Show I Confessions n 0 n s sI I I Of a Sri Bride BrideI de deI I Meditate on the Wisdom of Putting Off My Disguise Oh what tangled a a. web we weave when first i we the pra practice to deceive daddy quoted in a wh whimsical m c l singsong m meant ant to cheer me up a a bit But It failed completely I want wanted d to be miserable miserable mis mis- erable crable and knew I had good bood reason to be I I Ionly only sobbed the more more and whimpered Yo Your ur poetry sounds a awfully yf old timey timer dadd daddy dear but It fits my my own case aU right all Tight right this very verr minute Shucks daddy eddy protested The idea that you'd deceive anybody maliciously maliciously ma ma- Is absurd I 1 cant can't see how mother and I ever agreed to connive with you about this load of makeup youre you're traveling und under r I We Weere We It ere ere so so sore Sare Bob liked It I 1 moaned liked the girl who w wore re It and and might be won back baek t to r realities by Well Vell Im I'm sure now at any rate I that mo mother her aid ald I have have been awfully to blame Y We let you 1 in for or all this this this- I guess ruess Its It's up to us us to get et you this this-I out I I What Bob needs Isn't all your patience patience pa pa- I tience and mothers mother's petting but a goo good big jolt Daddy looked so grim and he has a I habit of acting so quickly that I Ini in In- In i t him No shock just yet yet please please I dadd d daddy Y dear Let things drift for tor a little whit while Ion longer Oer O'er Dr Drift t Daddy snorted not C my way But I protested earnestly earnesty Instead instead In stead of t shocking Bob back to sense nse were we're just as liable Hable to shock him int Into o insanity insanitY forever forever I Daddys Daddy's temper faded a away ay and d I when I was alone I med meditated upon n what he had said My nerves certainly certainly certainly I were worn raw by my long dig di- I guise It was months sine since I h had d acquired my artificial hair and coloring col- col oring so oring-so so so many that sometimes I ha hato had d to stop and think when and why I I had put it on Of course I wore it first to conceal conceal con con- ceal myself from after atter he had d insulted me and nd while 1 I was working as a messenger girl and tracking down dow n his treasonable secrets And then Bob had rescued me fro from m the striking messengers and had held my seemingly unconscious head hea on his shoulder during the trip to the hospital hospi hospi- I tal My Bob robbed by shell shock of half his past life lIte and of ot the knowledge knowledge knowledge knowl knowl- edge that he had a wife had bEC become became me oddly interested in the little messenger girl and strangely stimulated to what we thought was his old self again The whole machinery of fate tate that had brought me to my present fix comes back in detail to me whenever I run over these events And I know that it was not only because the Jane Lorimer side was hurt that I kept kepton kepton on applying that awful gypsy awful gypsy paint and surmounting it with the bobbed wig I wanted to prove that in any I guise ulse my spirit would win his love and i make it mine among all the I I the world 1 He certainly had felt the pull pun of of my spirit on his own until own until Katherine I I Miller interrupted and spoiled m my second second sec sec- ond love affair with my husband husband husband-by by I a a. lie True she had seen the me me as the real Jane Lorimer as Lorimer-as as Bobs Bob's wife wIfe only only a few tew times Of course she did not recognize recognize rec rec- me now nor realize that the girl she slandered was the wedded rEC 1 wife of ot the man she Was pursuing I wonder though whether that knowledge knowledge knowl knowl- J edge would have Influenced her at atall atall all Kate Miller l Is the type who would I take a man from his wife without a I scruple if she wanted him She for tor all her beauty is the serpent woman I And Bob like all men trusts beauty so blindly blindly blindly-as as if of itself it were always always always al- al ways ways sterling truth And yet as I pondered over this miserable miserable miserable mis mis- erable drama that destiny had Involved in involved In- In involved me in I couldn't bring myself to the point of appearing again before Bob as Jane Lorimer his wife The shock might indeed prevent the engagement I now feared but what if it only revived in him the rankling sense of our old exaggerated quarrel and threw him only the more surely into Katherine Millers Miller's arms To be continued |