Omaha Sunday B
Copyright, 1S12, by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved.
How a Clerk in a Real Estate
Office Won His Wealthy Bride
by Fairy Tales of
Wealth and Family,
and the Sad Sequel
I?
j'- , ll1
-A'V - 111 peasant's son disguised as the Prince i 1 i II I fSv iTWk ' Jml
, VY Tfefts-1 II ' of Como. In the drama of love and . 'A 1 V I H ' I, w t XJfr.Vr
' g-... well authenticated rumors, of this I -tr :mni II I. WIS- Jiiir3
- ' 1 fashion: Ml C V.
f " - I "Darling Helen, after the first of I 'A rKMf . I ..Less mmm "T- - -
rostra
for her hand. Mrs. KIrkman stead
lly refuses to see him and at famll
and friendly conferences the matter
of the annulment of the marriage is
considered.
In the play the despised bride
groom goes to war and returns a
general, in real life the real estate
employe is dolefully and not very
successfully going about his duties,
caring little whether customers buy
bungalows or not. He bangs his
head as he passes his sister's abode
or not, In the play of the Lady of
Lyons relents and goes back to her
brUfgruom. In the plas the
Lady of Manhattan says with
every sign of truth . that she
hates him and never wants to
see him again. Claude Melnotte was
in his bride's eyes handsome In his
uniform of a general. George KIrk
man, now that his becoming white
flannels must be laid aside, looks
oddly shrunken and countrified, his
bride thinks, when he comes to the
city apartment to ring the bell, but
is never admitted.
It wns the Lady of Lyons's first
marriage. 'Twas the lady of Man
hattan's second.
Walter Phelps Dodge, author, law
yer and son of a millionaire, wedded
her, but took back his gifts of dia
monds and laces to her, because he
eald, his first wife's spirit came to
his bedside and demanded them. The
bride fled in fright and secured 'a
divorce on the grounds of spiritual
cruelty In the Pennsylvania courts. ,
She was recuperating by the sea from
the sliock of this unhappy marriago
when Claude Melnotte 11. began hi
ill-starred wooing.
Mrs. Helen Steck-Dodge-Kirkman
the New Lady of Lyons.
I J some enterprising theatrical pro
ducer were to put on "The Lady
of Lyons," Lord Lytton'a famous
drama, the most appropriate person
to take the title role wouLd be Helen
Steck Dodge KIrkman.
Indeed, the unfortunate Helen has
played the part so well and so faith
fully that as a result she may now
be found In her fashionable New
York apartment nursing her wrongs
and poulticing her pride.
For this modern Lady of Lyons
has a pride as great as that of the
original Lady of Lyons.
She has a beauty as bewitching. ,
And a mind as credulous. 1
And relatives as relentless.
Her awakening from dreams of
honor and affluence is as bitter.
And all has come about in Just the
same way and through the same mo
tive. The heartbroken Lady of Lyons
and her counterpart, the equally
heartbroken Lady of Manhattan, had
suitors who loved well but not
truthfully, and who erected homes
for their brides which neither their
bank accounts nor the facts justi
fied. The young men builded airy
and unsubstantial structures to daz
zle the maids of their hearts. And
when the maids discovered that
they had been deceived they did
precisely the same thing. Both
went straight home to mamma.
Helen Steck Dodge Is the Pauline
Deschapelle of this second drama of
the Lady of Lyons, daughter of Ed
win Steck, the Pennsylvania opera
tor of coal mines, and who is affil
iated with the Pennsylvania Kail
road, she has lived in as handsome
a home in Germantown as the
haughty and beautifnl Pauline in
Lyons. To them both came wooers.
Claude Melnotte, the peasant
lover In the play by Lord Lytton,
described:
A palace lifting to eternal Summer ,
Its marble walls from out a glossy
Dower.
The wooing by George KIrkman.
the employe of a real estate firm at
Interlaken, -N.-J., was less poetical
bat aulte as fervid as that of the
peasant's son disguised as the Prince
of Como, In the drama of love and
disappointment. It was, according to
well authenticated rumors, of this
fashion:
"Darling Helen, after the first of
August I shall be a member of the
firm and will be able to take care of
you as luxuriously as you are in
your mothers' home. Come with me
to-morrow to call at our home. My
mother Is away but my sister will
be delighted to receive you."
Next day he escorted the lovely
girl who looked so charming In her
Summer gown of pale pink batiste
and her broad-brimmed hat that
drooped, heavy with its weight of
pink roses, about her face, to call at
his home.
"There It is,", he said as they
turned a corner and came upon one
of the most attractive bungalows in
the seaside city. It was as nearly
palatial as a bungalow can be,
stretching half way idown the block,
its square brown outlines and huge
piazza crowded with swinging
couches, gay hammocks and easy
chairs, suggesting all the luxuries of
the Summer home of wealth in a
mood of relaxation. They sauntered
past it that the Lady of Manhattan
might better view its breadth and
the effect of the awnings that spread
green as the boughs of a giant shade
tree at the windows.
