Evening Star Newspaper, April 20, 1930, Page 88

=9 16 THE, SENDAY, WASHINGTON, D. C, APRIL 20, 1930. “‘TDon't Know What You Mean,,;_ByFaflnieHurst Another Com- plete Story, With FirstPublication in The Star’s Sunday Magazine. HE courtship of Mary and Niles was one that conformed nicely to the conventionalities of the community. She was 20 and he 29 when they met at the home of a mutual friend, be- came engaged three months later and mar- ried that same Spring. In the large industrial Eastern city where Niles was already making his way they began their married life on a scale commensurate with his income and at the end of the second year were occupying a small apartment in one of the up-to-date apartment houses on one of Bhe exclusive streets in town. They were happy, formative years of gather- g friends ang furnishings. An inveterate shopper, Mary had the faculty of making a dollar seem to stretch twice its usual resiliency. Their little four-room apartment, in Brad- ford Arms, an address the young housewife glorified in giving to trades and sales people,‘ was so unusually caparisoned that a magazine called Interior and Exterior had sent a photographer to take pictures of the living and bed rooms for inclusion in the publication. Mary, and justly so, was proud of her achievement of this home. It had taste, dis- tinction and a quality away and beyond any- thing an ordinary woman might have been able to achieve on the budget Niles’ earnings al- Jowed. Busy, constructive years went into its making. Niles took his pride in it, too. It was pleasant to be able to invite a client into the really distinguished atmosphere of his surroundings. The charming, well bred Mary, in her smooth good-looking clothes, the pleas- ant lamp-lit living room of Sheraton, good oid prints, dim-toned rugs, books, firelight, pewter, grand piano with its invariable luster vase con- taining yellow roses, gave forth an odor of success that never failed to register instantly. Clever woman, Mary! Clever as the dickens. 'ROM that point on, the advancement of the Niles Gregorys was consistent and always a little ahead of itself. That is, when Niles was earning $20,000 a year they seemed to be liv- ing at the rate of $30,000; when he was earning $30,000 it was as if his income must be at least $50,000. And so on, due, of course, to Mary's unceasing attention to every detail. At the conclusion of the tenth year of their marriage, when Niles was steering ahead to greater and greater success in his work, their country place, 30 .miles from town, was the most pretentious and luxurious estate there- abouts. A far more luxurious place, Mary took pride in explaining, than Niles normally could afford. By then a rich man, the scale of the estate, nevertheless, the outfittings, the garages, the gardens, the swimming pool, the tennis courts, would have been still outside the reach of Niles, except for the superb power of Mary to manage her financial expenditures and keep them reduced to a minimum for value received. She not only had the gift of taste and se- lection, but she had the indomitable energy for Shopping. It might be said that the first 10 years of their married life was one exhaustive shopping tour in Europe and America. Not, mind you, that it was drudgery to Mary. On the other hand, there was a concrete joy in browsing about foreign and American cities, and pouncing eagerly mpon the bargain of a bit of tapesiry, a rare old chair, a gem of a highboy tucked in some obscure shop down some side street. Even Niles, a less eager shopper, was not averse to being dragged through the by-streets of Florence, Italy; of Charleston, 8. C., or Munich, Germany, on a quest for the proper pit of wood paneling, luster glass or wood carving. It was nothing to give an entire forenoon to matching a par- ticularly good bit of cretonne, or rushing from shop to shop for just the right shade of silk for curtains or color of bath room tiling. All this made the busy years of growth seem filled with the sense of creating the setting for the kind of life they wished to live. As Mary's friends put it, she worked like a stage designer, bent on accomplishing the proper dramatic setting for their background. With the country place called Wildmere, she achieved it. On the outskirts of town, adjoining the most select country club in the State, repre- senting an actual outlay of several hundred thousand dollars and giving the effect of having cost much more, the beautiful home of Mary and Niles reared its turreted head. It gave you a sense of repose just to enter these doors, to sink into its restful chairs and divans, to look out over its meticulous expanses of garden and terrace, to