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Show KATHLEEN NORMS This Girl Too Self-Righteous "qiHREE YEARS AGO," writes Gerald Fletcher, from Springfield, Spring-field, Mass., "I met the girl of my dreams. The woman, rather, for Isabelle is 26; I am 32. From the beginning a feeling sprang up between be-tween us, not only of love and that was almost at first sight, but of an immense liking, a congeniality, a union of likes and dislikes. Our work brought us much together, Isabelle conducting a department for girls In the big institution of which I am assistant director. These first months of our friendship were the happiest of my life; I am a veteran, vet-eran, not much handicapped by an artificial knee, and have been deeply deep-ly absorbed in a scientific work which I hope to have published a few years from now. Happy Engagement "Our engagement was an absolutely abso-lutely happy time, when I went to my girl's Massachusetts home, met her delightful family, and was warmly made welcome. The engagement engage-ment was then announced and our plans made for a wedding last June. It was some weeks after that that Isabelle quite suddenly asked me if I had ever had any serious love affairs af-fairs with other women; she said she must know everything, and that then whatever it was it should be forgotten and forgiven. She said that has experienced a complete change of heart, she is sorry, she says she knows that men's lives are different from those of women, and that since poor little Rosy was killed in the war, I cannot restore my honor, as she puts it, by finding her and making her my wife. Isabelle' s letter let-ter goes on to say that she is sure a few honest talks will set matters right and restore our old feeling for each other, but she ends with the warning that she must know everything every-thing now, and not expect any more shocks and surprises. My dear Gerald, I say in answer, your letter leaves me no choice. Perhaps you have done Isabelle an injustice, although it does not seem so. But self-righteousness is a de-testible de-testible thing, and anyone who thinks she has a right to question another about his past, his young mistakes, his natural emotions, will make a difficult wife. The smug serenity with which Isabelle proposes pro-poses to probe into your soul, presently pres-ently extending to you her benign forgiveness, indicates that you would always be to her a weak brother, to be helped and guided to her own heights of perfection. Just because a woman does not yield to early sex impulses doesn't mean that sh hasn't equally serious faults. she had a horror of the immoralities immorali-ties now said to be so prevalent among adolescents, but that she could not remain in the dark about my past. 'I was hurt by her attitude., and told her that it could only .disturb her to dig up the past, but she became be-came agitated, and I saw that she had quite honestly thought I had nothing to tell. We had several distressing dis-tressing scenes, after which I told ". . . from Isabelle . . ." her a true story of one or two episodes of my first college year, and of a genuine attachment I had to a nurse, out in the South Pacific, a heroic, gentle girl who died of an infection from a shrapnel cut. "Isabelle immediately broke our engagement, wrote her mother that I was not the sort of man that she could ever respect, or that she could wish to have as the father of her children. She returned my letters, let-ters, the beautiful ring that my father fa-ther had given my mother when they were engaged. A Little Anger Pride and a little anger helped me through this shock and change in my life; I could arrange things so that Isabelle and I did not often meet, and as the months went by 1 became attached through loneliness, loneli-ness, I suppose, for I never had noticed her before to my landlady's land-lady's daughter, a very quiet girl, whose fiance was killed in 1942, and who is a librarian. I have not led her to think I care for her, but some months ago she betrayed that she has come to like me. "Now for the problem. This morning, morn-ing, while I was reading your article, a letter came from Isabelle. She |