"She is entertaining guests, but it
doesn't matter. Come on," and with
his fingers resting daintily beneath
her elbow the pair mounted the
steps and were greeted pleasantly by
a young woman who rose at sight
of them and came forward with a
smile.
"Mrs. Steck Dodge Mrs. Blank."
Young Mr. KIrkman, in his white
flannels, sat silent but smiling.
When they sauntered back to the
hotel where she was staying with
her mother Claude Melnotte II. said :
"And now, darling, since you've
met my family, why not be married
at once?"
"I would, George dear, only I am
afraid mamma would not be
pleased."
"Iiet's be married first and tell her
nf t&rwtrtls
An afternoon spin with her sister
and the sister's admirer, a New York
broker, had become a dally institu
tion. Mrs. Steck, complaining of a
headache, told the quartette to get
on as best they could without a
chaperon that afternoon and dark
ened her room, sought her smelling
salts, and fell asleep. While mam
mas nap, girls elope. Mrs. Steck's
younger daughter did not elope, but
leaving her sister and the New York
broker on some pretext for a half
hour they went to aclergyman and
were married. . When Mrs. Steck
awoke she faced startling news and
a new son-in-law.
She cried a little, as mothers do
at weddings, or when news of wed
dings is. suddenly broken to them,
but the new-made bride comforted '
her with little pats and kisses and
tnis logic:
"Mamma darling, you know I am
only twenty and entitled to another
chance for happiness. After I mar
ried Walter Phelps Dodge and was George Kirkman, the Second Claude
driVen out by his spook wife I de- Melnotte, Did Moat of Hi Wooing
?f, V !
termined to marry a young man next
wme to marry ror love.
Mrs. Steck, who is a fond indul
gent mother, dried her eyes, kissed
her daughter and said : , "Well dear,
I hope you will be happy. And
George does seem a nice boy. Of
course, you met him on the hotel
piazza and without an Introduction,
but now, since you've met his
family"
Soon after, Mrs. Steck and her
elder daughter returned to their
apartment near the park and River
side Drive. The honeymoon of the
Lady of Manhattan began. It lasted
for three days. At the end of that
time there was an eclipse of the
honeymoon. At least it was hidden
by a storm of tears.
The bride hurried back to New
York. She rushed Into her mother's
apartment, flung herself upon her
breast and burst Into tears.
"Mamma," she sobbed, "I have
married an Impostor. That lovely
girl wasn't his sister at all. And he
hasn't any m-money; hardly a tent.
We went to a miserable little room,
like a cell, In an inn. There wasn't
any bath room. Oh, it was dreadful!"
"If she wasn't his sister who was
she? Helen dear, are you mad?"
... "Yes, I am, mamma, but not in the
way you mean. When I asked him
why his sister didn't call he said It
was a Joke. I went to see her and
she said, 'Yes, I had never met him
but once before, when his firm was
selling me the place. I wondered at
the time why he xjalled.' I asked
him why he lied about his Income,
making it out to be several times
larger than it was. and he said: 'A
man's got a right to lie to a woman
when he's making love to her. All's
fair in love.' Then, mamma, I came
in Borrowed Automobile. Here He
la with Mrs. Steck-Dodge.
ifXi "
y te -I
i
mm 1
straight home and I'm never going
back to him. I hate him."
George KIrkman followed his bride
to the city and tried to see her. He
saw, instead, her mother and sister.
"We are sorry, but Helen won't see
you," they said. He went away and
telephoned her. Her replies over the
public communicator were in effect
the angry words of Pauline to her
new-made lord: '
"This is my bridal home and thou
my bridegroom!
0 fool, O dupe, O wretch! I see it
- . all. -
The. bride's family- sent detectives
to - Asbnry . Park to make Inquiries
about the in
truder. One de
tective report
ed that' his ,
father, who
was dead, had
once been a
shoestring
peddler, that
h i s mother
I kept a board
i n g house.
Whether these
were true or not, tJiey flung the bride
into an abyss of hysterics.
Claude Melnotte had the grace to
be sorry for his victim. Said the
peasant's son:
"Thy father's arms shall take thee
to thy home.
The law shall do thee justice, and
restore
Tby right to bless another with thy
love.
The young real estate clerk 'and
errand man, less noble than the poet,
rages in Jealousy. He fancies every
man to whom his twenty-year-old
bride used to bow prettily Is a suitor
mm
0h, the vision
she had on the
porch as he
talked. Auto and
castles and every
thing ' money
could buy floated
around her in
talk. Bubbles, bubbles that burst at last with a bang!"