Page:The Great Harry Thaw Case.djvu/26

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York. Then the stage called her, and her brunette pulchritude charmed the scion of one of Pittsburg's wealthiest families. Somebody presented her to Thaw at a gay party of young and beautiful stage girls who were having a costly supper after the play at an exclusive restaurant. All this time Evelyn was supposed to be under the eye of her mother, who, a few years previously, had doffed her widow's weeds and married Charles J. Holman, a Pittsburg broker. Mrs. Holman told her friends she keenly realized the perils that beset the feet of beautiful young girls, but her chaperonage did not save her own daughter.

Thaw loved the daughter, he said, as soon as he saw her. His appreciation of feminine loveliness had always been one of his strongest qualities. Only three years before he met Miss Nesbit he had given a $50,000 dinner in Paris to twenty-five of the most beautiful women that he could get together. Cleo de Merode, at whose feet the King of the Belgians had laid royal tribute, Anna Robinson of this country and other famous beauties were at that banquet. Sousa's band received a check for $1,500 for furnishing the music. This dinner and many of Thaw's other enjoyments were made possible by the fact that when his father died he left a fortune of $40,000,000. This father was William Thaw and he had been prominent in Pennsylvania railroad and steel affairs. His widow and the seven children inherited the fortune.

Harry Thaw's penchant for economy was pretty