Omaha daily bee., 1919-08-23
The Sad Love Affair
Beautiful Screen Star
Kathleen Clifford

haunts where once he and she had
delighted to mingle now knew them
no more. The table in the secluded
corner at Joseph's, lighted with the
green hued candles, where nightly
they had dined and discussed the
plays back in little old New York
and the folk in Greenwich Village,
some other couple occupied it now
and whispered the same sweet moth
ings across the haze of fragrant
cigarettes.
Novelists will say that the musi-
cally-minded suffer more keenly in
affairs of the heart that go wrong
than do just the ordinary human
specie who can lay no claim to a
soul that is super-sensltive. How
ever, almost any man or woman will
tell you of the self-same writings
of the soul when love is dead
Eric had lost his hold on things
in life. The slender fingers of his,
trained at such cost of years of con-
centration. took to entwining them
selves about the seductive wine COB
lets, and to fashioning prettily in
Vulnerable cigarettes; in place of
practicing technicalities and in
tricate finger exercises. At first the
musical world looked on in pity at
Eric's lapses, then with tolerance
and lastly with almost no tolerance.
How could they know" he asked
himself scornfully. How could they
understandw he derided.
The deeper he drank, the more
impossible he found it to be to apply
himself, and he lost one position
after another. At last the end
seemed very near
One evening as Eric sat at cafe
table alone. the beautiful little kath-
leen, attended on either side by
naval officer and a civilian, swept
into the gay tavern resort. So i'm
perious, so like a doll was she, that
Eric gulped down a cry, as his eyes
followed her to where the party
were seated. Silently he drank and
smoked, his thoughts consuming
him. Later, when he left his seat
and drew near the orchestra rail-
ing, no one in all that gay, laughing
throng gave him a thought. During
an interim in the music, Eric
reached forth and seizing a violin,
drew the bow across the strings and
sounded the old refrain:
when other lips and other hearts
Their tales of love shall tellr'
The pain and poignant passion
in the notes. thrilled all hearers and
Kathleen Clifford met the burning
eyes that compelled her unwilling
gaze. She half rose from her seat
as the last note fingered on the
strings. Starting forward, her
cheeks blanched white through the
delicate rouge, for the tatterdeml-
lion player had thrust his hand into
his bosom and a shot rang out as
his body fell lifeless to the floor.
Kathleen rushed forward dragging
her ermine cape in the dust of the
floor.
Eric! Eric! I know now 1t was
untrue! I read your letters today,
today, at last! Had | only read |
them then, dear! But l believed all
that woman said, | believed it--oh
Eric, forgive, forgive"
1t was so that he passed, with
her arms around him and with her
dear eyes on his.
To this day, the stage and picture
star still wears a curious ring with
its setting turned inward toward
the palm. Its history society does
not know. But whenever the sound
Of a violin is heard, the little hand
is tightly clenched and something
like the shiver of a dead soul
passes over the little form and the
bluegrey eyes grow very somber.