Motion Picture Classic (May 1921 - Dec 1927)

CLASSIC violins were playing a waltz song, and I could see men in uniforms and women in nothing much, which is the Parisian fashion in evening dress, moving by the lighted windows. I opened my casement and stepped out on the balcony. I was just letting my thoughts glide away on the tide of music, and pretending that I was a princess myself and going to the Embassy Ball in a diamond tiara and a back-to-nature gown of gold tissue, when an auto drew up at the curb right under the balcony with a sort of fanfare on its horn. I started and the locket chain caught on the balcony rail and snapped. I could hear the locket tinkle on the pavement below and it seemed to me when I leaned over the rail 1 could see the diamonds glitter in the dusk. It happened before I thought what I was doing, or I suppose 1 should have remembered that proper young ladies dont call to strange young men on the street. He had just got out of the fanfaring automobile and stood under the glow of the street lamp like a figure in the movies, in a romantic-looking cape with the white oblong of his evening vest showing beneath, and quite the handsomest face I’d ever seen, except in dreams. Not that it was his face made me call down to him — I haven’t a doubt I should have done that if he’d been a street sweeper I was so anxious about my locket. “Oh dear,’’ 1 cried, pointing frantically, “look — there at your feet ! My locket ” The man didn’t seem a bit stir prised. He had what Madame Manonne called savoir fairc. With the nicest smile in the world, he lifted his hat, then began looking around on the pavement and in the gutter until I saw him stoop and pick up something out of the mud with his beautiful white gloves still on. Talk about Sir Walter Raleigh! He had nothing on my Knight of the Kid, and after that he completed the ruin of his gloves by climbing up the trellis beside the balcony: cape, evening suit, tall hat and all. I just stood there like a heroine in an opera, as tho this were a scene that had been rehearsed, and it was queer that it did seem at the moment as if it had all happened before in some past life. I even knew what he was going to say before he spoke, “Princess ” Then in a flash it came over me that this was like my old dreams in which I was a princess, and the prince came to my balcony I took the locket. I dont know what I said but I remember what he said perfectly; “forgive me. T couldn’t help seeing the coat-ofarms but I will respect your incognito. This is not the last time we shall meet, Princess.” Then he was gone, and I stood stupidly staring after the tall, gallant figure as it disappeared into the Embassy. Princess — coat-of-arms — why, he must think that I was Oluf! It was a thrilling sensation to be mistaken for a Queen, but somehow in the back of my mind I wasn’t particularly pleased. A nagging little voice kept saying spitefully. “If he hadn’t thought you were a princess, would he have climbed the balcony with the locket? Mightn’t he have sent it up by the concierge ? And would he have wanted to meet you again if he’d known you were just an ordinary American girl?” Well, I certainly never expected to see my knightly incognito again, but it was fascinating planning what I'd say and do if I ever did meet him! Aunt Ollie arrived, and after we had lost half a dozen apartments on account of her trying to speak to the landlord in French and his thinking she was insulting him, we found a ducky little place overlooking the Madelaine, with a white marble nymph bathing herself all day ( Fifty-four) I opened my casement and stepped out on the balcony. I was just letting my thoughts glide away on the tide of music and pretending I was a princess, when