Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories | Page 4

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CONTENTS
POOR, DEAR MARGARET KIRBY BRIDGING THE YEARS THE
TIDE-MARSH WHAT HAPPENED TO ALANNA THE
FRIENDSHIP OF ALANNA "S IS FOR SHIFTLESS SUSANNA"

THE LAST CAROLAN MAKING ALLOWANCES FOR MAMMA
THE MEASURE OF MARGARET COPPERED MISS MIX,
KIDNAPPER SHANDON WATERS GAYLEY THE
TROUBADOUR DR. BATES AND MISS SALLY THE GAY
DECEIVER THE RAINBOW'S END ROSEMARY'S STEPMOTHER
AUSTIN'S GIRL RISING WATER

POOR, DEAR MARGARET KIRBY
I
"You and I have been married nearly seven years," Margaret Kirby
reflected bitterly, "and I suppose we are as near hating each other as
two civilized people ever were!"
She did not say it aloud. The Kirbys had long ago given up any
discussion of their attitude to each other. But as the thought came into
her mind she eyed her husband--lounging moodily in her motor- car, as
they swept home through the winter twilight--with hopeless, mutinous
irritation.
What was the matter, she wondered, with John and Margaret Kirby--
young, handsome, rich, and popular? What had been wrong with their
marriage, that brilliantly heralded and widely advertised event? Whose
fault was it that they two could not seem to understand each other,
could not seem to live out their lives together in honorable and
dignified companionship, as generations of their forebears had done?
"Perhaps everyone's marriage is more or less like ours," Margaret
mused miserably. "Perhaps there's no such thing as a happy marriage."
Almost all the women that she knew admitted unhappiness of one sort
or another, and discussed their domestic troubles freely. Margaret had
never sunk to that; it would not even have been a relief to a nature as
self-sufficient and as cold as hers. But for years she had felt that her
marriage tie was an irksome and distasteful bond, and only that
afternoon she had been stung by the bitter fact that the state of affairs
between her husband and herself was no secret from their world. A
certain audacious newspaper had boldly hinted that there would soon
be a sensational separation in the Kirby household, whose beautiful
mistress would undoubtedly follow her first unhappy marital
experience with another--and, it was to be hoped, a more
fortunate--marriage.

Margaret had laughed when the article was shown her, with the easy
flippancy that is the stock in trade of her type of society woman; but the
arrow had reached her very soul, nevertheless.
So it had come to that, had it? She and John had failed! They were to
be dragged through the publicity, the humiliations, that precede the
sundering of what God has joined together. They had drifted, as so
many hundreds and thousands of men and women drift, from the warm,
glorious companionship of the honeymoon, to quarrels, to truces, to
discussion, to a recognition of their utter difference in point of view,
and to this final independent, cool adjustment, that left their lives as
utterly separated as if they had never met.
Yet she had done only what all the women she knew had done,
Margaret reminded herself in self-justification. She had done it a little
more brilliantly, perhaps; she had spent more money, worn handsomer
jewels and gowns; she had succeeded in idling away her life in that
utter leisure that was the ideal of them all, whether they were quite able
to achieve it or not. Some women had to order their dinners, had
occasionally to go about in hired vehicles, had to consider the cost of
hats and gowns; but Margaret, the envied, had her own carriage and
motor-car, her capable housekeeper, her yearly trip to Paris for
uncounted frocks and hats.
All the women she knew were useless, boasting rather of what they did
not have to do than of what they did, and Margaret was more
successfully useless than the others. But wasn't that the lot of a woman
who is rich, and marries a richer man? Wasn't it what married life
should be?
"I don't know what makes me nervous to-night," Margaret said to
herself finally, settling back comfortably in her furs. "Perhaps I only
imagine John is going to make one of his favorite scenes when we get
home. Probably he hasn't seen the article at all. I don't care, anyway! If
it SHOULD come to a divorce, why, we know plenty of people who are
happier that way. Thank Heaven, there isn't a child to complicate
things!"
Five feet away from her, as the motor-car waited before crossing the
park entrance, a tall man and a laughing girl were standing, waiting to
cross the street.
"But aren't we too late for gallery seats?" Margaret heard the girl say,

evidently deep in an important choice.
"Oh, no!" the man assured her eagerly.
"Then I choose the fifty-cent dinner and 'Hoffman' by all means," she
decided joyously.
Margaret looked after them, a sudden