Marconi, n

In the old days, embezzlers used to study extradition treaties with apprehension and prepare to jump to a new and unextraditable land with the remnant of their informally acquired wealth.

Today, seekers of divorce study the marriage laws with equal perspicacity and success. Prison or matrimony, there is sure to be some land where the laws permit escape. Signora Marconi, Lady-in-Waiting to Her Majesty Queen Elena of. Italy, who, before her marriage 20 years ago in England to Scientist Marconi, was the Hon. Beatrice O'Brien, fifth daughter of Baron Inchiquin, etc., etc., etc., thought she had found such a land.

The English divorce laws are strict; in Italy there is no divorce; but when Gabriele d'Annunzio started to create a Paradise on the Adriatic in 1919, he decided that Fiume's code should be equipped with steam-heat, plumbing and hot water night and day. Divorce was blissfully easy. Early this year, Lady Marconi quieted two years of rumors of divorce by establishing a technical residence at Fiume and suing her husband, who was guilty of incompatibility of temper.

Legal separation was almost in sight, when King Vittorio Emanuele paraded in amid royal salutes and arches of triumph (TIME, March 24). Fiume was annexed to Italy. D'Annunzio's poetic views on divorce were automatically supplanted by the bigoted fixity of the Italian Coda Civile. Lady Marconi is the first would-be divorcee to have a country shot from under her by treaty. On account of her position at the Court, it is thought unlikely that--following the fashion in Italian divorces--she will take the step of establishing a residence in Hungary to try her luck there.