Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1920)

Bruce Grey had not counted on that Baxter Street conscience that hlazed up suddenly in Evelyn Langdon. A\'D 50 they were married! But matrimony was not the end of romance for those two marrying infants. Henry and Evelyn Langdon; mercy no! For a whole solid year after that clean cut young business man and pride of the neighborhood. Henry Langdon, had taken sweet Evelyn to be his wedded wife, they were just as foolishly and hopelessly in love with each other as any two silly, cooing doves. They had their quarrels, yes indeed. What lovers do not have their quarrels and love each other all the more at the making-up time? But all this year our Henry never so much as knew that there was another girl alive, and Evelyn went her demure' little way fully convinced that no man in the world was so handsome, so clever, so unutterably perfect, as Henry Langdon. They did not spend much thought on the future — and they did not remember much of the past, except that there was the weekly "anniversary" of their wedding day to celebrate by a trip to the movies, or a box of candy. They were alive, and life was sweet. That was enough — for the first year. It was Evelyn who first discovered that Baxter Street did not offer ever>'thing a street might in the way of social advantages to a young business gentleman, who was making good in the steel machinery business, and his wife. You know how it is when a girl has been married a whole year! A dozen months have served to make her acquainted with the fact (augmented by the assurances of other wives) that a husband is after all only a mere child, and that the details of a successful future — from the ties he wears to the business policy he pursues — are vastly dependent on her choosing them for him. A sort of mothering instinct springs up in her, and makes her feel a deep responsibility for her man — dear, dear, .she must help him get on; she has been taking life as a merry game long enough! And this is the moment when she is convinced that nothing will do for them but a more select environment, where husband will be thrown with business men of affluence, where she may artfully direct them into desirable social channels by a tactful playing up to just the right ladies, and by the inaintenance of a cozy home, where her own special brand of ingenuity as a hostess will make them sought. And usually, you will observe, they do what the bride of a year decides. Henry and Evelyn Langdon did. Henry, who really wanted nothing in the world so much as to keep his rosechecked, star-eyed bride radiant with happiness, consented to Let's Be There is a Problem that faces every young married couple. Read this story and see if it is your problem. By NANON BELOIS move any place Evelyn's little heart desired, provided it was not beyond their modest, but gradually expanding pocket book. And so in a year and two months after the Baxter Street minister had pronounced them Mr. and Mrs. Henry Langdon in the midst of adoring, though, it must be admitted, unfashionable, friends, they were established in a snug little house, purchased on the ten-year plan, in one of the wide, shady streets of that ver> fashionable suburb, Elmhurst-by-the-\Vay. Now. there is something about two very young people who are very much in love with each other, and who tell it to the world in every glance of their honest eyes, that appeals to every one — even to fashionab'e persons with most appalling positions in society to live up to. The sight of our Evelyn, driving the snorting runabout up the main street of Elmhurst-by-the-Way so that Henry would not miss the 8:07 — the train, by the way. that the most prosperous business men took into town — the sight of her thnging her soft young arms unashamed about his neck in farewell, greeting him with kisses upon kisses when he returned on the 6:04 — that was something new for this wealthy suburb, where most of the men went to and from the stations, lone figures in great, spinning limousines. THE Elmhurst men noticed this daily performance, first naturally, because the women were fewer at the station. They chuckled to themselves over the two wide eyed babes that had strayed into their woods, then chuckled to each other. They began to take notice of Henry on the train, to nod to him, to drop down beside him — and finally to include him in their morning smokers. Then some of them spoke of "the children" to their wives — when their wives were feeling pleasant at dinner and wanted to be entertained. .And next the wives called, some of them more through curio,>ity. others out of friendliness. Soon, through the invitation of Mrs. Trude, a Iriend'y older woman. Henry and Evelyn were invited to become members of the Elmhurst Country Club. It is needless to say that, though both Mr. and Mrs. Henry knew they could hardly afford it just yet, they accepted the invitation. And to celebrate, that very night after they received word that their membership had gone throush, Henry and Evelyn went into the city to Baxter Street to call on several of their most intimate friends of former years. "Oh, Evelyn," gasped the girls who had known her in kindergarten when she wore pig tails down her back, "pretty soon you'll be so fashionable that you won"t know us any more." "Sillies," Evelyn laughed back, throwing her arms about them. But that was not what she told herself. The song that sang itself over and over aga:n in her unsophisticated young heart all the way home was this — "We're gi>ing to be just exactly as fashionable as I know how to make us be." The Elmhurst country club was made particular use of by the younger — and .somewhat lax — marriecl set, with a sprinkling of the older people, like Mrs. Trude, who likeil people 38