Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1914-Jan 1915)

34 MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE who had promised to be his wife. Suddenly the man halted. His face, upturned to the stars, was oddly grave. "God make me worthy of her," he said aloud. Then he looked away toward the west with eyes that saw beyond the piled roofs and garish lights to wide spaces swept with rude, clean winds, "I'll take her home, ' ' he cried exultantly ; ' ' back to God's country — the wide sweep of young land — the sweetest girl in all the world!" I think the angels, hearing, must have wept piteously just then. Two days later, the world came to an end. Every moment of every day this happens to some one. Yet any of his men friends — men who had not waited thirty years for their first kiss — could have told him the truth about Helen Burns at the first glimpse of her. Perhaps it was the marriage license, throbbing so warmly against his heart as he ran, two steps at a time, up the stairs to her flat, that blinded him, for a sick instant, to the truth. All he could see, at first, in the midst of the confusion of the room, the open trunks and piles of lacy undergarments, was her face, pale, subtle and sullenly beautiful. "Helen!" — he motioned to the chaos — "Helen! Going away? I dont understand." The girl — or woman, for she was one, in spite of her youth — faced him challengingly. Life had taught her that when she was cornered it was safest to come out into the open and ugly places of truth. "Well, what have you got to say if I am?" she said harshly. "Stop me if you can ! ' ' "Yes, stop her," snickered another voice. The sly face of her father peered and blinked over her shoulder. It was, oddly, as tho the evil spirit of the girl had slipped from the beautiful body of her and stood revealed in its rightful form. The man in the doorway winced with a gesture of intolerable pain. So faces look at the world's end. You can see the expression in the Vatican, in the great fresco of Michael Angelo. He raised his hands suddenly, as tho to shut the sight of her away. The girl laughed mirthlessly. ' ' It was only five hundred dollars, ' ' she sneered. "Isn't it worth that much not to marry me?" "What do you mean?" She backed away in terror, but his hands bruised her wrists. In his white face were bitten new, cruel lines of understanding. His eyes were scorched embers. "I mean to marry you!" said Bart Wendall, slowly. "You promised to marry me, and now you're going to." "Marry you!" Helen laughed shrilly. "Why, you poor fool, you dont want to marry me ! Dont you see what I am? The game's over — you 've lost. Marry me ! Ha, ha ! Men dont marry my kind." "I'm going to marry your kind." ' ' You shant take her ! You shant ! ' ' the miserable father screamed. He flung himself in front of the girl, and the table tottered, sending the lamp crashing into a pile of lingerie. Thru the flame and wreckage the Westerner reached the girl's side, brushing the other man aside as tho he were a child. His great arms seized her. His breath on her cheeks was hotter than the flame. "I may be a fool and all that," he said, in slow, fierce accents — ' ' I guess I'm too much of a fool to stop loving you. Anyhow, you're going to marry me, and I'm going to take you yonder— to the plains — home!" "Man and wife," droned the voice, sing-song, dont-care, uncurious. The strange couple standing before the minister faced each other mutely • — the girl angry-eyed, sullen, still; the man impassive. "Man and wife — you heard that, Helen?" he said very low. He forced her eyes to meet his. "You're my wife, girl; let's forget and start even — now. ' ' An instant her face softened. Then, with a vicious jerk, she turned away. Her small, white teeth worried her scarlet lip, curled contemptuously.