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Show Kathleen Norris Says: When a Woman Deliberately Fools Herself (Bell Syndicate WOT Service.) . 1 I hear he is going with another girl, not seriously, but he has taken her out twice, and it makes me feel just heartbroken. I will never like anyone else as well. By KATHLEEN NORRIS THIS week I had two letters let-ters that said the same thing; one from Nancy, a girl of 16 in Los Angeles, and the other from Anne, a woman of 44 in Boston. Each one was fooling herself and each one wanted me to go on with the fooling. It was the old question. "I know he likes me better than anyone else; he was unmis-takeable unmis-takeable in his attentions and intentions for months, but ' something has happened he was away, or I was away, and now for some weeks he hasn't telephoned or come to see me." The girl of 16 is quite desperate about it. "I wrote him twice," she writes, "and then I returned a book he had loaned me, and telephoned him to see if he had gotten it. He was as nice as he could, be, and said he would telephone as soon as he was free for an evening, but that was a week ago, and I'm just sick about it! I hear he is going with another girl, not seriously, but he has taken her out twice, and it makes me feel just heartbroken. I will never like any one else as well, and I seem incapable of getting any interest in life except thinking of him." Older Woman's Case Sadder. The middle-aged woman is less despairing, but, after all, her case is sadder, for at 44 a love-affair bites pretty deep, and one is not at all sure that there will be another an-other coming along in a year or two to heal the wound. "I was unhappily married more than 20 years ago," says the Boston woman's letter. "The marriage was a mistake from the first, and after seven months of it we were divorced; my daughter was born some months later. This marital failure was a bitter experience to me, and for years I took no interest whatever in men, devoting myself to my child and my profession. I am department head of a preparatory school for girls. My daughter, now 20, was married a few weeks ago. She has been the one great interest in my life until recently, when I became be-came extremely friendly with a doctor, doc-tor, widowed, two years younger than I am; and in every way the man I have dreamed of all my life. He is successful, good-looking, popular, popu-lar, music-loving; his daughter, an only child, has been with us in the school for a year. "Billy began paying me real attention at-tention last spring a happy time for me! We took both daughters on little trips, he dined often at my little apartment, sent me books, flowers, telephoned every day and finally asked me to have a photograph photo-graph taken especially for him, which I did. Her World Stops. "Then, quite suddenly, just three weeks ago, everything stopped. I was stunned. No message, no telephone, tele-phone, no dates; it left me feeling scared and blank. I wrote him, tried to resume the old easy tone, but I felt that I failed. After some days he did come to dinner, but he brought his young office associate with him, making the meal a threesome three-some that was an utter loss to me. "I made a luncheon engagement with him, knowing that something must be very wrong, and determined to be quite frank with him and ask him what had happened to break up our friendship. However, on the morning of our luncheon he telephoned tele-phoned the office to say that he could not keep the engagement, but would 'get in touch with me soon.' He has not done so. So after some hesitation, hesita-tion, believing the whole thing to be a dreadful misunderstanding and mistake, I wrote him honestly. His answer came today. It was cheerful, cheer-ful, friendly, casual, and answers absolutely nothing. He says he is terribly busy but will come around soon. This morning's paper lists his name as a guest at a smart little theater supper given by one of our prominent society women. "I know he likes me better than any new-found friend. We have known each other for seven or eight years, although the specially intimate inti-mate friendship only began last spring. For the first time in my life I am in love, and I cannot have the whole thing terminate this way, and yet I have my pride to consider, and I don't want to overstep the line. In what way can I attract him back to me, for I know that it would take little to restore the old happy confidence." con-fidence." Love a Fleeting Fever. Both Forty-four and Sixteen are fooling themselves. They know in their own hearts that until an engagement en-gagement is announced and the ring safe on a woman's finger, a man is as free as air. A few loveletters, a few exquisite memories are all that remain to the woman, and at most they would go only to prove what we all know anyway, that man is a fickle animal, as woman is, and that once that fleeting fever called being in love is over, it is OVER. Any attempts to restore it only belittles be-littles the woman in the man's eyes. No man needs any reminder if he really wants to see a woman. In the happy first stages of an affair she has a thousand proofs of this. He finds excuses for messages, meetings, meet-ings, exchanges of notes. Her life is one blissful reminder of his devotion. Go Bravely On. When it stops, the only thing to do is to make the most of flattering memories, and go bravely on to the next exciting friendship. Reproaches Re-proaches and reminders will only annoy him, and destroy the remains of his affection. For Sixteen, of course, life holds deeper and truer emotions; she will laugh at her little-girl tragedy some day, and regard the object of it with indifferent amazement. But for Forty-four the matter is more serious. It is a real calamity to have glimpsed, at that age, after the lonely lone-ly and hard-working years, what companionship and a home and the devotion of a fine man might mean, and to relinquish it will be a hard slow painful task. Women pay high for everything they get in this life; love means more to them than it does to men, and married life offers them inducements induce-ments that it doesn't hold for their mates. Children cost mothers infinitely in-finitely more than they do fathers; they have a higher value to their mothers. But of all things for which women pay an incomplete love-affair is the most expensive; Anne is going to need real philosophy in the next few months. To stop fooling herself is perhaps the shortest cut to peace. The sooner soon-er she does that, and poor little Sixteen Six-teen does that, the happier they will be. |