FEET OF CLAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17745, 15 January 1926, Page 9

FEET OF CLAY.

lie's absolutely perfect.” Now, that sounds very nice, but there is no doubt that woman sooner or later is going to get a jolt. She will find out that her idol has feet of clay. What happens next will depend upon her temperament. Most married women confess that during their engagement they only saw one side of their husband's character. In most cases their subsequent discoveries were nothing very serious, however. No doubt they were wise enough not to expect perfection, nor were their fiancees playing a conscious part. But there are a few exceptions. "The too-perfect fiancee sometimes turns out to have been on his guard against showing some flaw in his character till he was safely married. Jessica's husband was a case in point. Jessica is married to a man whose tempers and tantrums reduce her to despair! She absolutely cannot cope with them, because, for some strange reason, he never reacts alike to the same cause twice! What bitterly offends him on Monday will merely make him laugh on Tuesday; and. not being clairvoyant, she finds it impossible to ward off approaching storms! From her point of view, the worst of it is she hardly ever knows what’s wrong. Even when it is over she hardly ever discovers the cause of the trouble —if there is a cause. “If only he would say what has annoyed him,” she says bitterly. “ I really would not mind so much. What annoys me is the utter absurdity of the way he keeps me in the dark!” It seems that one moment he will be quite genial, and suddenly, without warning, he will freeze into what she terms his east wind mood and envelop himself for days in an icy reserve; or else he will be wounded and go about looking hurt. “ cut to the quick ” by her cruelty and neglect. “ People.” she says. “ are fond of talking about women’s varying moods, and probably as a sex they are more uncertain. but there are plenty of moody men—and no temperamental woman on earth is worse than a man of this calibre ! ” No woman could be more unreasonable, no prima donna more difficult than the head of a household who indulges his caprices. She declares quite frankly that she never would have married him had she ever dreamed what he was like. But she did not. He was in love with her. so carefully kept it from her. He was the perfect lover hiding his feet of clay !