browse in its libraries, relax in its music room, stretch out in its luxurious sleeping suites. The home was finished. WELL. for another year or two, there was the . pastime, the excitement, and always the pleasure, of bringing into this home the friends #nd acquaintances who would exclaim at its perfection and revel in its comfort. It was a source of perennial thrill to walk with them through the beautiful avenue of poplar trees, the geometric perfections of the sunken gardens and point out to them the vistas and esenic delights from almost every window. “We're so finished, Niles. There is nothing we are expectant about. No excitement left. Just husband Then one day something seemed te drop like a lead plummet to the bottom of Mary's being. Now that the house was finished, what next? What then? There were the usual divertissements. Cards. Friends. Theaters, Travel. No children of her own, but a deep- seated interest in a local child welfare charity, to which she gave time and thought. There were apparently as many interests as there had sver been. No particular reason, so far as casual diagnosis could make out, why suddenly and completely the sense of finish had written itself across all of Mary's life. : For a year, with this crack across her being, but with no ostensible let-down, life moved and wife taking each other for granted.” along at Wildmere. Consultations with garden- ers, motor troubles, week end parties, dinners to clients of Niles, tours of inspection with ad- miring guests through the grounds and then gradually even Niles began to notice. “What's the matter, Mary? Fagged? Look as if you might need a trip or change.” “All right, try a trip or change. Three months in England, browsing about among the shops for ideas for a certain addition of a ‘Tudor suite she had in mind, then a bit of Basque country and home by way of Naples and the Mediterranean. But, strangely enough, the homecoming of a Mary a little more luster- less and a little more difficult to bestir out of One Shot Which Sank 1,850 Men. Continued from Eleventh Page with 3,000 troops and arms aboard,” he re- counted. “She was almost 1,000 yards away, traveling at a high rate of speed and zigzaging. On the U-35 we had only one torpedo, one chance to get this big prize. “We maneuvered to get in the shot until at last it looked hopeless. But, not to let her get away without at least a try, we aimed as best we could. The U-35 lurched up as the torpedo shot out of the after tube. We could hear its propeller purring as it raced toward the distant target. We waited, tense with expectation, and as time passed we felt sure it had missed. Then suddenly came the ringing ‘cling’ of the torpedo’s detonator as it struck. A moment later a dull roar filled the interior of our sub- merged craft. We had hit. “We rushed near the surface, and as the periscope broke through the water a terrifying picture was revealed. The stricken ship was swarming with panic-stricken soldiers. Hun- dreds were jumping overboard, and the water was alive with struggling men. “We looked on for a few minutes and then I ordered a dive under the dark water. That horrible picture can never be erased from my THE sinking of the Gallia was a terrific blow to the allies, and the U-35 became the ob- ject of a score of special searching parties. More than once they almost had their re- venge. A French submarine probably came the closest to ending the career of the famous German commander and his boat. Prince Sigismund, nephew of the Kaiser, was aboard the U-35 “to get experience,” when this amazing encounter occurred in the Adriatic Sea during November, 1917. Capt. von Arnauld had retired after a long vigil at the conning tower, and in his place were the prince and the watch officer. Sud- denly, about 40 yards off the starboard beam, they sighted the periscope of another sub- marine, and in the same glance saw the foam- ing wake of a torpedo only a few yards away and racing directly at the side of the U-35. IT was too late to maneuver the boat. They watched, rigid with terror, as the death missile sped toward them. It was a few feet from the U-boat when the “miracle” occurred. The torpedo suddenly rose from the water like a flying fiish, landed flat on deck, tore down the railing, slid off on the other side of the boat and continued harmlessly on its way. ‘The danger was not over, Capt. von Arnauld, awakened by the clanking of the first torpedo, reached the conning tower in time to see a sec- ond torpedo bearing down on his boat. Again it was too late to maneuver, but again fate inter- vened. When a few feet away the torpedo plunged down and went under the U-35, which was, fortunately, beginning