Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

116 Photoplay Magazine down with you? I can wait outside till you're through." Swift displeasure passed over June's face. "Oh, that's not necessary — really. Thank you just the same, dear, but you know somebody besides Elaine must be here to meet the people." Elsie felt that she could press no farther. For a moment she was powerfully impelled to take things into her own hands and, as a deterrent, tell June what she knew of Holt's life. But both instinct and reason told her that this was the worst possible moment for such a move, and that along with accomplishing nothing she would only bring down misunderstanding and hatred upon herself. She shrugged. Later, perhaps, if the chance offered, but not now. "All right, dearie," she said with an assumption of cheerfulness, "come back as soon as you can." JUNE went to this critical meeting strangely helpless and unprepared, for an almost sleepless night and feverish day of anxiety had evolved no influence powerful enough to change her attitude of yesterday regarding Paul. Aside from her great need of making reparation to him, she was experiencing one of those inner convictions which admit of no argument, a conviction which told her that either to break with Paul or yield to Holt would be equally fatal. And in support of this she felt a keen rebellion against Holt's unreasonable ultimatum. The fact that the cutting of their Gordian knot could only be accomplished by the sacrifice of one among Paul, Tom Briscoe, or herself, outraged her sense of justice. There seemed no break in this vicious circle; and yet she felt that she must break it somehow, if only by a desperate appeal. A T the studio all was dark and still ex^"^ cept in the administration building, where a single dirty and fly-specked globe shone in the lower hall, and a bright glow filtering through drawn shades upstairs indicated that Holt already had arrived. June found the front door ajar and encountered the reek of strong tobacco in the hall, evidence that the watchman had just passed on his rounds. She mounted the carpeted stairs and in the upper hallwayfound herself at the barrier of Holt's outer office, a wooden fence with a swinging gate in the middle. The door was open, and as she hesitated a moment he crossed her line of vision, pacing up and down the far end of the room, a sturdy figure in white flannels with his hands in his coat pockets and his head slightly bent. For the first time the clandestine nature of their meeting startled her ; she felt the silence, became aware of their comparative isolation and recognized the alarming disadvantage this was to her under the circumstances. At the click of the little gate as she entered, Holt turned sharply, and came forward to meet her. She noticed that his usually ruddy face was colorless and looked worn and haggard, and that his welcoming smile was grim. They met near his big yellow oak desk, and she held out her hand. He took it gravely, and each found the touch ccld. With a banality concerning her promptness, he drew out two chairs a little distance from the desk and seated her. Then he walked to the door and closed it. Her feeling of uneasiness increased. With that act, though it had been but a precautionary measure on his part, she seemed somehow completely cut off from the safe, normal, wholesome world with which she must at any cost keep touch. For an instant she had a tick of indefinable fear, a feeling which she had last experienced in the house on the island when she had first met him. But this passed immediately. Returning, he seated himself in the other chair almost opposite and a little distance from her and regarded her face for a moment. "You look tired, June," he said, and then added with a faint smile, "but it becomes vou. And now what have vou come to tell me?" "What I must," she said, resolutely, in a low voice, "that I can't break my engagement." The hand upon his chair arm contracted as with a spasm of pain. "Oh, Eve fought it over and over and over," she said, wearily. "I lay awake for hours last night trying to find the right and fair and honorable thing to do for both of us. and there's no way but this. Oh. Stephen, won't you believe me ! You wouldn't ask me to do what I don't feel is honorable and right !" "I ask you to do only what is reasonable