commonplace, but
when Norman came out to claim me for a
dance, his whole attitude bespoke jealousy
and again Thrilled.
But for me the browning joy of the
evening came when he entered my room
after the danae and sat watching me with
narrowed eyes as L brushed my hair.
Come here he said finally, and his
voice was not quite steady.
[ pushed back my hair and peered at
him around it. Every sense in me was
clamoring with the urge to do as he said,
but instead I smiled and said provoking
ly, I'm busy
Instantly he had leaped to his feet and
was across the room in two strides. He
lifted me up in his arms as if I had been
a baby, and with my hair tumbling over
his shoulder carried me over to the chair
and sat down with me crushed against his
breast.
JOAN" he said huskily. Joan, you
witch-woman. Do you know you have
driven me quite mad tonight?"
His tone sent delicious thrill through
me, but forced hooking note into my
voice as I replied:
why, Norman, you're behaving scan
dalously unlike a husband"
Instantly his arms tighthened. "But I
am your husband" there was a ring of
triumph in his voice as he spoke "And I
intend to enforce that right of possession
that the word implies. His lips were on
mine before he had spoke the last word
but his kiss was the kiss Of a lover who
is not quite sure of the woman he had won,
and l was content.
(THE END