The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-01-13
IF BILL KNEW
CHAPTER VII

For a long moment, after Su' zanne's last words left her lips they didn't quite sink in. The small girl with the red hair, hud- dled on the sofa, didn't quite un- 3derstand the enormity of what she had heard until Suzanne was reaching for the doorknob.
 Wait 8 minute, Suzanne!" She ran to her. What do you mean someone might tell Bill? Oh, yot couldn't - you wouldn't dare - gc to him with a lie like that!"
 Lie? I wouldn't lie. There's no need. It's true that Paul ir love with you, and that you've been seeing him every night, even after I refused to come along and play chaperone."
 Martha's mouth was dry. little pulse hammered in her throat "But I don't mean anything-it was innocent and Bill trusts Paul you can't do this! You can't come into our lives and"
 T didn't say would" Suzanne told her evenly. T merely said that it wouldn't be very nice If someone did"
 Then, as if Martha'S shock and misery had gotten through to her, she leaned impulsively over her. Look, darling, I know you. And I know Paul. He's held himself ill leash, he's suffered but he hasn't made love to you. The only thing I'm asking is that you look the facts in the face. Quit seeing him" !"
 Once more her voice vibrated with passion. Give me a chance to get him back!'
 When the door closed behind Su- game, she left ruin behind. The world of simple friendship, of trust ing and uncomplicatted companion ship which had sprung up between Martha and Paul, since that day she told him, I'm going to marry Bill. But can't We be friends?" was wrecked forever.
 Never again could she be so casually cool with him. Never again could she laugh and talk and dance with him and remain blind to the truth she had not seen be- fore - that he loved her. Loved her enough to torture himself endlOssly by seeing her with Bill, by visiting in the apartment where she lived as Bills wife.
 Unwilling pity shook her. Poor Paul. He had had raw deal from her, right from the start. But her heart said it wasn't her fault that Bill Marshall's blue eyes had stirred depths in her she herself had never dreamed were there. It wasn't her fault that the cama- radegie, the serene content she had accepted as love with Paul, had turned out not to be love at all. Not after she tasted the heady wine, the magic ecstasy of the touch of Bills hand, the sound of his voice, the feel of his lips on hers
 Could it be that for Paul there was magic and wonder only with her? Oh, he shouldn't have gone on clinging to the ghost of some thing that was dead! He should have turned to Suzanne.
 But Martha knew, achingly, that love isn't like that. All the coun- selS of common sense, all the old teachings she had been taught at home of love, honor and duty, had directed that - even though Bills blue eyes had wakened something to singing life inside her, that first time-still she had no right to go on seeing him. Had no right to let him kiss her while PauPs ring was on her finger.
 Practical considerations would have directed that Paul, with money of his own and fine posi- ton, was the better man to marry. He could have bought her so much that she and Bill had gone with out. There would have been no small apartment. but big house. No job to wake up to each morning. No dilapidaed Peg, but a good car, Q new car.
 And yet, she hadn't even given those things a single thought. Her whole heart was Bills simply, forever and beyond denial.
 Once she had heard somewhere that it didn't matter whether or not you were wildly in love with the person you married at the time you married him. After 10 years" someone had said, you love him anyway. The things you two have gone through together cement you closer than any fleet ing passion"
 Perhaps it was true. But she had never thought of standing at an altar with Paul, saying those solemn VOWS, merely because she had promised.
 Was that why Paul couldn't turn Go Suzanne? Because the thing