Newspaper Page Text
mmmmmmmmmmmm
CONFESSIONS OF A .WIFE
THE LOVE "ONCE" THEORY IS SHATTERED
(Copyright, 1915, by the Newspaper Enterprise Association.)
Mollie's love affair has smashed
to smithereens the theory that in this
world there is but one man for one
woman.
Yesterday afternoon Pat Sullivan
dropped in ostensibly to ask if I
thought that interviews added to
Mollie's paragraph work would be too
much for her health, but in reality to
talk to me about his love for her.
I told him that I thought the inter
viewing would be fine for Mollie; that
it would take her out of herself and
give her something to do besides
thinking of herself.
This gave him the opening he
wanted and he asked, quite ingenu
ously: . "Mrs. Waverly, do you think Mollie
was deeply in love with Chadwick?"
"I don't think I know what "you
mean, my dear Pat, by being deeply
in love. Whenever any one 'gets in
love' he thinks he, is 'deeply in love'
at least so 'deeply' that he will
never get out."
"Having knowi and loved Chad,"
said honest Pat with a sigh, "I am
afraid she will never be able to see
anything in me."
"Don't despair, my friend, all the
great lovers of history and tradition
have only told the modern lover but
one thing and that is that love is
transient. Boswell tells us that Dr.
Johnson 'laughed at the idea that a
man could love but once,' and George
Eliot, who became Mrs. Cross a few
months after the death of Lewes,
asks:
" 'How is it that poets have said so
many fine things about our first love
and so few about our later ones?'
"You, yourself, my friend, are an
illustration of this fact of being able
to love more than once. You were
in love with Chadwick Hatton's first
se, as he was also; now both are
willing to swear that the love of the
woman whom one of you married
and who estranged you from each
other for years, was not the real love
of either. You have each practically
told me that Mollie is the one and
only love of your existence."
Pat was Irish enough to smile at
my argument, but it was a rather rue
ful smile.
"I really don't care, Mrs. Waverly,"
he said, "if I am her first, second or
third love, provided she accepts me
as her lover. Do you think she will
ever do this?" he asked, somewhat
wistfully.
"I would not be surprised if she
did," I answered. "You are a very
good-looking chap, with your -red
hair and Irish eyes, you both have
the same taste, and, my dear Pat,
propinquity generally spells affinity.
Keep close to Mollie. She doesn't "dis
like you; in fact she likes you Very
much."
Almost involuntary Pat's hand shot
out and clasped mine with a grip so
hard that I almost felt the bones in
my fingers crack.
"I want her I want her so much
that my heart aches with a physical
hurt."
"That is the Irish temperament, my
boy. We always must have a heart
aching of some kind."
"I don't think that is a longing that
is only given to Celts," said Kitty
Maltram, who, much to my surprise,
had come in without announcement
in time to hear my last sentence.
"The worst of it," she continued,
shaking hands with Pat and kissing
me, "is that we want and want for
things we sicken and almost die
with longing and then just when we
don't want them any more they come
to us." Then Kitty, feeling, perhaps,
that she had been too tragic, asked
lightly: "Have I interrupted any con
fidences? It really looks serious when
a married woman talks to a man oth-
ercAttse
fVflJ-V-iWi- -rtv . - .
