The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-08-23
Loves Masquerade
A Dramatic Story of Love and Romance By IDAH MGLONE GIBSON

week ago, when my heart stopped. Harry. Then your love received its mortal hurt"
 Harry turned pale.
 What do you mean, dear? You sensed what7 What Is this inti- nation of second sight a: | upon what date was 1t that you had this hashish moment"
 T told him the date and the hour and before l could go any further I was simply deluged with explana- tions and excuses and verbal re- morse from Harrys lips. had never heard him so voluble before.
 As though 1t were impossible to keep anything from me, Harry told me all about the woman whom he described as the American beauty. He told me how she affected him from the first. He owned that In his obsession he forgot everything but her. He said that his time the last week had been filled with max- Ing resolutions only to break them and yet he tried through it all to tell me that he loved me and me only and to prove it, he read me a poem describing his dilemma.
 Tt was very beautiful poem. think it was the best thing that Harry ever wrote or will write. You remember l repeated 1t to you when we talked this over. 1 do not know whether Harry has read 1t to his friends, but at least I am going to quote enough of it to try and make you understand and judge whether Harry's outlook upon love Is that of the average man.
 T wonder If you can imagine me. Dr. George. sitting there in a crowd ed dining room while the man who only two weeks before hed insisted that I should go away with him to the other side of the earth was -ead- ing in an impassioned tone de- scription of how another wom.n af- fected him.
 As he read I could see that even then he had almost forgotten me and. to paraphrase what he had once said to me, the woman at the other side of the table was not the wom- an in his mind. The words came tense with emotion from his lips. My arms
 Grow tense with a desire to hold and
 crush
 Her body against mine. as one
 would ravish
 A beauty rose of it's fragrant petals. To cool the thirsting lips of sense. cannot think. I can only feel: For beauty holds the brimmlng cup
 that makes My senses king"
 Dear Dr. George, I had never seen the expression on Harry's face that l saw now. The woman he de- scribed as the American beauty had touched some responsive chord in hfa n that had hRan ahl6 | to reach.
 T was 50 interested and astound- ed by what he had been telling me that I had paid no attention to my | own reception of it.
 All at once he seemed to realize | that I, for the first time that we had | ever been together. was the silent | one. and he said:
 Why are you so still. Margaret? | Surely you do not care, surely you | know l do not love her. If I had | really and truly cared I would never | have told you anything about it, dear. Do you want me to tell you, Margaret that of all the women with | whom l have been in the least in- terested, you are the only one whose name has never passed my lips ex- cept in various commonplaces to any other man or woman.
 "As far as l am concerned. no man can say that I regard you as other than woman whom I much admire but do not know very we'll"
 All of this was very lovely, pr. George. and perhaps 1t should have satisfied me, but oh. l am going to confess something to you.
 T did want that great regard and respect which Harry was so anxious to make me understand he gave to me.
 Sometimes, Dr. George, I think respect goes to loves funeral. am ,ure that 1t attends at the grave of passion"
 Lord" exclaimed Clayerir,, q never knew a woman was so human IS that"
 T guess that is the trouble" sug- yested Davis. We men never think 'f women-especially our own wom- ,r-as having human attributes, hu- nan desires. We want them angels 'f heaven, forgetting that no angel ,f heaven with angelic attributes ,nly, can make a mortal happy"
 Copyright. John F. Dille, Go.
 Tomorrow-GIendeni view- ,oint.