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Show WILES OF WOMEN HER pose was to 'be childish, kittenish; kit-tenish; his, the moulder of feminine charms, as ho saw them both playing the game. Each thought the other wealthy, or very comfortably fixed. Everybody else knew differently, but well, the game went on. She had a gurgling laugh, that ran from low to high, fully the eight notes of the scale, which sounded sound-ed exactly like I hate to make the comparison, but it was like whisky being be-ing poured from a bottle, only more musical. This laugh, which she used on occasion, always seemed to exasperate ex-asperate him. Probably that is why she used it. He was English or Scotch, and calm. It took a lot to ruffle him. When she resorted to this particular laugh, he would start from his chair and shout, "Stop that! Stop that!" Generally, this would happen when she was at the 'phone talking to some other chap. Maybe it was the chap, as well as the laugh, that would exasperate him. Anyway, when he shouted she stopped both (the talk and the gurgle), and then would dance over to him, with another sort of laugh, and dance away again, and be impish, playful as I said before. "Childish and kittenish." That is the way she won him, being only a child that he could mould to his liking. But more of that a little further on. Her father used to tell her that her cleverness was the rock she split on. Whether this was true or not, the rock never seemed to get in her way until she was quite ready for it. She was an adept in attitudinizing to fit the situation, yet there was such a mixture of honesty and dishonesty in her poses that it was difficult to tell where one began and the other left off. Of course, men never dreamed for an instant that she ever posed at all! They adored her when she intended in-tended they should. She had magnificent, magnifi-cent, soft rolling, deep red hair and purplish eyes that grew black as her mind scintillated; the beautiful complexion com-plexion that goes with auburn hair, but there all pretense to beauty stopped. Her wrists, hands, feet and ankles were large, and her lack of daintiness in figure, line and grace showed a plebian streak, as well as making playful and kittenish dancing steps seem grotesque. The "streak," however, was a valuable asset in playing play-ing her cards to get what she wanted out of her world as she found it. No patrician, no thoroughbred, could have played the game through to her successes suc-cesses there would have been faltering falter-ing at important points. She never forgot or faltered, when once her game was started. Two husbands had already marked the calendar of her years. She was a twenty-eight or thirty-year-old-"child" when she met the Scot. Her first husband she did not count. She simply threw him off and went out to earn her living. She laid a real foun- (Continued on Page 13.) WILES OF WOMEN ! (Continued from Page 9.) dation for it by studying stenography and typewriting. It was at a time when beauty was essential, and she easily found employment with a brute sort of man, a crabbed rich bachelor, who was feared by a dozen or more other girls he employed. But not she! She played all her red-haired wit on ' him, defied and ignored him until his r .... ,.... .u r wTjnr"'-'" vanity was piqued, and his interest was aroused, and in the end he married mar-ried her as she intended he should. Then, having married him, there was no present interest in his humdrum hum-drum life only as she -used his money to study and fit herself for something that might develop as time went on. Here was where her honesty of purpose pur-pose mixed in veiled, but very disarming dis-arming with her Inevitable posing. She studied music, German, French and Italian, and really studied. Developments, De-velopments, of course, came her way, as they come to most women wives who marry men of the age of various va-rious entanglements. Again she walked walk-ed out. This time with money, and a second divorce. She came to New York. She tried to "do" Wall street, and actually made a little money, which enabled her to gown herself and put on more or less side dog or whatever the slang is for being doubtful doubt-ful of your own position, and then she began to be very subservient to all conventions. This time she had to enthrall en-thrall somebody who would advance her across the ocean and into Continental Conti-nental life her dream of years! Then the Scot came her way. She was twenty-eight years old so she said and so the candles said on a birthday cake but only a child in experience ex-perience ,and at heart so, also, she said with life to learn, and all before her. The Scot knew life. He loved to teach her and to watch her clevor H brain absorb his teachings. In a short H time he began to feel himself very H responsible for her as she intended jH he should! M Then they ,wero marrjed. Her mon- H ey was wearing small figures, his H money was a salary generous, but had its limits. Before the limit was H pressing she fell into a decline. Her H studies, which had never ceased, had H undermined her naturally delicate con- jH stitution, so the physician announced, H and she ought to go to the South of H France! And there she found herself H after years of planning and study. Her H health improved marvelously, but not H enough for her to live in the States H again. Her red hair and mind still H glinted and scintillated, and she truly H had things her way her little world H in the palm of her hand but, like all H worlds (either little or big) there were H ups and downs. M Frequently there were times when H she had not enough money to get the H real necessities; other times she would M be seen at Monte Carlo with sacks of H gold in front of her, and some devoted M admirer back of her .protecting her M from all harm. She got another di- H vorce, and had, too, the friendship of H the Scot! She was such a "child," the H very least he could do was to give H friendship. M H Tlio years have gone on and she has H added Russian to her languages, and H God alone knows how many other Ian- H guages she has a smattering of! She H has acquaintances with every dlplo- H matic circle, with all the floating H population, in a "way, of Paris, and is H thought to he now in secret service H work for some country anyway, she H is no longer worried about money. If H it is secret service work, let us hope H that it is for the Allies. Her inno- H cenco and childishness and helpless- fl ness would make her invaluable. The M Analyzer in Town Topics. |