Clark’s dentures supplied me with the news beat that he was about to join up as a private in the Air Corps; a friend of his dentist tipped me off that he was making Clark an extra set of teeth, which had to be finished before he left to enlist.

Before Clark was nabbed by Lady Sylvia Ashley, he took his fill in high society. Millicent Rogers, married three times before, considered him the one real man she’d ever known. The Standard Oil heiress’ first husband was a fortune hunter, an Austrian count who revealed himself a hidden hero when he died at the Gestapo’s hands in Budapest in 1944. Her second was “Lucky Arturo” Peralta-Ramos, who won two French lotteries in a row then lost her. Number three was a New York broker, who turned the tables by divorcing her.

Millicent enjoyed twelve unforgettable months with Clark before she said good-by. In his affairs he always had to do the pursuing, as any man should, but she made the mistake of pursuing him. If she hadn’t revealed how much she loved him, she might have captured him. Then he might have been spared the miserable year and a half he had with Sylvia. Millicent sent him a farewell letter that put into words the feelings of every woman for a man like this:

My darling Clark:

I want to thank you, my dear, for taking care of me last year, for the happiness and pleasure of the days and hours spent with you; for the kind, sweet things you have said to me and done for me in so many ways, none of which I shall forget.

You are a perfectionist, as am I; therefore I hope you will not altogether forget me, that some part and moments of me will remain in you and come back to you now and then, bringing pleasure with them and a feeling of warmth. For myself, you will always be a measure by which I shall judge what a true man should be. As I never found such a one before you, so I believe I shall never find such a man again. Suffice that I have known him and that he lives....

You gave me happiness when I was with you, a happiness because of you that I only thought might exist, but which until then I never felt. Be certain that I shall remember it. The love I have for you is like a rock. It was great last year. Now it is a foundation upon which a life is being built.

I followed you last night as you took your young friend home. I am glad you kissed and that I saw you do it, because now I know that you have someone close to you and that you will have enough warmth beside you. Above all things on this earth, I want happiness for you.

I am sorry that I failed you. I hope that I have made you laugh a little now and then; that even my long skinniness has at times given you pleasure; that when you held me, I gave you all that a man can want. That was my desire, that I should be always as you wished me to be.... Love is like birth; an agony of bringing forth. Had you so wished it, my pleasure would have been to give you my life to shape and mold to yours, not as a common gift of words but as a choice to follow you. As I shall do now, alone.

You told me once that you would never hurt me. That has been true ... not even last night. I have failed because of my inadequacy of complete faith, engendered by my own desires, by my own selfishness, my own inability to be patient and wait like a lady. I have always found life so short, so terrifyingly uncertain.