OCR Text |
Show " I Don't Know What You Mean y By FANNIE HURST I'ii by AlcClure Newspaper Syndicate. IW.VU Service) THE courtship of Mary and Niles was' one that conformed nicely to the conventionalities of the community. She was twenty and he was twenty-nine they met at the home of a mutual friend, became engaged en-gaged three months later and married that same spring. In the large Industrial eastern city where Niles was already making his way, they began their married life on a scale commensurate with his income and at the end of the second year were occupying a small apartment in one of the up-to-date apartment houses on one of the exclusive streets in town. They were happy, formative years of gathering friends and furnishings. An inveterate shopper, Mary had the faculty of making a dollar seem to stretch twice Its usual resiliency. Their little four-room apartment, in Bradford Arms, an address the young housewife glorified in giving to trades and sales people, was so unusually caparisoned that a magazine called Interior and Exterior had sent a photographer to take pictures of the living and bedrooms for inclusion In the publication. Mary, and justly so, was proud of her achievement of this home. Busy, constructive years went into its making. mak-ing. Niles took his pride in it too. It was pleasant to be able to invite a client into the really distinguished atmosphere of his surroundings. The charming, well-bred Mary, in her "All right, try a trip or change Three months In England, browsing about among the shops for Ideas for a certain addition of a Tudor suite she had In mind, then a bit of Basqua country, and home by way of Naples and the Mediterranean. But strangely enough, the home-coming of a Mary a little more lusterless and a little more difficult to bestir out of her lethargy than the Mary who had gone hunting divertlsenient three months before. "Matter, Mary?" It was not easy to tell Niles the matter. That is, it was not even easy to attempt to tell him. There were not the words to convey to him what he could not understand. Better to wait. Better to try somehow, soma way, to jerk out of this leaden agony that was gripping her more and more. Another year then of the week-end parties, par-ties, the personally conducted tourg through the grounds, the adding here and there to the perfection of the establishment. es-tablishment. "What in heaven's name Is over yon these days, Mary? You haven't been yourself in months." Well, here sha was trying to tell the untenable. Somehow Some-how it had to be told it had to be told. . . . "We're so finished, Niles." - "Meaning what?" "You. Me." "How?" "Oh, I don't know. There Is nothing noth-ing we are expectant about. You take me for granted. I suppose I take you that way. Nothing around the corner for us. Nothing to build, becauso we've already built. No excitement left no joy of creating no imagination imagina-tion between us. Just husband taking wife for granted ; wife taking husband. Stale. I need something to do. I want a spontaneous compliment from a spontaneous impulse to pay one. I want the impulse to say complimentary things to my husband and I haven't that Impulse any more than he has. You're a failure as a husband to me. Niles. I'm a failure as a wife, to you. We've gone along on the momentum mo-mentum of inanimate things, and now that we have finished with them, we've nothing left." "I don't know what you're talking about." "You wouldn't" "You mean " "I mean, I'm dissatisfied Niles. Horribly. Hor-ribly. Irrevocably. I'm finished here. I'm bored. There isn't enough between us. We're polite boarders under tha same roof. Life Is swift, life Is passing, pass-ing, and we're missing it." "I don't know what you mean." "I know you don't, or I wouldn't ba saying what I'm saying." "Take a trip." This Mary did, but it was a trip which struck incredulity and amazement amaze-ment into the heart of Niles. "I need to be free, Niles. I cannot regard my life as the snug completed thing It seems to be with you. Emotionally, Emo-tionally, we are finished; materially we can only be repetitious. I need to be fed, stirred, moved intellectually and inspired to do." "I don't know what you mean." "I know you don't, Niles." That was four years ago. The new Mary lives in a three-room farm house in Connecticut that she had constructed construct-ed out of an old barn. She is married to a student of bee culture. Everywhere Every-where throughout the simple and sparsely furnished household Is evidence evi-dence of the study of this intricate and subtle form of life, to which they both devote their days. Some day, Mary hopes to find tima to furnish their home in a quaint and charming manner. But In the meanwhile mean-while the days are too crowded, too busy, too happy. smooth good-looking clothes, the pleasant pleas-ant lampllt living room of Sheraton, good old prints, dim-toned rugs, books, firelight, pewter, grand piano with its Invariable luster vase containing yellow yel-low roses, gave forth an odor of success suc-cess that never failed to register instantly. in-stantly. Clever woman, Mary ! Clever as the dickens. From that point on, the advancement advance-ment of the Niles Gregorys was consistent con-sistent and always a little ahead of itself. That' is, when Niles was earning earn-ing twenty thousand a year, they seemed to be living at the rate of thirty; when he was earning thirty, it was as if his Income must be at least fifty. And so on, due of course to Mary's unceasing attention to every detail. At the conclusion of the tenth year of their marriage, while Niles was steering ahead to greater and greater success in his work, their country place, thirty miles from town, was the most pretentious and luxurious estate thereabouts. A far more luxurious place, Mary took- pride in explaining, than Niles normally could afford. She not only had the gift of taste and selection, but she had the indomitable indomit-able energy for shopping. It might be said that the first ten years of their married life was one exhaustive shopping shop-ping tour in Europe and America. Not, mind you, that It was drudgery to Mary. All this made the busy years of growth seem filled with the sense of creating yie setting for the kind of life they wished to live. As Mary's friends put It, she worked like a stage designer, bent on accomplishing accom-plishing the proper dramatic setting for their background. With the country coun-try place called Wildmere, she achieved it On the outskirts of town, adjoining adjoin-ing the most select country club in the state, representing an actual outlay of several hundred thousand dollars and giving the effect of having cost much more, the beautiful home of Mary and Niles reared its turreted head. It gave you a sense of repose just to enter these doors, to sink into its restful rest-ful chairs and divans, to look out over its meticulous expanses of garden and terrace, to browse In its libraries, relax re-lax In Its music room, stretch out in Its luxurious sleeping suites. The home was finished. Well, for another year or two, there was the pastime, the excitement, and always the pleasure, of bringing into this home the friends and acquaintances acquaint-ances who would exclaim at Its perfection per-fection and revel in its comfort. It was a source of perennial thrill to walk with them through the beautiful avenue of poplar trees, the geometric perfections of the sunken gardens and point out to them the vistas and scenic delights from almost every window. Then one day, something seemed to drop like a lead plummet to the bottom bot-tom of Mary's being. Now that the house was finished, what next? What then? There were the usual divertise-ments. divertise-ments. Cards. Friends. Theaters. Travel. No children of her own, but a deep-seated Interest in a local child welfare charity to which she gave time and thought There were apparently appar-ently as many Interests as there had ever been. No particular reason, so far as casual diagnosis could make out, why suddenly and completely the sense of finish had written itself across all of Mary's life. For a year, with this crack across her being, but with no ostensible letdown, let-down, life moved along at Wildmere. Consultations with gardeners, motor troubles, week-end parties, dinners to clients of Niles, tours of Inspection with admiring guests through the grounds and then gradually even Niles began to notice. "What's the matter, Mary? Fagged? Look is If you might need a trip or change." |