A Deuced Close Shave

Explaining for the First Time, the Sudden Marriage of a Famous New York Debutante

IT actually happened at the Van Tuyl's dinner-dance you know, the big one they always give the middle of the Horse Show Week— but only Eric Winthrop himself knows the exact moment at which the Fates picked up the thread of his life and wove it into that fascinating and exquisite tapestry which was the life of Victoria Desmond."

Of course, Eric had known Victoria long before they met at the Van Tuyl's that night.

In fact, during her first season, he had been one of the most conspicuous of her many admirers; but he had been abroad ever since, and had kept track of her 'only in a casual way. However, Victoria was exceptionally easy to keep track of. Ever since her debut, three winters ago, her beauty and charm had made her the most sought after girl in her set—which is to say, the set! Sunday supplements and fashionable weeklies always had at least one picture of her, at Palm Beach, at Newport, on the Avenue, leaving for London, returning from London, etc., etc. Her type—but why go on? When I tell you that, during her first season, she represented America succoring Stricken Belgium at 267 War Benefits out of a possible 280, I have told you enough!

But the great outstanding fact concerning Victoria Desmond was that she hadn't married anybody, and evidently wasn't going to. Men of every country and condition had tried—and gone away to ponder their failure. Something was wrong with each of them.

AND now we come to the Van Tuyl's dinner-dance. Eric had watched her across the table during dinner. He admitted her beauty and her charm of manner, but he was sceptical of the fascination she apparently had for all men. Such beauty, he thought gloomily to himself, couldn't possibly be found in conjunction with the qualities that he was looking for in a woman. You see, Eric was thirty-five—and past the susceptibility to mere beauty which men feel in their twenties—and seldom regain before their fifties, with the pressure constantly increasing from that point until the nineties. In a word, although he wouldn't have admitted it, Eric had reached the point where he was really searching for Good Reading in an Attractive Binding.

Victoria nodded and smiled at him as she rose from the table; and as the dancing began he made his way through the group surrounding her. She was genuinely glad to see him and, before she was whirled away by an insistent partner, had made him promise to look her up immediately after supper. Before they had exchanged a dozen words, Eric was agreeably surprised to feel himself touched by the old thrill. She was so much the same—and yet infinitely more attractive in an indescribable way! These stories that one heard—was she really so unattainable! As the evening wore on, he found himself becoming more and more determined to solve the mystery, and before supper was over he had begun his search for her. The Van Tuyl house was enormous, and tables had been placed in every conceivable nook and corner. Poor Eric had interrupted three proposals and a quarrel before a sympathetic butler advised his looking into the little library at the end of the great hall. It was very dimly lighted and Eric's entrance was unobserved. The beautiful Miss Desmond was seated at a small table in front of the fireplace, and before her stood the extremely agitated and tragic figure of a young man.

"I'm so sorry, Harold," she was saying. "You must believe how sorry I am."

"How can I?" broke in the young man passionately. "If you knew it would be

like this, why did you make me think—" "That's just it," interrupted Miss Desmond wearily. "I couldn't make you think!

You have naturally so man^ splendid qualities, but when I told you how you might acquire those I am still in search of—the appreciation of art and music and an interest in ideas, you made no effort whatever. I know you don't think them important, but they mean a great deal to me, and—oh!" she broke off quickly, as she became aware of Eric's presence.

It was rather trying for a few moments while the abject Harold essayed a dignified exit—which he might have achieved, had it not been for a bearskin rug. Victoria motioned Eric to a chair.

"I'M so glad you came for me," she said, "but do you mind waiting just a moment? I—well, the truth is I'm rather upset, and if I could be quiet for a littl—" And Eric saw her dab her eyes with her tiny handkerchief.

"Please don't!" he begged. "Don't let this spoil your evening! And if you have any sympathy to spare, I think I deserve it for coming at such a moment."

Victoria smiled faintly. "It isn't wholly sympathy," she said. "I suppose you heard what I said, didn't you? Well, most of my tears are for my own disappointment. I really like Harold. He's perfectly fine in many ways—and good-looking—and rich —and—oh, why can't I meet a man who has all the interesting qualities as well as the good ones?—who hasn't bone glasses and a huge Adam's apple, and yet knows that Ben Ami isn't a kitchen soap!"

Ben Ami! Where had Eric heard that name? He seemed to associate it with intense heat—the New York, New Haven and Hartford. By Jove, he had it! And as one in a dream Eric heard himself say: "Yes, I was so sorry to miss him at the Garden Theatre last winter."

Victoria leaned forward, her eyes searching his very soul. "You!" she whispered.

Eric talked on—and on—and on. There is no need to tell you what he said. "Siegfried Sassoon", "Joseph Urban's stage lighting", "the dialogues of Paul Geraldy", came from his lips as easily as market quotations. And, as the fire died away to glowing embers and Victoria shivered slightly, he took her in his arms and whispered hoarsely: "My darling, will you—?"

"Gad! That was a deuced close shave!" said Eric Winthrop, back in his rooms a few hours later. "The Fates were certainly on my side when they gave me that article to read on the train to Newport last summer." And then he sat down at his desk and wrote out check to Vanity Fair.

K. D.