, 1923-05-02

ureh, ! and seven years old.
Neither Mcdonald or his wife gave
eonsiueration to the fact that the
ases OF their children might have much
10 40 with the steadily increasing, In.
e'ehency OF their life together. TIL
laet OF the matter was that the chill.
dren had passed babyhood in safety.
ihey were In school no longer were
,hey monopolizing the attention of
their parents, and, consequently, after
al these years, Jane and Mcdonald
"au time TO think about themselves.
Jane was not the sort of person to
think and analyze, but she felt. Her
emotions were headstrong and she was
undiplomatically frank In describing
them. She knew that some essential
elemen had gone out of their mar.
rage. some element she craved. With
something of fear she realized that
she did not love Mcdonald. The urge
which had swept her into marriage
with him, and made their first years
together very sweet and wonderful,
had vanished. This discovery was fol.
lowed by a period of active revolt. She
worked herself into a state of mind
In which she believed her husband
mad become actually repulsive to her,
and, In her headstrong way, she told
him In a storm of tears.
edMcDonald stood aghast. That such
a thing could have happened to him
was unbelievable. II was Incredible
until he sorted over his own feelings
toward his wife and found that he had
reached a state of Indifference toward
her. The glow was gone forever.
They had reached a point which
every married couple must reach-the
moment of reimbursement when they
must rebuild upon a new foundation
or see their structure swept away by
the rising storm. They seemed un-
able to locate a stable foundation upon
which to lay a new cornerstone.
Mcdonald considered the practical
side of the question. The thing, he
told himself, was a fact. Apparently
1t could not be mended, SO there was
nothing to do but try to make the
best Of 1t. The children made any
other cours impossible, and finances
made this course necessary. 1t vas
all he could do to support one estab-
lishment in comfort, therefore, even
had he been willing to do so, he could
not have allowed Jane to leave him as
she seemed to wish to do. He had
not the money to allow her to live
separately in IT dependent depend
ence.
james reactions. however. were
purely emotional. She no longer loved
! Mcdonald. and to love seemed to her
the one essential to life-to love and
to be loved. She awoke bitterly to the
realization that the love which she
loved had not been present In their
home for years. She craved the up
! lift of love, remembering how she had
been borne along blindly upon a warm
rushing wave of love during the first
years or her married life. She want
ed that again. wanted 1t to continue.
The idea of the commonplace was abb
horrent to her; the thought of contln-
uing to live with Mcdonald as his wife
was repulsive. She was young, vivid,
l~ovelier even than she had been ten
years ago. and she felt somehow that
her loveliness and her life were going
to waste !: that she was being cruelty.
bitterly cheated.
Which, If you stop to think Of It, is
a dangerously fertile state of mind.
The first sharpness of realization
became somewhat dulled.5 Life con-
tinued. The household remained in
tact. but always II perched upon the
brink of disaster. Everything was
commonplace, habit. humdrum. II
was %maddening. wearing, n constant
source of Irritation. Chickering's were
inevitable.
Mcdonald settled down grlmly to
the task of holding his family togeth-
err. Of holding his wife. He was es-
sentially fair-minded. He perceived.
regretted. and tried to make the best
of it-but II was not easy. A certain
testiness of disposition added to the
difficulties. As for Jane, h went
along thinking Of herself, holding
herself more or less in suspense, crav-
ing, always craving for the return of
TINT which had vanished forever. IN
Jane had always lone much as she
.bpleased, and Mcdonald had inter
| fered little with her whlms and
amusements. She had her friends.
both men and women. but. John saw
with alarm, her men friends were
narrowing down to one. She golfed
with John Firth. Mcdonald was log
Ical enough to realize the danger OF
II, but also he had the self-rehellious
strain which drove her, sometimes
a AAA