Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-03
Shedding Light and Sweetness.


chateau in the Belgian valley of the Mouse.
1t was her property.
Shedding Light, and Sweetness.
The king approved of the artistic side OF
Cleo's new existence and while from his
own royal point OF view its missionary
character in shedding light and sweetness
on the vulgar world may have come first,
he chuckled like a canny business man
when he learned the large financial returns
of the adventure. There were nights when
the students of Copenhagen gave her wild
ovations. unhitchng the horses from her
carriage and drawing her in triupmh
through town almost Illuminated in her
honor. Similar triumphs came to her IN
Prague and other northern-people cities
she never had great success with the Lat
ms.
At one moment she surprised Parlsans
by returning TO the opera. Within a month
she had quilted 1t again. and no one ever
knew the cause of the maneuver, were IL
not to show her power 10 go and come in
the proudest institution of its kind In the
world.
After an engag cement at the ST. Peters,
burg Imperial Opera she took for herself
the little Theatre DIES Capucincs In Paris.
During the exposition she had a Cambo-
dian theater, with herself Always FOR Its
star. She toured I'm France, Switzerland.
Belgium, Holland, Austria, Hungary, al
ways to big money. Then the tours came
to be shorter and the periods Of dignity and
leisure grew longer, ana Diana-Cleopatra
entered on her third and final phase.
OF course, 1t had really been coming little
by little: It IS only when we look at ca
reer in its great lines that periods seem 10
mark themselves off definitely. When Leo
pold-who is first of all great business
man-laughed with approval as she laid
before him the net results of that New
York tour it had begun already, doubtless.
She was shrewd from the beginning. She
desired to invest money. QuiZcaHy Leo
pold suggested very mixed investments.
some bad as they make them; and he
opened his eyes al her natural discernnent.
So 1t shortly came about. they say, that
every dollar of fair Cleos savings got to be
invested in Ostend Dinant and Namur
watering place real estate, at the produce
tive moments of this or that great improve
ment engineered by the most businessliks
king of the present day.
Little by little Leopold amused himself
by asking her opinion on schemes that had
been imagined by himself proposed to
him by the financiers.
Audacity and Trembling.
Once Cleos instructive woman's repulsion
for a banker she had really only seen once
saved old Leopold from a bad whirl: the
way those Belgians treat their king with
mixed audacity and trembling is extra
ordinary.
From that hour her word had weight
OF course it did not come without soma
reaching out for 1t. Once, when pro-
moter of the Societe Anversose du Com
merce au Congo offered to let her in on the
ground floor. she replied. gravely: L would
dearly love to have the shares but would
hate to buy them"
The king-who had not taken her into his
confidence respecting Congo trading yet
broke into Joyous guffaw.
Shed hate to buy thenr' he cried. 80
would l." And this explains, perhaps, how
the king and his Congo state got half the
stock for nothing-and why Cleos modest
holdings which since 1903 have paid her
s1OO per year on each SlC0 worth Of stock.
are pure and simple profit.
She came to understand and Ike these
Congo enterprises-who would notf When
the Abr (Anglo-Belgian Rubber Company
wanted to reconstitute itself to evade Bel
gian taxation Cleo took lively interest in
its fortunes. The parts OF this conces-
sonary company never had a nominal
value, so that 1t is possible that the young
lady gave up no more to the square inch
for hers than the king and the Free State
(who are one) gave for their thousand:
but single parts" which IN 1893 We're al-
ready worth 1900 francs, have since pro-
duced per cent interest on $4,000 francs
apiece.
And so with many and many another
like the Kasai Company rubber trading),
the Congo Superior Railway. ana the Stan.
ley Pool and Katanga-Itimbiri Construction
Company-into the nature Of whose conces-
sons and Arabian Nights profits Belgian
University professors. liberal deputies and
business men are trying to make an elrec-
tive investigation.
Thus shortly-and because her name may
be found as stockholder on the books OF
companies investigated-only this and MOTH
ing more-the fine girl who began life by
hiding her ears as q little child OF ten
among the rats Of the Paris opera ballet.
may come to be an international figure
however modest and retiring, In a stumbling
block of world poltics-the exploitation OK
the Congo AN AMERICAN IN PARIS.