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Show Kathleen Norris Says: The Half -Hearted Wife Bel Syndicate. WNV Features. l ' "To get a good look at Robertas one-time ideal would be a wholesome thing for Dick." S(F'T MEMORIES Often when a girl is about to marry, she can't help recalling re-calling some sweetheart oj the past. Frequently it was her first experience with love, and the thrilling memory remains re-mains bright. She wonders if she really should go through with her marriage perhaps that first man will come back, if she will only wait. Such a problem faces Roberta, who is ashing Miss Norris for advice ad-vice in today's article. On the face of it, she is very fortunate. The man she intends to marry is well educated edu-cated and successful. He has an inherited fortune, and well-to-do relatives. She can look forward to a honeymoon in California, and a pretty new home. Everybody in the new family likes her, and she in turn likes them. Nevertheless, Roberta isn't' happy. She can't get over the joy of the days ivhen she was in love with Archie. He never amounted to anything, but he seemed to be the answer to all Roberta's dreams. When he left without saying goodbye good-bye it broke her heart. Now that she is about to marry Dick, she still hopes there is some chance that Archie tvill come back to her. beau, appreciate that she is a lucky woman, and instead ot simpering sim-pering complacently as Richard attempts at-tempts to win her love, will set herself her-self in good serious whole-hearted affection to win his. A Visit from Archie. Perhaps the luckiest thing that could happen to them both would be to have Archie, the breaker of hearts and engagements, return to town. Archie had no prospects, no job, no sense of honor, six years ago he probably hasn't any of these now. To get a good look at Roberta's one-time ideal would be a wholesome thing for Dick, and save him much annoyance in the future, fu-ture, and the thought that she couldn't do any better than Archie, at 18, would be highly salutory to Roberta. Her wistful reminiscences would lose some of their effectiveness effective-ness with Archie hanging around the house. No ghosts out of a woman's past can be quite as embarrassing as her one-time lovers. Awkward brothers, severe fathers, exacting or boring uncles and aunts these she can stand. She can stand to have Dick dine with sister Mollie and the swarming babies and the disorderly dinner table and the noise and breakage and yelling. But when her dream-boy of senior year high shows up, laughing stupidly at humiliating old memories, mem-ories, calling her the pet name that once thrilled her to the soul, expecting ex-pecting certain affectionate familiarities familiar-ities like holding hands in public and occasionally kissing, then Roberta's soul shrivels within her, and she wishes that he were 1,000 miles away. If Richard was smart he would write to Archie and nsk him to spend a week-end with himself and Roberta in their new home sometime. some-time. ltHAI.LY QUIl'T! Have you ever heard your heart beat? Well, you can in the new 1'armly sound laboratory, latest addition to the Illinois Institute of Technology. Donated by the I'arm-ly I'arm-ly l-'nunilnlion for Auditory He-search, He-search, the l.-ih Is an lit by 20-foot room with 21-inch (lberghiss spikes lining the four walls to absorb sound. Modeled after a similar chamber at Harvard, the room rests on rubber pails supported by concrete piers, the whole of which weighs approximately 40 tons. By KATHLEEN NORRIS ON MY desk lies a letter from a girl of 24, an office girl in an Illinois city, who is going to be married mar-ried in June. Roberta is going go-ing to have a church and home wedding, with bridesmaids; brides-maids; she's going to a pretty-new pretty-new home after a California honeymoon; she's going to have well-to-do relatives-in-law who apparently can't do enough for her and she is smugly miserable. She is miserable because six years ago she had a wild, passionate passion-ate young love affair with a boy named Archie. Archie led her on for some months with the Idea of marriage, mar-riage, and then left without a good-by good-by and broke her heart. She has told Dick all about Archie. "I've told Dick," says her letter, "that I'm afraid I don't feel for him what I ought to feel. We're congenial; con-genial; I'll have a fine position in the community when I'm married; I admire everything about Dick, but still there's always the memory of Archie. Dick has been patience itself it-self about it; he wanted to be married mar-ried before he went into the service, serv-ice, in 1942, and every time he was home on leave, but how can I give myself to one man however fine, with the lingering love for my girlhood's girl-hood's sweetheart always in the background? "My mother detested Archie, and she loves Dick. Everyone thinks I'm lucky, but I don't want to make a mistake. Would it be wiser for me to break, even now, and stay true to Archie, even though he may never come back, or is it enough to have the husband completely devoted, de-voted, and will what I can give Dick be enough for him?' It seema incredible to me, Roberta, I say in answer, that any woman in the world is still clinging cling-ing to mis romantic Victorian delusion. de-lusion. Out of Date Attitude. Sixty or seventy years ago it was fashionable for any vaporous and simpering young female to flatter herself that "her heart was another's," anoth-er's," but at the same time to give her hand to the prosperous, devoted and satisfactory partner. Many an engaged girl, even now, rather likes the fancy that she will be more adored than adoring, and that she may capriciously dole out favors to the grateful male, often reminding him that he told her, in engagement days, that just to have her would be enough, and he would some day win her love. In engagement days, yes. But what an awakening is ahead of romantic Roberta, if Dick is the kind of man who sweeps these rosy cobwebs aside, once the marriage Is an accomplished fact, and becomes be-comes bored when Roberta wants to enter into a sweet, saccharine confession of her earlier attachment, attach-ment, and expresses regret that she has not given and cannot give Dick her entire heart. Years ago I saw a mawkish movie called "The Loves of Anntole." I think it was in that movie that the bride had a heart-shaped aperture carved in her bedroom door. The groom, when wishing to enter, presented pre-sented bunches of blossoms at this little look-out, and the coy bride accepted ac-cepted them as only her due. Roberta belongs in that movie. If she has good sense she will wake up, forget the high school "SltDttltl I sttty true to Archie . . ." |