Heart and Soul by Maveric Post

by Victor Mapes

If her husband had any objection to things that she did, he soon learned to keep them to himself. She could not and would not tolerate any interference with the rights of an individual soul. She must have the same freedom that she conceded to him. The kind of thing he chose to do, apart from her, was a matter for him to decide in accordance with his nature. The same rule must apply to her. The days of slavery had passed. Marriage was an arrangement between equals.

In due course of time, the husband had to leave her and the children for war service. While he was away, she fell in with another talented and dissipated Bohemian—a romantic-looking musician very much in the public eye. Very quickly their infatuation for each other was a matter of open comment on the part of the veriest on-looker. As he had the same idea that she had about the rights of the individual, and the same contempt for conventions and conventional people, there was no pretense of concealment, no need of observing the proprieties.

When the husband returned from overseas, she informed him, with the utmost candor of what had taken place. There was no shame and no remorse. Why should there be? A simple statement of fact—the forces of human nature in operation. She had found some one who appealed to her impulses more strongly than he. That was a truth which had to be accepted. The simplest way was to allow her to get a divorce.

But what of the children?

A very simple answer. Whether they went with their father or stayed with their mother—or were taken by the grandparents—anything was really better for children than being brought up in an atmosphere where all was pretense and whence love had flown. Of course she loved her children and always would, but if they grew up to be the right sort, they would understand her motives and admire her the more for being true to herself.

This case embodies the practical working of the new principle, carried to an extreme.

Here is another example of a different order: Two pretty girls of eighteen or twenty were talking together in the seat in front of me, in a trolley car. They turned out to be telephone operators at central switchboards. They were talking over their plans, which contemplated a visit to the movies with two young men—a supper and dance afterwards. The young men were still to be heard from and as the girls were going to separate places of employment the question was how to let each other know about final arrangements. For reasons best known to themselves, it wouldn't be wise to attempt that over the 'phone—they had better meet somewhere. Whereupon one of the girls suggested a place convenient to them both, where they could slip out and meet each other—at four o'clock. She would "plug in" all the terminals on her switchboard, so that all the lines in that central would be reported "busy" when people called up, and the other girl could do the same. Then they could talk things over quietly. "Nothing to be afraid of." And so they agreed. Why not?

Here is another symptom:

A married woman of my acquaintance is decidedly old-fashioned in her respect for conventions and moral standards. She has a sweet and rather shy daughter, who has been brought up closely under the mother's wing, and has never lost the habit of asking and telling her mother everything. She is seventeen.

One summer evening, recently, the daughter was called up on the 'phone by one of her girl friends and asked to make one of the party, who were arranging an impromptu dance at a private house. The girl friend and her brother would stop for her in their car and bring her home afterwards.