HALF-PAST YESTERDAY

A novel of marriage in which the war determines the outcome of a triangle, of adjustments between husband and wife speeded up because of the swiftness of life in wartime. Plausible and honest -- if not important -- story of Joe Brennan, his marriage of five years' standing -- and the war. From the wrong side of the tracks, Joe has married socialite Alice, given up his newspaper work, and gone into her father's bank. Recognizing a stalemate, he finds release when the draft puts him into Signal Corps. A visit from Alice heals over some of the scars of their marriage, but he soon finds that she is interested in another man, an old beau now divorced, so Joe turns to Ann, who seems to offer all he needs. Then Alice is jilted a second time -- and refuses Joe a divorce --and Ann marries the Naval officer to whom she is engaged. Joe takes Alice back, and in the face of realization that he is bound overseas, and with his own integrity reestablished by having a novel accepted for publication, he finds that after all, his marriage offers something that could not be displaced.