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44
MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE
THE SURVEYOR BRINGS THE NOW FATHERLESS FRANCES TO HIS OWN HOME
road! Home! There's no such thing in this miserable, false world ! ' '
Elinor Hastings stared into her mirror hopefully. To one who lives with herself from day to day the years seem to bring no perceptible change. She saw a sleek, perfectly cared-for face, unshadowed by line or wrinkle. Her hair was as brown as on the sixteen-year-ago day she had betraj^ed her marriage vows and fled cravenly home to the soft life she craved. In those years had been heartaches and despairs, but they had left — she thought fondly — no traces. She had known humiliation. She had tasted her desire and found it Dead Sea fruit. Yet with each new gown she donned, her hope raised its head and artfully whispered to her that Harold Rives would love her at last. It had been a terrible shock to her to find him callous and cynical. Reproaches she had expected, bitter words, anger, grief — but not indifference. At times, in the years that fol
lowed her return, it seemed to her that her punishment was more than she could bear. She had crude, childlike ideas of her own behavior ; she could defend herself fatuously, save when she read the verdict of scorn and distaste in her former lover's eyes. Yet her pride, like the rest of her, was too weak and spineless a thing to send her away from him. She must go on, dressing for Harold Rives, straining every effort to please him when they met, dreaming of him and quivering under his easy malice, that took generous toll from her for his past sufferings.
Now, as she pinned on her hat in anxious preparation for the tea at his studio, she wondered dully whether at last he would not be glad to see her. He had been away on a painting trip in the West for months. Surely he must have missed her — surely he would be kind. She went purposely very late. The big, luxurious studio was nearly empty. On an easel beside the window was a new canvas, about which a few belated admirers stood chatting with the artist.
"What a remarkable model!" cried a fellow painter, enviously. ' ' Give us the boy's address, Rives."
"Not for sale," said the artist, lazily. "Yes, he was a remarkable lad — curious how I found him. He had lived ever since he could remember with a half-crazy hermit father in the woods. Never known any one else, as far as I could make out. He was as absolutely innocent and unspotted as — as "
"A girl," supplemented a hearer. ' ' I was going to say a wild animal, ' ' finished Rives, imperturbably. ' ' Such droll ideas as he would get off while he was posing. A young seraph would be worldly-minded in comparison. And he was as lovely as any woman I ever saw — lovelier "