Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-07-27

almost as tall as he, with crown of glorious
golden hair.
"Comte de Reti, of Belgium" somebody whs-
pered.
turned my eyes The "Comte" was King Leo
pold III of Belgium But didn't reveal his in
cognto and when he looked towards our table
l carefully avoided his eyes None knew the King
except the few at table. Certainly one indivi-
dual could not have known with whom he had to
deal For suddenly there bit of by-play at
the table next to ours where millionaire notori-
Gus for his escapades sat among his coterie Of
hangers-On. This man took from his pocket
huge pile of bank notes. In sight of everybody,
he selected ten one thousand franc notes. tore
them IN halves, and handed one of these halves
10 his-wcll will call him love secretary" He
was a hanger-on who lowered about his patron IN
those days, and said to attend 10 various init
mate matters for him. At once this man crossed
10 the table where the golden haired girl stood
watching as "Comte de Reti" placed his wagers.
Suddenly @tha= girl=looked aboutilThen. in a
flashing second, something slipped into her
hand and message was whispered. Later heard
what they said was the message:
"He who sends these bank-notes invites you to
breakfast with him, dear mademoiselle. And then
he will present YOU with the other halves"
We watched then. The girl turned Even
at some distance l distinctly caught the red flame
her face the disdain in her blue eyes She spoke
to her companion. Then they walked down the
room to a table in sight of ours. And there quite
in public and furiousy, the golden haired girl tore
up the money into tiny bits and threw them on an
ash tray "Comte de Reti' held match. He
publicly burned those thousand franc notes. Then
the two smiled to each other.
''Who is she? Who is she?' everybody was
asking after that
Later that evening l found out She was
the daughter of a French ndustrialist who made
millions in the last war.
So sardonically it happened, that to a girl who
could sign her check for almost any sum- the crude
nouveau richie offered few thousand francs as
vulgar bait for vulgar affair
1t was there at Cannes, then, first saw "the
Gael as she was called. But, though swiftly this
story of the Kings love was told in the salons OF
Paris in Belgium it was known TO hardly hand
full SO now will tell it from the beginning And
that starts long ago, when the King was a soldier
in that other
Back in 1914, Leopold, Crown Prince of Bel
GUM a shy, poetic lad of thirteen, spent the first
wear of the war serving a common soldier In
the second line trenches OF course at that early
age he did not take part IN actual, front line fight
ing. Much of his time was spent at the monoton-
Gus task of filling sand-bags for the soldiers Yet
even So too early. beieve Leopold's young eyes
looked upon terrible death and dreadful injuries,
till he abhorred war till he cringed at the thought
of it, its CHASTITY manning of men, its horrible suf-
fering of the spirit and the flesh.
After this first year he was sent TO England
where he beeame-a student at EteH.Then when
the war was over at the side of his father he
helped reconstruction work in Belgium
SO Leopold grew to know and pity the miseries