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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 17, 1915)
Ihe Omaha Sunday Bee Magazine Page 'Shift.. Eclipse WIEN a person Is an Invited guest In the home of an . unsuspecting family It is not right for him to make use of this fine opportualty to pocket the spoons. He should prove himself a respecter of the sacred rites of hospitality. It is the sn me In the case of a "lore pirate." She should do her love pirating on the broad high seas, not In the sheltered coves of do mesticity. It la not right for her to accept tho enthusiastic friend ship of a young engaged girl and then repay that unsophisticated de votion by stealing the betrothed hus band and marching him off to the altar for her own. Every right thinking person will appla-id these sentiments. They are quite generally aocepted la clvilUed society. Tet yon should not be wholly without sympathy for Mra. Donald Shields Andrews. Drop one gentle tear upon her withered orange blossoms. Her act of trea son to her trust ing friend,' Miss Elizabeth Strong, was followed by wlft retribution. . The Yale Col lege youth, prize of her piracy, has gone bark to hts father. His fifty ' thousand dollars a year income never material ised 'during that honeymoon o f ' four short weeks, and the love api rate, Son her own confession, is six thousand doars pporer than she was before. Poor Mrs. Andrews! And having dropped that one crystal token of sympathy, observe the lasting good that may be ex pected t o result from thla brief exploit in unpro fessional and wholly repre hensible love pi racy. Everybody con cerned has re ceived a valuable lesson. Hence forth Mra. An drews will be care-. ful not to steer her pirate craft Into sheltered domestic harbors. Al ready the disenchanted young Mr. Andrews, for. the first time in his life, has gone soberly to work. Pretty Miss Elirabeth Strong has escaped the all but impossible task of converting a rich and idle 'rah, 'rah college boy into a satisfactory husband, Hts father's copper mines in Michigan are performing that prodigy with infinitely better, pros pects of success for some other girl, when the love pirate bonds have been lawfully shattered, or perhaps for little Miss fcitrong her selfwho can say? How could the American home sheltered fiancee of Donald Shields Andrews be expected to resist the fascinations of the brilliant, worldly-wise young woman who confessed that she was of royal birth, daughter of the Ill-fated Crown Prince Rudolph, of Austria and the heroine of his traglo romance, Marie VetseraT Espe cially as she had a little son who was, accordingly, the rightful belr to the throne of the aged Emperor Francis Joseph though the then Mrs. George Osborne Hayne declared that never would she permit them to make an emperor of herinnoceot child. 6be was dlvorcC from her cruel, non supporting husband, which made her all the more an object of ad miration and sympathy for this Utile encaged girl ot Cleveland, Ohio. The divorced MVs. Hayne gained Miss Strongs friendship wheu bcti. Why ' . - v "' - '""i "WW --.x ' V v-; :X rs.v'xv . . :- ; t Y I ' ; ' V - l 11 '''':; ' ' ; 1 rv UT,V. Ill V '' -'MM: H Si V ' VV ill """"" ' 1f""n"" " f 'n'"" ir The Clouded Honeymoon of the Lady Who Charmed Away and Married Her Friends Fiance Undergoes a Complete and Miserable Mrt Donah Shields Andrews and Her Pet Do. She Has Engaged Lawyers to Try and Compel Rich Papa Andrews to Respect Her Marital , Claims. Stolen Happiness Can Only End an; Unhappiness . By CLARA MORRIS Veteran American Actress and 8oclal Philanthropist, AND so Mrs. Donald Shields Andrews's hasty romance with a youth who scudded from the side of his betrothed to elope with her has gone all to pieces! And this in less than six weeks after the great illusion, passion, love or whatever you want to call it threw its veil over both' and made them break one of the conventions which so ciety has laboriously through the ages striven to up hold. For while it Is true that the only redress a girl whose troth has been plighted to a fickle lover has Is a civil suit for damages. It is nevertheless true that human society as a whole feels that the taking away of a girl's beau by another woman Is distinctly a dishonorable act. The reason for this is plain. We all of us have had beaten into us respect for other people's prop erty. And love Is as much a bit of property as any thing else. We impose rigorous penalties upon the man who takes away our money or