The Washington times., 1920-02-08

i ton of Eileen Clarke in a recent
divorce suit in England. In further detail
she declared her husband was an
enthusiast about dogs, had them
sleep in bed with him and made
them an intolerable nuisance
about the house.
And romance and tragedy OF u
dogs in New York fashionable
life is recalled by a wedding ~
here recently following a dl-
vorce.
For, when a few days ago
Malcolm Stevenson, interna- q
& 8 j: e. j;
tionally famous polo player
and millionaire favorite of the
Long Island sporting SET" we'd
ded Mrs. Maude van Rensselaer, ~
Kennedy Winston, fashionable
society was amiably but none
the less keenly interested in
three-sided question:: whether
Mr Stevenson is a, strong, brave man
ootimistically putting his courage ana
discretion to the test in competition with
the numerous blue-blooded dogs with
which his bride has surrounded herself
since her childhood; whether he holds dogs
in the same esteem as she does, and that
therefore they won't matter; or whether
there has been a thorough preliminary un-
! yderstanding of the future status OF the dog
in the Stevenson menage.
The new Mrs. Stevenson only recent
ly secured divorce from Mr.. Eric VIM
ston, squash and tennis amateur champion,
whom she married in 1915, and while fash-
ionable society does not point to the dis.
astrous ending of that romance as having
been solely due to dogs, it does emphati-
cally say that all through the several years
of it's unhappiness the canine motif ran
very strong Indeed it is fully agreed that
the young Winstons might still be happily,
or at least contentedly married, If Mrs.
Winston had placed her dogs little lower
in her scheme of living and Mr.. Winston
had placed them a little higher in his
scheme Of loving.
In fact, it was gossip in the Long Island
colony that Mrs. Wipston's dogs had be-
come such a part of the life in the Win
ston home that they were from morning
till night an insistent factor in all its af-
fairs: getting on Mr.. Winston's nerves as
much apparently as Mr.. Clarkes bunch
of CANNES did on his wife's-although, Of
course, Mr.. Winston never had the specific
cause that it seems brought forth Mrs.
Clarke's wall.
And friends quote one very close to the
principals as saying, when the news Of the
final split came-"Wel, suppose Eric is
not saying Doggone It, now. but Dog done
it,"
The wedding of Miss Kennedy-the
present Mrs. Stevenson-to Eric Winston
was celebrated on the nineteenth of April,
1915 and her final decree of divorce was
granted on December 21, 1919. Testimony
presented at the secret trial in White
Plains went to show that Mr.. Winston, at
the time a lieutenant in the Fifteenth
Regiment, met the correspondent at a
Brooklyn armory and that later he spent
some time with her In boarding house
in Stormville, Duchess County, while he
was stationed at Camp Whitman. The dl-
vorce decree did not provide any alimony
for Mrs Winston, who is very rich young
woman. II gave her the right to resume
her maiden name, a right she did not
avail herself Of, and forbade Winston from
marrying again during her life time.
On the face Of 1t the real blame for the
divorce was placed naturally on Lieutenant
Winstons shoulders. Members of Long
Island and New York society add that per
haps II might have been different had his
home life not been all cluttered up with
the dogs. There is a feeling In the smart,
dog loving, sports mad colony that di-
vorces do not develop over night so to
speak, but are usually the outgrowth of
certain home and domestic conditions
although, of course, such conditions can
never be made real excuse
Mr.. Stevenson, who fs one OF the best
known and most spectacular members Of
the Colony, due to his prowess on the polo
field. believes, 1t is said. that dogs or no
dogs, his second adventure in the matri-
monial world will be supremely happy. He
is deeply in love with the former Mrs.
Winston and being twenty years older than
his bride, feels competent perhaps, to run
things his own way. Mrs. Stevenson has
without doubt acquired more worldly and
wifely wisdom than she possessed when
she married her girlhood lover The out
come of the marriage romance that was