The Washington times., 1919-01-12


Pedar Bruguiere and Mr.. Peter
Cooper Hewitt, Of New York and
Newport-a ceremony as incenspicuous
as, but far more surprising than, Mr.
Hewitt's divorce from his wife-has given
fashionable society in America about the
hardest nut to crack that has been set be-
fore /. for many years.
Mr.. Hewitt is the grandson of the famous
old Peter Cooper, philanthropist, first of
New York's merchant princes and one Of
the promoters Of the original Atlantic
cable. He belongs to the innermost of
lions that he inherited he has added other
millions by his inventive genius. Mr..
Hewitt Is the originator, among other
things, Of the Cooper Hewitt light and
ranks as highly among the internationally
great in science by virtue of his brains as
he does in society by virtue of his birth.
Nine. Bruguiere comes from an entirely
worthy but unknown Southern family
without money. Once divorced, one mar
riage annulled, the possessor of a son by
her first marriage, she met signal failure
some years ago in an attempt to storm
the sacred portals of Newport.
She Is under thirty.
Mr.. Hewitt Is very close to sixty.
Mr.. Hewitt loyes-or did fove-the al
most cloisteral seclusion Of his laborator-
les.
Nine. Bruguiere loves gaiety.-
But what causes the brows Of social lead
ers to be wrinkled with perplexity and
with deepest thought Is the situation
raised by the fact that Nine. Bruguiere is
no longer Nine. Bruguiere who was
turned down" some time ago, but Mrs.
Peter Cooper Hewitt, and as such the
cbatelaine Of all the power and prestige
OF that name and presumably possessor of
its rights, privileges and prerogatiyes.
Balzac in his "Comedie Humane" would
have delighted in the factors-ironic, sar-
dOnic, dramatic-that this near Winter and
latter Spring mating affords. Quite like
some Of his pages it is.
1t was back in 1887 that young Peter
Cooper Hewitt met, wooed and married
Miss Lucy Work. He was twenty-seven
and she barely twenty years Of age.
Although the Work family tree did not
rear its head as high as the Hewitt one,
II was a great match in every sense. The
Dride was like her older sister, Mrs. Burke
Roche, one Of the most beautiful women
in the East She was also a great heiress,
for her father, Frank Work, had one of the
were but these two daughters to inherit
his millions.
AS a debutante Lucy Work had had
scores Of admirers, but from the first there
was but one man she openly favored, and
this was Pete" Hewitt, studious young
electrician, son of Abram S. Hewitt
The young people we're desperately in
love. They were married in April in the
brides then splendid home ON Madison
Square.
After the first glamor of romance faded,
Mr.. Hewitt turned back to his laboratory
and went In deeply for electrical expert
mentation.
Mrs. Hewitt turned back to society and
went in for entertaining and being enter
tanned
By the end of five years these two, once
so ardently in love, were leading a most
matter-Offact existence, so far as love was
concerned.
No children were born to them. which
was a sad blow to Mr.. Hewitt, but he
could always solace himself by creating
new inventions. By this time he was con-
sidered one OF the most promising elec-
trical experts of his time.
While Hewitt was shutting himself up
in mis- laboratory, the social world was
moving on apace, and incidentally his
wife's beauty was growing more striking
every year. But il was plain to be seen
that she had little interest in her hus-
bands scientific career. She had gor.
geously expensive home and when she
gave large dinners and dances her hus-
band appeared as host. He was, Of course,
always correct in his social intercourse.
Was he happy?
Well, now that society sees him married
to>the gay beauty from The South and later
from San Francisco, 1t doubts II he was
happy even In well-doing The day came
II pow develops, when a coldly Indifferent
wife and building full Of electrical appli-
anees failed to fill his life-failed, at all
events, to fill his heart.
During the years when he let his wife
spend most Of her time in Europe he pro-
cuced his well-known electrical rectifier
and ight-two inventions that won him
great renown In the electrical as well as
commercial world. Mrs. Hewitt was now