REVELATIONS OF A WIFE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 1164, 3 November 1917, Page 3

REVELATIONS OF A WIFE.

THE STORY OF A HONEYMOON. [BY ADELE GARRISON.] XXI. JOG TROT AND A QUARREL. Our meetings, therefore, were few. But I had an odd little feeling of safety ami security whenever I thought of her. T knew if any terrible trouble ever came to her I should lly to her as if she were my sister. My work at the Lotus Study Club was going along smoothly. At home Katie was so much more satisfactory than the maids I had seen in other establishments that I shut my eyes to many little things about which I knew my mother-in-law would have been most cautious.

But my mother-in-law's acerbity was softened by her weakness. We grew quite companionable in the winter days when Dicky's absence at the studio left us together. Altogether I felt that life had been very good to me. Wo the winter rolled away, and almost before we knew'it the spring days came stealing in from the south, bringing to me their urgent call of brown earth and sprouting things. I was not the only one who listened to the message of spring. Mother Gra» ham grew restless, and used all of her meagre strength in drives to the parks and walks to a nearby square where the crocuses were just beginning to wave their brave greeting to the city. The warmer days affected Dicky adversely. He seemed a bit distrait, displayed a trifle of his earlier irritability, and complained a great deal about the warmth of the apartment. "I tell you I can't stand this any longer," he said one particularly warm evening in April, as he sank into a chair, flinging his collar in one direction and his necktie in another. "I'd rather lie in the city in August than in these first warm days of spring. What do you say to moving into the country for the summer? Our month is up here on the Ist, anyway, and I am perfectly willing to lose' any part of the month's rent if we can only get away." "But, Dicky," I protested, "unless we board, which" I don't think any of us would like to do, how are we going to find a house, to say nothing of getting settled in so short a time?" To my surprise, Dicky hesitated a moment before answering. Then, flushing, he uttered the words which brought my little castle of contentment crumbling about me, and warned me that my marital problems were not yet all solved. "Why, you see, there won't be any bother about a house. Miss Draper has found a perfectly bully place not far from her sister's home." "Miss Draper has fouud a house for us!" I echoed Dicky's words in blank astonishment. His bit of news was so unexpected, amazement was the only feeling that came to me for a moment or two. '' Well, what's the reason for the awful astonishment?" demanded Dicky, truculently. "You look as if a bond) had exploded in your vicinity." He expressed my feeling exactly. I knew that Miss Draper had become a fixture in his studio, acting as his secretary as well as his model, and pursuing her art studies under his direction. But his references to her were

always so casual and indifferent that for months I had not thought of her at all. And now I found that Dicky had progressed to such a degree of intimacy with -her that he not only wished to move to the village which she called home, but had allowed her to select the house in which we were to live.

1 might be foolish, overwrought, but all at once I recognised in Dicky's beautiful protege a distinct menace' to my marital happiness. I knew 1 ought to be most guarded in my reply to my husband, but 1 am afraid the words' of my answer were tipped with the venom of my feelings toward the girl. "I admit 1 am astonished," I replied coldly. "You see, I did not know it was the custom in your circle for an artist's model to select a house for his wife and mother. You must give me time to adjust myself to such a bizarre state of things."

I was so furious myself that I did not realise how much my answer would irritate Dicky. He sprang to his feet with an oath and turned on me the old black angry look that I had not seen for months. "That's about the meanest slur I ever heard," he shouted. "Just because a girl works as a model every other woman thinks she has the right to cast a stone at her, and put on a how-dare-you-brush-your- skirt - againstmine sort of thing. You worked for a living yourself not so very long ago. I should think you would have a little Christian charity in your,heart for" any other girl who worked." "It strikes me that there is*a slight difference between the work of a high school instructor in history, a specialist in her subject, and the work of an artist's model," I returned icily. "But, laying all that aside, I should have considered myself guilty of a very grave breach of good taste if I had ventured to select a house for the wife of my principal, undsked and unknown to her."

'' Cut out the heroics, and come down to brass tacks," Dicky snarled vulgarly. "Why don't you be honest and say you're jealous of the poor girl? I 'll bet, if the truth were known, it isn't only the house she selected you'd baulk at. I'll bet you wouldn't want to go to Marvin at all for the summer, regardless that I've spent many a comfortable week in that section, and like it better than auy other summer place I know." Through all my anger at Dicky, my disgust at his coarseness, came the conviction that he had spoken the truth. I was jealous of Grace Draper, there was no use denying the fact to myself, however strenuously I might try to hide the thing from Dicky. I told myself that 1 hated Marvin because it "held this girl, that instead of spending the summer there I wished I might never see the place again. (To be continued.)