our goods and who breaks Into our house at night. But we have not yet gotten educated up to the point of Imposing such penalties npon those whoe steal love. Never theless, the feeling that there ought to be more rig orous penalties is in every right-thinking person's mind, and a suit for civil damages is a somewhat inadequate expression of this belief. It was Inevitable that, circumstances being as they were, the romance of young Mr. Andrews and the lady he made his wife should conie to grief. The astonishing thing is that it came to grief so soon. The reason for this Is plain. Although there are persons who defy the conventions few, if any, of these ever "get away with it" The conventions are wise rules of human conduct which humanity has beaten out through the ages. They, are, in fact, paths of eternal justice, and if you wander from them you take the consequences. Back in the earliest days of men when a member of another tribe tried to steal a sweetheart of another man the aggrieved lover usually meted out Justice with a club if ha could, and the tribe found his act right. Because even then love was beginning to be considered in the light .of a possession. But there is another and deeper reason why such things cannot work out happily. When a man makes love to a girl and asks her to be his wife and she consents, and then suddenly some other woman at tracts him away from that girl it argues strongly for a lack of steadfastness in the man. Without steadfastness there is no success or any thing which actually contributes to happiness. At the same time, when a woman .uiiBuinaniiiiuiiiiinr SOS "Practically from Before the Very Altar and Young Mr. Andrew Vanished with Mrs. were staying at Camden, S. C She heard all ' about Miss Strong's engagement to marry the young Yale undergraduate, Donald ShleUla Andrews. The little Ohio trusting fiancee was unreserved la her confidences, as she was in her adoration of her charming and brilliant guest When "Alma Vet sera" left for New York it is said that Miss i Strong wrote to her fiance giving a glowing descrip tion of her new friend, and end ing: "Be sure and call on her. You'll find her a perfect love. Your de voted Bess." Young Andrews proved to be an obedient fiance. He called on Mrs. Hayne at her studio apartment. Central Park South, New York. He found her attractions quite up to Miss Strong's specifications. They dined at the Plaza. They did not neglect each other appreciably after that. Perhaps Mrs. Hayne learned interesting things about the elder Andrews and those Michigan copper mines, and young Andrews's fifty thousand dollars a year in come. At any rate, about a week after the meeting which little Miss Strong had engineered, they went to Mamaroneck and were married, and sailed for Europe. , . Two months later the deserted and betrayed little fiance if she read the newspapers learned that Donald Shields Andrews had returned from Europe alone; that he did not return to Yale to be graduated with the est of bia class; but that he did have a heart- Hit Bride-to-be, Hayne." Mr. Donald Shields Andrews, Who' Has Had Such a Hard Lessou in Love. o-heart falk with his father, and was later found doggedly at work la the paternal copper mines out in Michigan. Still later pretty, deserted Miss Strong probably learned from news paper cable dispatches from Lon don how her erstwhile friend, the leva pirate, had acknowledged her self a "biter bitten;" how she had "plucked a lemon in the garden ot love." And last month when the poorer, but wiser, love pirate re turned to New York to engage law- yers and 'lay siege to the Andrews fortress, to exlort recognition ot her marital rights, she added other details. Here are the highlights of the sad story: In London and neighboring fashionable resorts the young couple lerelved much convivial at tention. l'ion one such occasion young Ar.lrews, being in an ex p ins!