Montgomery County sentinel., 1932-05-13
The Silver Kiss
g
By Fannie Hurst
70 by Mcclure Newspaper syndicAtS.)
(WNJJ Seryfcel

Wv tWo-thirds Of the town, wet
#. eyed, crammed the small sta
tion to see the boys off, he took girl
he had called Sweet Annie Laurie for
the greater part of his life into his
arms, and there in the melee of ull-
leashed emotions, kissed her roundly
and soundly on her beautiful lips.
''Let this last you, Dear Heart, until
return" he said.
you know I will, without my say
ing 1t, Myron."
And so she would have, except for
what happened.
War doomed on !; the weeks stretched
into months and the months into years
and in small Middle Western town a
girl named Laure Moore kept tryst
and waited. 1t was a fearful kind Of
waiting ;the kind that caused one to pick
up every mornings paper with baited
breath, and the sight Of messenger
boy running up flight Of front steps
was sufficient to strike terror into the
heart. Strained waiting months Of
anxiety, mingled with hope; Of terror,
mitigated by prayer.
And then one day, near Verdun, un-
der an exploding shell, that as 1t fell
lighted the countryside In wide white
grin, Myron Gilmore, crouching for at
tack, felt the lower half Of his face
seen to move; take wings; take flight.
Almost just that had happened. One
Of those devastating facial accidents
that brought about the wonders Of a
new science called plastic surgery had
befallen Myron, tearing away part Of
the lower jaw and mutllating, almost
beyond recognition, the personable
face Of the young man who had bid
den Laura Moore good-by.
Then the same old story. Month
after month in one hospital after an
other, where from time to time the
various experimental treatments were
tried out The wound had healed fair
ly well, but the great problem lay in
restoration. Parafin and silver had
been tried for purposes Of filling out
the shot away jaw and lower lip, but
because Of certain ligament difficulties,
the substance would not hold and
slowly but surely the improvised
structure Of Myron's lower jaw would
begin to collapse, revealing the upper
line of his side teeth.
1t made him rather horrible. Some
thing like a skull-head, II you beheld
him from the left, and as the months
dragged on, there developed in Myron,
over this recurring tragedy Of the ex-
posed side of his face, sensitiveness
that was torture and torment. Day
after day, he lay on his cot, face to
wall, concealing from even his ward
mates what he regarded as the horror
of his cOuntenance.
Months since he had ceased reply
ing to the eager imploring letters that
came from Laura.
Then one day he resorted to a ruse.
Two weeks after the signing Of the
armiStice. there went across seas
letter to Laura Moore bearing the It'd
ings that Myron had died Of a septic
infection of the jaw.
That somehow made things simpler /;
easier for Myron to bear. You could
manage to go through life with a
narafiin jaw, If need to be, just so
long as you did not drag into the tor
ment of your little hell, the lovely
figure Of the girl whose lips your own
had pressed in promise Of bright days
10 come.
II was at hospital in Paris they
finally succeeded In perfecting lower
Jaw or silver and paraffin that held
firmly and except to the closely OBJ
serving. the face Of Myron, with the
exception of rigidity which suggested
partial paralysis, was not any too
noticeably SCARED. OF course 1t was
obvious that here was a face some
how not of normal cast, but 1t was not
a countenance to cause one to recoil.
In other words, but for the newt
able handicap of such defect, Ny
ron's disability, except In his own con-
sciousness, was not the calamity 1t had
threatened to be. Pulling himself to-
gether and taking up the routine of
life, there remained within him this
one form of sensitiveness that was lit
tie short of mania.
He believed himself a horror in the
eyes of man. Which he was not. He
nodded his life accordingly, finding
himself a position in an English bank
in the city of Paris and practically
living the life Of a recluse.
hol oil thn
not only because the obsession that his
silver lips would have been so ter.
ribly repellent to Laura, but because
the further reduced his life to the
narrow lusterless plane Of an eccen.
trio. There where no mirrors In My
ron's rooms: he allowed himself no
social life; women were omitted from
his scheme.
At forty, skilled In colloqulal
knowledge of the French language, an
honor student at the Sorbonne and n
graduate in French law, he had man
aged to fill the wide empty inches in
his life by qualifying himself for a
professional career.
II was remarkable in its way, and
created no small amount Of comment
The idea of this American who called
himself Myron Stewart, qualifying SO
brilliantly for the French bar, caught
popular fancy. Americans, flocklng,
brought him wide clientele and then
his success began.
Meanwhile Laura, whose heart was
n grave for him. had done the not un-
usual thing. She had married the
next-best. n bosom friend Of MyrOn's,