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Show Kathleen Norris Says: The Piper Must Be Paid tlli-ll Syndkuto WNU Service.) I Elise had an affair eight years ago with a college boy. They were both i much in love for awhile, then the matter ended. By KATHLEEN NORRIS WE ALL make mistakes in this queer twisted life. Our parents and grandparents had their weaknesses weak-nesses and stupidities, and we pay for them. As far back as the human family extends, its story is a story of crime and punishment for crime. Sometimes Some-times the sinner for a long, long time escapes retribution, retribu-tion, but it always catches him in the end. Unless, of course, we take ourselves in hand very early in life and with prayer and thought and care train ourselves our-selves out of our inherited failings. And few of us have either the courage or the foresight to do that! For example I knew a rich and influential in-fluential woman once who was head of the board that arranged a charity entertainment. Five hundred of the school children of the city were in this kermis, which was a great success. But as a newspaper reporter re-porter I knew, and of course she knew, that the city had condemned the hall in which the party was given giv-en as an absolute flretrap. Nothing happened and she seemed to be justified in risking thousands of lives for the sake of saving on rent Payment With Interest Inevitable. But some years later a building this woman owned and rented collapsed. col-lapsed. The insurance company refused re-fused payments because she had been twice warned that the foundations, founda-tions, laid in all the hurry of the earthquake-recovery year, were unsafe. un-safe. Damages cost this woman and her children every penny of then-fortune then-fortune and she ended life struggling strug-gling with a boarding-house she was completely unfit to manage. Another case. There was a careless, care-less, slatternly girl in our town years ago whose car was always involved in-volved in smashes, whose hats blew away and purses got lost, who never nev-er remembered tickets or engagements. engage-ments. She was arrogant about it, telling all critics that that was the way she was and there was no use scolding her. A year or two after a brilliant marriage she hooked her heel in a torn hem, fell down a flight of stairs and spent two years in bed as a result. Still others. The cursing, roaring, roar-ing, impatient type of man who backed his car out of the garage and over the body of his small son. The mother who left a sick child to a new maid who administered a spoonful of ammonia instead of medicine. med-icine. The gun accidents; always the result of a careless attitude toward to-ward other persons' lives and rights. The drinking mother who in a cheerful cheer-ful after dinner carouse with friends didn't manage to save the three babies ba-bies asleep upstairs. No Evading Natural Law. Cause and effect. It is the natural law. You can't evade it. "My daughter is a fine woman of 27," writes an anxious mother from Texas. "She is planning to be married mar-ried in August; church wedding, veil, everything. Her future husband hus-band is a dental surgeon; a splendid man. "My problem is this. Elise had an affair eight years ago with a college col-lege boy. They were both much in love for awhile, then the boy graduated and went away, and the matter ended. She seemed to droop over it for a few months, afterward recovering completely and going on into her work as a psychopath with success. She has a good position I CONFESSION An engaged young miss comes to Kathleen Norris for advice she had an affair with m college man. He is now married, but has her letters let-ters which contain unmistakable facts. Should she tell her fiance and risk his altering his determination determina-tion to marry her? Head this week'l , problem and learn Kathleen Morris' Mor-ris' timely answer. which she will keep for a few months after marriage at least, but they both speak already of a home and children and seem to be ideally suited to each other. "Elise has not told Will as 1 will call him, of her early mistake. But many of her friends know of it, for the little crowd she was going with in college days was quite free in its attitude toward sex relationships and it was a recognized thing. I need hardly say that I would have stopped it had I been with her. but she had gone to a western college and it was only in summer vacation that she took me into her confidence, i Must Confess Misstep. "The boy has married and is living liv-ing in a distant city. She knows nothing of him now. But he has, or had, letters of hers that cannot be mistaken, and I feel strongly that she should make a clean breast of the whole affair to Will. She thinks it would hurt and annoy him without with-out altering his determination to marry ner. I must admit that he worships her, making her his ideal of womanhood, and that it would be hard for her to tell him anything that would lessen his admiration, but it seems to me unsafe to go into marriage without clearing all this up." It IS unsafe. For these things seem unimportant if immediately admitted, but more sinister with every ev-ery hour of married life. If Elise had told her Will of this early weakness weak-ness almost as soon as she knew that he was in earnest about marrying marry-ing her, it would probably have made small impression. The first flush of falling in love with her would have carried it away. But now, with the wedding date set, it is a little more awkward. Still, even now, her own only safety lies in telling him everything. I say this not because I believe this particular sin is any more serious se-rious for a girl than for a boy. Like any other sin, regret for it, and a determination to weed out that particular par-ticular weakness, atones for it But it is the one sin for which women pay dear, and Elise may be committing com-mitting herself to years of nervous fear and expectation if she doesn't own up and go on from there. Safest Way. If Will loves her enough to forget the whole thing, as he probably does, then she can console herself in the years to come with the knowledge knowl-edge that he married her anyway. Then if the early lover appears some day, or a blackmailing letter comes from the early lover's wife, Elise is .on safe ground. Her husband knows all about it, and nobody can frighten her. If Will is shocked and reproachful upon discovering that his goddess has feet of clay, then he is something some-thing of a prig, and perhaps Elise will be more fortunate if she waits for a more generous mate. "Well, then he ought to tell her everything HE'S ever done!" the girls write me angrily when I say this. Certainly, if Elise wants to hear the story. But she will find that what is shame and suffering to her sex is a matter of placid boasting to the other, and she will get so angry, just listening, that the effect will be to make him more pleased in nis secret heart than ever with his gallantries. |