A MISGUIDED MOTHER
It was no fault of his own that caused a separation between Walter Clark and his young wife. She took a dislike to him after a short matrimonial voyage, simply because she had never sincerely and truly loved him. She was one of those impulsive girls who are determined to have their own way in everything, and when they can’t have things just as they want them, they become unreasonable. They never admit that they are in the wrong. They are always right, and all the world is wrong. Walter Clark’s demonstrations of love and affection became disagreeable to his cold and frivolous wife. She preferred to sit down and pout rather than go with her husband to the theatre, or on an excursion. Perhaps there had been a previous lover whom she lost, and no man could fill his place in her heart.
When Walter discovered that his wife was determined to disagree with him in everything, and to grow more disagreeable every day, he let her pass the time as best she could without his presence, which had become so annoying to her. One day she bundled up her belongings and went home to her mother. Maybe she thought Walter would come after her and plead with her to go back to the old life. But, God knows, Walter had enough of the old life and felt relieved when the change came into his life. Every tender feeling he had once felt toward his wife had been destroyed, and by her own disagreeable conduct. In his heart he had deified the girl he married, but she proved to be an idol of miserable clay. Three years after the separation he went on a visit to the Middle West. He met a beautiful young woman and felt himself drawn toward her by her loveliness and most charming manner. He was hungry for the love of a good and true woman, and in his heart he believed he had found her at last. His attentions were encouraged, and he felt love growing deeper and fonder every day.
He despised traveling under false colors, and frankly went to the girl’s mother and told her that he was a married man, but hoped to be freed from his wife before long. He told of everything that led up to the separation, and confessed that he loved her daughter fondly and truly, and would try to make her a good husband.
The mother was shocked. A married man making love to her daughter! All her orthodox prejudice and provincial suspicion rebelled against Walter, and she turned him out of the house, as though he were a criminal of the lowest type. She could not see that he had played fair—that he sailed under his true colors and could give her references as to his good character from the people of his own home city. No, she didn’t want references—a married man was an outlaw in the realms of love and courtship. In her eyes Walter was forever damned.
The honorable, but heart-broken young man left the town, and the incident was closed. He would not tread on that mother’s rights, even though he realized that she was playing tyrant, and wrecking her daughter’s happiness.
Dazed and unhappy, the young girl could not realize whether she had been wronged by the mother’s decision, or by the presumption of Walter Clark, who won her love while he was married to another. The whole world seemed to be deceptive and false.
She was aroused from this condition of despair a few months later when a young “unmarried” traveling man came to town. He had all the dash and brilliancy of the gay world, and the disappointed girl, and her misguided, ambitious and unsuspecting mother were captivated. He spent many of his evenings at the girl’s home, and the mother was pleased to see her daughter sitting in the parlor with such a promising young man. The daughter had been in disgrace since her love affair with a horrid married man, but now the mother was pleased.