Henderson daily dispatch. (Henderson, N.C.) 1914-1995, 1937-03-15
CHAPTER Al

| WHEN JANET left Harriet
Caseys luncheon, she telephoned
her apartment and told her maid
to ask Mr.. Paynter to wait if he
were in before she arrived.
Then she got in a taxi and told
the driver to break all speed limits
getting to her apartment house
across town.
When she got there, she discov-
cred that Joel had not even been
at home. But she had guest.
Mrs. Knitting was in the living
room, Janet's maid told her.
The last person in the world
that Janet wanted to see that day
was Amelia KNITTING. She was a
fluttery little thing that Janet had
met somewhere at bridge and she
had been bothering Janet for
weeks to join her committees, to
run over for tea". After weeks
of telephone calls, she had assumed
the air of an old friend.
Guess what ?" she said to Janet
and Janet said coolly that she
couldn't.
IT just had to tell you. Oh, dar-
ling, may I have cup of tea?
I've simply got to settle down over
a cup and talk to you. Janet,
where did you get that divine hat?
Oh, how envy you being able to
wear those high crowned things"
Janet found herself leading the
way into her sitting room with her
mouth drawn tightly over her
teeth. She thought: Janet Payn-
ter, you used to have a good 6spo-
sition but you haven't any more.
You snap and snarl and think jeal-
Gus, mean things. But, oh what is
a girl to do when she has to hear
from another woman that that
woman has met her husband
through still another woman? Mrs.
Newbold? Well, she must be a
new one. Janet couldn't ever re-
member having heard her name.
Sooner or later it would come up.
Joel would say casually, eff I'm not
on time, don't worry. I'll be along
directly. I've got to have some
cocktails with Mrs. Newbold."
And then Janet would know
that this was the new woman. =
She would go out and buy a new
frock and new hat and come
back to her beautiful home and
Joel would come in later and she
would find that she really didn't
care as much as she would have
once. And something that had
once been tender and sweet and
reath-taking would be harder
now. You could drop it and it
wouldn't break.
You can only keep tender things
tender by nurturing them. The
nutriment of love was more than
words. 1t was wordless thing
that grew up between people when
they had learned to keep the world
out.
Well, Janet and Joel had let the
world in. They had been forced to:
it was the world that had made
them. 1t was the world that paid
them great sums so that thew
could live in a big house and fill it
with strangers. These strangers
owned them. they said, eve
want you" and they smiled when
they said it and you found YOUR
self making dates with women
other than your wife because the
invitation was casual.
If you were Janet, you made
dates with other men. All perfect
ly above board and on-the-leve]
dates with people that your hus-
band might know. You made en-
gagements with them because your
husband was at the theater every
evening and you were no longer q
bride who could while away hei
lonely evening hours reading travel
books and dreaming Of the won
derful things that you would see
with your husband. In fact, you
seldom planned engagements, lei
alone journeys to fascinating lands
with your husband, because if you
planned to do something after the
theater on Friday night, invariably
you found that Friday night was
the night your husband promised