Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-02-03
THE, WIFE CHEATER
A Nerv Romance
BY HAZEL DEYO BACHELOR
CHAPTER LII
A Husbands Ri0hts

/ lay there in The darkness going over
49, in my mind everything that she had
told me.
| should have been happy for Norman had
come back to me, but / was not happy, be-
cause Edith, with that uncanny knowledge of
the world that she seemed to possess, had
made it impossible for me to ever tell Nor
man how 1 really felt
l had a longing to start afresh with him.
[ wanted to tell him how impossible it would
have been for me ever to have run away with
Herbert l did not want him to believe l
had ever really intended doing it, and it
seemed to me that L would never be at peace
with myself until [ told him this.
l told Edith how I felt, anu she shook her
head quickly.
"Never!" she exclaimed vehemently. eff
you do that you'll have the whole thing to
go through with at some time in the future
L drew in sharp breath, "Oh, Edith l
gasped. do you realize what you're asking
me to do?p
Jean, you want AOrr-an's love, don't you?'
she asked quickly.
You know l do"
Then be sensible, and face things as they
are. You know as we'll as l that Norman is
at heart trifler He doesn't mean to cheat
you of the things that are yours by right,
but he has done that very thing and he'll do it
again unless you keep the upper hand. Nor
man feels now that his rights as husband
have been threatened. It's the one thing a
man can't stand, and it's the one thing that
will help you to hold him in the future take
my word for it. Just SO long as a man can
feel that his wife is his own and that she loves
him too much to look at another man, just so
long does he feel it safe to daily but the min
ute his rights of possession are threatened, he
begins to wonder if it's worth while taking
the chance. Do you see what | mean?"
I nodded. / couldn't trust myself to speak
for I felt very near tears. 1t seemed as
though 1 were taking sides with Edith
Nd Gil
at heart.
Edith tried to make me promise before she
left me that night that l would follow her
advice. I said l would think it over, but
after she had gone, 1 realized that l might
just as well have given her my word. In spite
of my resentment, l recognized the common
sense in her argument There was no need
of my trying to idealize Norman AS Edith
said, he was after all trifler at heart, and
no matter how strong the impulse to unbur-
den myself to him, [ knew that l simply
couldn't afford to take the chance.
| wondered how Edith knew SO much
about these things. Was it because she be
Ionged to the new generation, and did the
younger set look at life with clearer vision
than we did? Edith wasn't so very much
younger than l was, but she seemed much
more sophisticated. | knew that all the
while she was giving me advice on how to
hold my husband, her heart was really busy
with her own problem although we had said,
nothing about it. I know that she loved Her
bert Livingston but l also knew that hope
less as her case looked at present Edith
would eventually have her way with Herbert.
She was the kind Of a woman who would al
ways have her way with men, while women
like me would always suffer and agonize be-
cause of too active conscience.
"You're not the kind of a woman who can
pay him back in his own coin" Alice Will
son had said. Well / had paid him back in
his own coin, and although I was really not
that kind of woman, I must keep up the sub
terfuge and play the game. 1t was all in the
bushes of holding a husband.