Radio and television mirror (Nov 1939-Apr 1940)

Why did his voice, as it came over the air, carry that thrilling note of passion she remembered from longago honeymoon nights? through me, a sensation of pure exaltation. It was entirely instinctive; the next moment, as I realized what it meant, I was weak and shaking. The love-note was there, in Roger's voice — now! He was playing a love scene in a radio studio, with a girl I'd never even met — but he was not pretending! This was the real thing. I, who knew every intonation of his voice, could not escape the shattering knowledge that Roger was in love with another woman. I stood up and with shaking hands turned off the radio. I thought I would scream if I heard once more that long-forgotten timbre in my husband's voice. My first reaction was one of fear. Then came a deep, burning anger. What I had thought was an ideal marriage wasn't ideal at all. It was no more than a shell, pleasing to the eye but hollow inside. When Roger came home at night and kissed me, his thoughts were with another woman. I felt insulted, humiliated. Because I knew I wasn't mistaken. For ten years, ever since our marriage, I had listened to Roger on the air. I had heard him play innumerable love scenes — and never once had I caught the unmistakable ring of passion that had been there today. It was as certain a betrayal of his feelings as a loveletter in his handwriting. Who was the girl? Desperately I tried to think back to what Roger had told me about the program. A month or two earlier they had brought in a new actress to take the leading lady's part. That much I remembered. Her name was Judith something — Judith — Judith Moore. A newcomer, a girl they'd brought on from Chicago especially for this role. Some cheap, obviously pretty little thing, of course, I thought. Her voice had been sensuous and slightly husky over the air. And poor FEBBUAHY, 1940 Roger was probably proud of his conquest. I remembered things that had happened in the last few months, things I hadn't paid any attention to at the time. Perhaps it was partly my fault, I admitted. I'd thought our marriage had settled down to a quiet, friendly affair, with sex and love relegated to their proper place. But Roger, after all, was a man, like other men, and probably I'd been foolish to forget that. Well! I was back to my senses at last. I had beauty, too, the same beauty that had made Roger fall madly in love with me in the first place. Neither marriage nor the arrival of Bruce, our little boy, had blurred that beauty. With it I could hold Roger, win him back to me — and I would — I must! Even if I If I had seen Roger and Judith Moore, repeating with their eyes what their lips had just said . . . had to play the strumpet to do so! It's easy now to see how wrong I was, how false my reactions. Perhaps, if I could have been present in the studio that afternoon, and could have seen Roger and Judith Moore after the broadcast, their scripts forgotten, silently repeating with their eyes everything they had just said with their lips . . . perhaps, then, I would have understood a little better. But I don't know. Probably not. I was so vain, so used to thinking of my own loveliness as the most precious thing in the world, and therefore the most powerful, that I don't think there was room in my mind for anything else. It was the last straw when, a few minutes later, the telephone rang (Continued on page 77) 11