to answer the helm under orders of the captain as a third torpedo grazed by its side. The U-35 had been swung around and easily eluded the fourth and last torpedo the attack- ing submarine had aboard. Capt. von Arnauld explained that this almost unbelievable escape was not quite so miraculous as it sounds. To hit a submarine traveling on the surface, he explained, it is necessary that torpedoes be fired to travel near the surface, and frequently these shots leap out of the water. This explains why the second torpedo was aimed low and passed under the mark. “That was no doubt my closest call,” said Capt. von Arnauld. “Since the war I have traveled to all parts of the world, and recently I learned what submarine made this attack, but I did not get to meet the unlucky com- mander. “At first I thought it was a British boat, but an inquiry at the admiralty office in Lon- don revealed that they had no submarines in that vicinity at the time of the attack. In Italy I made a similar inquiry with the same results, but in Paris I learned that the sub- marine Fereday had reported the affair on her 2 of that date.” UT the attack of the Fereday was only one of many narrow escapes experienced by the famous U-boat commander, who frequently defied the big guns of the British at Gibraltar and threaded his way through the narrow straits, patrolled by a net of destroyers. Capt. von Arnauld continued to operate the U-35 in Mediterranean and South Atlantic waters until March, 1918, when the new Ger- man cruiser submarine U-139 was ready for sea. In this larger craft he made one extended cruise, which nearly ended in disaster when a steamship he had torpedoed strack the U-139 as it sank. Capt. von Arnauld managed to escape in his damaged craft and continued his warring on allied shipping until a few days before the armistice was signed. her lethargy than the Mary who had gone hunting divertissement three months before. “Matter, Mary?” It was not easy to tell Niles the matter. That is, it was not even easy to attempt to tell him. There were not the words to convey to him what he could not understand. Better to wait. Better to try somehow, some way, to jerk out of this leaden agony that was gripping her more and more. Another year then of the week end parties, the personally conducted tours through the grounds, the adding here and there to the perfection of the establishment. “What in heaven’s name is over you these days, Mary? You haven't been yourself in months.” Well, here she was trying to tell the untellable. Somehow it had to be told—it had to be told. . .. “We're so finished, Niles.” “Meaning what?" “You. Me.” “How?"” “Oh, I don't know. There is nothing we are expectant about. You take me for granted. I suppose I take you that way. Nothing around the corner for us. Nothing to build, because we've already built. No excitement left—no joy of creating—no imagination between us. Just husband taking wife for granted; wife taking husband. Stale. I need something to do. I want a spontaneous compliment from a spone taneous impuise to pay one. I want the impuilse to say complimentary things to my husband and I haven't that impulse any more than he has. You're a failure as a husband to me, Niles. I'm a failure as a wife to you. We've gone along on the momentum of inanimate things, and now that we have finished with them we’'ve nothing left.” “I don’t know what you're talking about.” “You wouldn't.” ° “You mean—" “I mean I'm dissatisfied, Niles. Horribly, Irrevocably. I'm finished here. I'm bored. There isn't enough between us. We're polite boarders under the same roof. Life is swift, life is passing and we're missing it.” “I don't know what you mean.” “I know you don’t, or I wouldn't be saying what I'm saying.” “Take a trip.” 'HIS Mary did, but it was a trip which struck incredulity and amazement into the heart of Niles. “I need to be free, Niles. I cannot regard my life as the snug, completed thing it seems to be with you. Emotionally we are finished; materially we can only be repetitious. I need to be fed, stirred, moved intellectually and ine spired to do.” “I don't know what you mean.” “I know you don’t, Niles.” That was four years ago. The new Mary lives in a three-room farm house in Cone necticut that she had constructed out ot an old barn. She is married to a student of bee culture. Everywhere throughout the simple and sparsely furnished household is evidence of the study of this intricate and subtle form of life, to which they both devote their days. Some day Mary hopes to find time to furnish their home in a quaint and charming manner. But in the meanwhile the days are too crowded, too busy, too happy. (Copyright, 1930.)