Judge, 1915-09-25 · page 16 of 28
Judge — September 25, 1915 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a domestic comedy about a secret marriage. Charlie Beldon has married Marie Delmont, a stage actress of minor standing, but keeps the marriage hidden from his father—apparently to preserve an allowance that supports them both. The satire targets the hypocrisy of the arrangement: Charlie maintains a public "bachelor" lifestyle, attending clubs and dining with other women, while Marie is confined to their apartment, isolated and increasingly suspicious. The cartoon depicts Charlie gracefully presenting a dinner plate to Marie while she sits rigidly—a visual joke about his attempt to appease her. The humor lies in the unstable deception: Marie doubts his excuses about his father's disinheritance threat, resents his social freedom versus her confinement, and suspects he dines with former actresses. Charlie's casual suggestion that Marie associate with "theatre women friends" backfires when she reveals he's been asking other women to dinner. The underlying satire critiques male privilege and the precarious position of women in theatrical circles during this era—trapped between respectability and scandal.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
INTERRUPTED By J. A. WALDRON vert Toye SCARE YOU ever going out with me?” Mrs. Beldon, who had just had the pleasure of seeing Beldon enjoy a capital break- fast which she had prepared in their bijou apartment, pat a note of desperation into the question. “The time will come, dear, when I can take you anywhere— everywhe And you know why I can’t now.” Beldon looked at her uneasily. “Why can’t you now, as you did before we were married? I don’t see any difference, or any danger. You go where you please. You still pass in your clubs and elsewhere as a bachelor. I’m left to my own devices. It’s simply deadening. Why, sometimes I don’t see you for a w “What's the use of going over it again and again? You know that if the old gentleman should find out I’m married, it would be all off with me. You have a good part of my generous allowance. Wait a little longer.” I’m beginning to doubt, Charlie, that you have a father who will disinherit you if he finds out.” “Well, you know I get a good bit of money, don’t you? And that I don’t earn it. And you doubt!” “Why shouldn’t I doubt everything? ‘This isolation has got on my nerves.” “Can't you associate a little with your former women friends of the theatre? That would afford diversion.” Beldon and Marie Delmont, a pretty but a minor figure on the stage, had kept their marriage secret now for six months. “No,” said Mrs. Beldon. ‘“They’re suspicious now. Think I’m not actually your wife. I can’t stand it! And do you know what Helene Hildegarde, the dancer, said the last time she called?” “What did she say?” “That you had asked her out to dinner. And I don’t know, I’m sure, that you don’t dine with all of them, I so seldom see you. “T did ask her out to dinner, She declined. I did it to keep up — o keep up a deceit that has no promise of success. How would you it if I should accept the invitation of some old acquaintance—some man—to dinner?” “Would that be just right, Marie?” “Perhaps not,” replied Mrs. Beldon with a smile that had something not exactly pleasing in icbooks.com