Motion Picture Magazine, May 1914 (1914)

A FATHER'S HEART 35 your tiny shoulders. May He bless you, my baby, my liebchen." Perhaps, when God took the soul He had made, He healed the grievous sores. It is in such hope humanity gropes on. **An old, old man tapped the ashes carefully from an old, old meer- schaum pipe, and entered the dark- ened auditorium, leaning against the rear wall and facing the screen. He had but recently arrived in Los Angeles, and had that day obtained the position of general cleaner in the studio down the block; where these visions of the screen plied their art. The manager of the nickelodeon, whose rear wall the old, old man now ornamented, had munificently granted him standing room for the evening's performance. He was rheumatic and' bent, and somewhat worn as to fea- ture and attire-T-and perhaps the Irish-setter look in his eyes had moved the manager to the standing-room liberality. However, the new general cleaner was not accustomed to get- ting something for nothing—not even standing-room. The world begrudges even those dubious honors to such as he. His had been a life stricken at its young beginning. His had been the heartache that knows no assuag- ing. A long, dusty path his feet had traveled, and no sweet spring had bubbled up to meet him. Sometimes, when the ache became too bitter, he forced himself to remember that he was only a plain, old German peasant after all, and not exactly calculated to be a magnate for life's sunshine. Tonight his eyes sought the screen avidly. Of a sudden they began to gleam. "Well that the theater was dark, well that none of the auditors turned his way, for the gleam was phosphorescent in the dark, and the furrowed face was appallingly white. A slim figure moved on the screen — a girl-figure, palpably, subtly young, with soft, goldy hair and a pair of sea-mist eyes. Soft lips smiled down on him—lips like ones he had kist in a dim, distant past— lips, ah, God! that had turned away from his. And Christian Marck knew, as he looked, that the sweet spring water had bubbled at his feet at last; that Anna had pitied him, wherever she might be, and had sent him this true image of herself. Deep, deep under the stolid, peas- ant exterior of Christian Marck—far, far deeper than dream-filled, girlish eyes had ever probed—beat a faith- ful, mighty heart. She had left him— his love, his wife; she had taken away with her the tiny, dimpled thing who had held his innermost being in her chubby hand; but he had loved them —gigantically, as such a man would love—and his sad life had never known another tender touch. As he looked on the face of this child of his love's — and his — as he noted her proud poise, her graceful bearing, her fine raiment, he felt the incongruity of his parentage. He sensed the shame she would feel should he en- force his grotesque right. When the play ended, the general cleaner did not wait for the next. The munificently accorded standing- room held no further charms. He had tasted the wine of memory, and he found it poignantly bitter-sweet. He wanted to live over the past exquisite moment when he had looked on his baby's—their baby's—ah! most pre- cious of all, her baby's—face again. That there was any doubt as to the identity of the actress,. had not oc- curred to him. However, for the joy of corroboration he stopped at the . door and asked the doorman the name of the star of the last film. "That's Amelie Reine," the man obliged; "some little eye-raiser, aint she, Germany?" "Germany" did not heed the last. He had only heard the name—Amelie Reine—Reine; then—doubt touched him, clammily. Then a thought struck him. He walked the block swiftly, and came to the studio, scene of his labors and shelterer of his rest, as he inhabited a loft under the roof. Why not sweep out her sanctum tonight? There, in that intimate place, he might discover some clue. A mass of paper was under her dressing-table