1920 (Click graphic for bigger)Romantic Beauty Needs but Five Minutes to Persuade Accuser to Drop Charge and Go to Altar With Her — Declares She Is a Descendant of Cleopatra.
SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. — The Princess Della Pattra has made good her claim that she was a champion vamp. Brought here from New York on the complaint of Erich Buehle, a hydraulic engineer, that she had defrauded him out of several thousand dollars, in five minutes she had persuaded him to drop his charge — and marry her. And now [*it's likely there will] have been a little revenge connected with the wedding and that Erich may have more troubles coming.
Erich and the princess met out on the Pacific Coast some months ago. Erich had money. The princess had romance. Erich recounted his accomplishments and expanded upon his prospects. Della confided that she was a niece of the Khedive of Egypt and a descendant of Cleopatra. Her parents, she said. were Hassan El Kammel Bresla and Mardena Salempta, citizens of Alexandria. Pathos entered her story. She was not wanted in her homeland, so she had come to this great America to make a fortune — and to acquaint the world with her much libeled progenitress. To do this she must get into the movies.
Erich Finances Movie Ventures.
Didn't Erich think any director should be glad to employ her? Erich did. Then Della admitted that they weren't. Not a one of those studios out on the coast would give her work. No, but piff! What did she care for them! She would go East. She would become the greatest of Cleopatras. Yes, she would take her charms and her talent to New York. But Meester Erich — it was a delicate matter; she hated to speak of it — the trip, it would cost money. The waiting, that, too, would cost money. And money she had none. She, the niece of the Khedive of Egypt; she, in whom flowed the blood of the Queen of the Nile, was without the necessary.
A happy thought. Perhaps Meester Erich would make her the loan. She hated to ask it. She would pay him back. She would pay him double — threefold, when she should have made the success. Mr. Erich would and did. Several thousand dollars there were in the package he handed her. The princess was overjoyed. She would write him every day. No, she would send him the wire — the mails were too slow.
Erich was at the train when Della — and his money — went away. Weeks passed, and Erich heard from neither. He grew impatient. His impatience developed into anger, and he went to the police. The police listened to his story. It sounded bad for Della, so they wired detectives in New York. It wasn't long till Della was found.
Della Makes Peace.
She was taken before a judge. She heard that Erich was anxious about her — and his money. She laughed. "I want to go back," she said. "I want to talk to Erich. I know everything will be all right after I see him." The judge doubted Erich's reception, but he showed her her ticket for San Francisco.
In San Francisco she was visited by the young engineer. They talked together alone, and Erich obtained her release. For a few days their names were out of the papers. And then one morning Erich Buehle and Princess Della Pattra appeared at the window of the marriage license clerk. They went from there to the offices of Judge Bernard J. Flood, picking up an audience of newspaper men and courthouse employes as they went. And there the ceremony was read.
The Princess wore a sumptuous gown of rose in which she had created a sensation [**] before upon her arrival from New York; under it were silver pumps. An oriental touch was given by a black lace harem veil and great hoop earrings which might have delighted her ancestress.
All Solemn but Della.
The words of the ceremony were solemn; the judge was solemn; more solemn than either was Erich, bur there was nothing solemn about Della. She couldn't keep her eyes from wandering coquettishly toward the little group of newspapermen who composed the audience, while her lips were parted in a smile, which with the dazzling expanse of tiny white teeth it revealed, must have made even the Judge's mind stray.
But what could one expect? Surely, not that the princess should enter matrimony in the same manner as those of less amorous antecedents. Della has inherited too great an understanding of love and lovers to be much impressed by any of love's formalities. It was pretty serious business for Cedric, but for Della it was a lark.
"All lovers quarrel," Della said. "The more they love the more they quarrel. The more 'caveish' the man, the more severe his actions to win the woman he loves."
Under her arm she carried a cookbook. "We go to a hotel for supper," she said. "After that I take my cookbook home and I cook some hotcakes."
—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 4.
[*] Some words, letters mostly gone. This phrase is partially a guess.
[**] Missing approximately 5 or 6 words.
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