- - mu?d. remarked quite pub- "And in Six Short Weeks Back to Home His Bride Sent Him Packing." licly: , , "1 married this little lady, and my Income was cut bff." ' ' '. This announcement producing a rather startling effect,, he added: "I should explain that before my marrtage, while I was at Yale, my income was $50,000 a year; now I . have to i get along with only 125.000," "Oreat heavens!" exclaims the deserted love pirate wife. "I sup ported him from the moment I mar ried him to the day of bis return to America, I spent $6,000 on him. 1 even paid for his clothes. Before leaving New York he bought tour teen pairs of boots., and charged them to me. He was not satisfied with the love I gave him." Here's another . moral for you: Marry, a love pirate and you can't live on tve alone you instantly contract a. gnawing, passion for boots. "When he ordered $100 worth ot shirts." Mrs. Andrews went on, "I was forced to refuse the order, as I didn't have, enough money to pay for them. "When we went to England he had with him four revolvers. He slept with one of them under his pillow. "I was given to understand that money would be sent to Mr. Andrews. None came, and present ly I had spent all I had. I was stranded. I advised him to go home to his mother. We had some words about it several times. I was in perpetual fear. He got into a habit of threatening to commit suicide. There . were his tour re volvers, and besides, he showed me a bottle of poison he had compound ed in the Yale laboratories. It was terrible!" Well, that bottle of poison may come in bandy yet. Mrs. Andrews . says she contemplates going on the - stage. Somebody has written a play for her called "Suicide," and sne has the poison bottle ready for the opening night The elder Andrews of the - Michigan copper . mines when young Mrs. Andrews's tale of woe was recited to him, said: "All rot every wor,d of it Donald made his mistake and I am helping him try to forget it" How the deoerted and betrayed fiancee is succeeding in that direc tion is not on record. She must find, some consolation, at least, in 'this latest publio demonstration ot the doubtful rewards ot lova piracy. enters another wo man's house as a jrueBt and fascin ates deliberately and then runs away with the man that she knows Is to be mar , ried to that other woman, it argues a certain lack of con ventional ethics in that woman, which is in turn so dishar monious with the mass of common thought that it must bring unhappiness. (n this case both ele ments were strongly present. W h a t happened? The youth (taken sud denly out of his own environment know ing that he bad run , counter to the rules of his class, was un happy. Unfortunate ly we have memories and habits, and when the first flush of ex citement was over these memories and habits crowded in. It is conceivable that his bride found him very unmterest ing and annoying indeed. The two could not make a code of their own unless they lived alone on a desert Island. They simply couldn't be happy and be a part of the rest ot the world. And then came the crash. Mr. Andrews is young, and it may be that this try ing experience will teach him such a lesson that he will rapidly turn into a very creditable citiien. in deed. It may be that the little girl he deserted still loves him, and if he shows that he has become dif ferent that they can take up their romanec again where it was so rudely broken. If this is so it may aB work out very happily. Mr. Andrews most prob ably would never do such a thing again, and so his first love will have nothiag to fear after marriage as so many women have. And if she does not take him back she le still lucky. It Is a strange and not unexpected sequel of being married in haste. There is much to be said for the new Idea ot pedigrees for the candidates for mar riage. The pin-feather youth who fancies a mature enchantress can at leaBt learn something of her ro mantic past, more, doubtless, than she will choose to tell him. The idea of a marriage candidate record office is not half, nor a quarter bad. The smitten youth, tormented by Cupid, would not be wholly de pendent upon the veracity of the woman of his feverish adoration. He would have a sufficiently lucid interval In which common sense would proa him to candidates' office. Why not have a matrimonial Dunns or Bradstreets? The States that are so much interested in posterity that they are passing sumptuary laws governing it, could establish such bureaus. Every youth or maiden, could have free access to the bureau and there dis cover whether the candidate could show clear title to his or her affections. But the love-sick youth must wait the pro cess of license granting and while he is doing so he may, indeed he must, scan , the record of his bride-to-be. Her age is thus recorded, her real age. Her homes. The number of her marriages. Her reputation for stability or the contrary in affairs of the heart. These would face htm, and the dis play might be such as to fan his ardor, or it might give him pause, perhaps permanent pause so far aa that particular enamorata is concerned.