San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-11-28
Loveless Marriage Coads
Sandy to Desperate
Resolution.
CHAPTER 10

one NOHuefeQ now 0Cnel
women endured a loveles:
marriage; how they let mer
kiss them when they were
sick with recoil; going on
with it through long, sodden
years.
Was it because things in
side of them really died?
They become dulled even to
resentment?
Then all she had TO hope from the
future was the time when she would
be dsa-ened-when she would become
an automaton? You sometimes see
women like this. They have an ironed
cut look. Once in while they laugh ::
they seem 50 startled as though the
sound from their own lips is an imper-
tinence: an almost forgotten thing.
She would become one of them?
Sandy glanced at her hand resting on
the arm of the chair soft. delicate
hand. The moonlight touched it. made
the skin luminous. She thrust it lic-
hind her-shut her eyes quickly. She
wouldn't face these thOughts.l
She wished to hush the merciless
questions. Why had her parents
wanted this marriage? She didn't
care about money. oh. she loved nice
things, of course. But they'd never
been rich. She had 70 save every
nickel when she wanted a trip to tine
city. Even saving. she usually had TO
wait till some friend was driving up
and would take her along. But she
made an adventure of it. She'd been
as happy as could be. WHY had they
her into it: That's what Bob Mcneil
said.
But how had she herself been so ap-
nallingly stupid: She had imagined
Ben Murillo would sraciously remain
c0urtier after the marriage. He
would leave the whole matter of their
relationship in her hands. She said
several things sounding him out on
this. He s;niled--told her it would be
the one wish of his life TO make her
happy. SO he would 20 on being
charmingly distant lover until such
time as il nleascd her to accept him as
a husband,
She fancied this, And she was
Sandy Mcneil - up 10 the minute:
hard-boiled. She was that wild
Sandy McNeir'-wis; as Sin,
Yet Judith. whom everyone thought
plain and odd and so quiet-Judith
knew. Judith shuddered that anyone
would dream of marrying without
love: love so complete that you ached
with it; you longed for the man to
Etoop down quickly and kiss you. At
the touch Of his lips, Judith once said,
she expected reality. ali sense Of time.
space. hands. eyes 10 vanish. She and
the man she loved would be swept
together in 4 flood OF music and song.
Emotion. beautiful and supreme.
They had cheated her out of this
oh. they bad, That's what her uncle
meant that day he talked in the Twin Z
room TO her father and said the mar
rage would be dea.h for a girl like
Sandy.
1t was inconceivable to her nov
that she hadn't realized this-that she
ndu lhlflfu 4bT sluEit ilbuirAS =
her mother and sisters. They salc
Juditb's kind Of love was a thing Of
the imagination. Marriage was the
same after the first few months, ex-
eept that with a rich man you still
had the money: with n poor man yo1
lad only the drudgery.
In these two moths Of her mar
rage. she'd had all that money could
buy. Shed gone from one end Of the
state to the other. stopping at all the
fine hotels she'd read about. Muri!lJ
had been generous-glad 10 see her
delight. He'd been proud Of the little
stir she'd sometimes caused. He woull
lean over the table and whisper my
WIFE," as though be had created
her.
But he had watched her like j
hawk. She had endured it thinking.
"Oh. that's just his foreign way"
There were several little incidents
that she recalled now with sobbins