Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-10

the dance hall, the nursing home and the hos:
pital where Christian lay strapped to his cot.
His recovery was tedious, slow and torturous.
and yet Ruth, who lowered so lovingly over him,
was never up to know the most torturous aspect
of 1t.
month after MONTH the pressure of the secret
jealousy came to be almost unbearable to Chris
tan Evenings, when the ward lights were low
and the patients about him had dropped on to
their troubled sleep, he was forced to lie there,
visicning Ruth in the arms of others. 1t was
impossible to imagine that the men who held
her did not thrill to her nearness as he did.
1t was impossible not to fight down the frenzy.
knowing that even as he lay there, she was de-
sirable to others. It made of him, as the
months wore on, fretful, nervous, irascible
patient, sharp with his nurses, critical, even
cruel in his remarks to Ruth.
THERE came time, however, when Chris.
on crutchcs, was able to leave the hospital:
even able. of an evening, to hobble down,
when assisted by Ruth and sit on the sidelinc in
the dance hall and watch the scene.
1t his idea that this might ease the secret
torture.
On the contrary, it only seemed to inflame IT,
The sight of her, tireless, enthusiastic, playful.
even with the burden of her responsibilities fun
upon her, actually seeming to delight in the act
of the dance, was even more than he could bear.
Poor Christian, in his sense of defeat and In
his love for this girl and in his fear and tor
nent fer her, he was all warped inside and OF
that Ruth knew nothing. She only saw her
MANNED, nervous husband through the eyes of
her desire to serve him and to Gmeliorate, if
possible, the dreariness of the semi-invalidiSm
that seemed to stretch YEARLY ahead
BY now. the hurting jealousy of Christians
began to take a certain menace. He plainly
detected that in Ruths dancing there was a
jcy-of-life.
There was one Spanish fellow in particular,
who used to spend his entire strip Of tickets in
dances with Ruth toward whom she seemed 20
lift a face as dewy as flower Sitting on the
side line with his crutches beside him. slow
smoldering hats began to burn in the manned
husband of Ruth.
The two things that Christian loved best in
life. that small, dancing mother and the small
child were in peril. And somehow, to the fever
ish brain of the troubled young husband the
Spanish fellow who came to the dance hall once
or twice week began to be the symbol of that
peril.
One evening there occurred in that dance hall
what seemed miracle, although medically, end
in the colder annals of science, it is known as
"trauma."
In the midst of what was the routine per-
Torrance of Ruth dancing around the floor in
the arms of the young Spaniard Christian, IN
able to bear any longer what seemed to him the
aInOrOuS Clasp OF tneSe TWO, JcTke0 n1n1Sel1 10
his feet and forgetful of his spine, rushed with
out his clutches out to the center of the floor,
hurting them apart.
In the confusion and the unpleasant notoriety
CT the moment, one outstanding fact was re-
vealed to Ruth Christian was standing erect
and strong on his two feet. Christian was able
to walk off that dance floor without the aid of
clutches.
THAT was the beginning; the beginning Of .
great many things in their little household.
Also it revealed to Ruth the pitiful, tortured
mental life that had been her husbands
throughout the months. More than that, it re-
vealed to her the power of his mind over the
matter of his body.
Christian, who walks as normally as any enc
now. has paying position with a commercial
house; Ruth is now able to carry on a life she
loves even over and above the life Of dancing.
She is mistress of little home and of the
day-by-day destiny of two growing children.
Copyright, 1920