Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Dec 1920)

MOTION PICTURE If he could only go, take his far tri|) before the duel. If, after the affair were settled, Ernesto were gone, the gape might soon be healed, things might then go on as tho this storm had never been. I'eople would forget, with the spur to their remembering gone, tione . . . the word hit, unawares, on her consciousness anil stayed there, and chilled her . . . She shook it off. Shi; had become used to Ernesto, to their talks and walks, to his way of doing things, to the worlds he had opened up for her mental and imaginative exjiloration. And still, gone . . . If she could only see him. beg him to flee the place, leave it all as it had been . . . There was no other motive in her seeking him out in his rooms and making her plea. "For all of us," she said. His somber eyes had somehow warned her against the more ])ersonal "for me." There were plans to make . . . and they had had, always, so much to say to one another. There had probably, they had often remarked, never been two persons with so great a mental fund, the one for the other. When they were together, time fled by them, noiselessly, unheeded. It was so on this day. They had been sitting in separate corners of the room. Ernesto was telling of what his new life would probably be in South America, the readjustments he would have to make, the way in which he would make them. He spoke of the severance of ties, the tug at the heart because of the association of places and people. There had been nothing said of the Thee and Me. Into this scene Don Julian was carried, all but mortally wounded. Don Alvarez was dead. There was a horrible scene enacted in the dim room, the first shades of night dropping down on the colorful city without, the hush of night stealing on, the three white-faced, hurt people in the laden room. Julian had seen with his own eyes. He needed, he said, no further jiroof than this. Feodora, in Ernesto's rooms. Lovers . . . while he. her husband, had been defending the honor of the twain of them with his own life. It was a grim jest, he said. It came of a man with the flush of youth gone playing the fool of love. The velvet fingers of the heart were powerful to strangulation. He had waited all this time to gather the vivid flower that was piercing him to death with hidden thorns. The bitterness of his pain and hurt poured otit upon them in a venomous flood that could not be abated. Feodora knelt by him and wept over him and bathed his wounds with her tenderest ministrations. Ernesto forgot the ])ride of his manhood and outrage and pleaded with him. The World and his Wife had talked overwell. The seed of suspicion had grown until its fungous growth had conquered the man. In the morning Ernesto came, for the last time, to the Casa. Don Julian was unable to see him and he asked for Feodora. "There is only one thing for me to do, Feodora," he told her. "and that is to end the miserable life that has been the cause of the turmoil— my own." Feodora cried out, "What good could that dor li wo VI Id cause more heart-break ! It would be an open admission of something so dreadful you had to die to cover it. Oh, Ernesto, I pray you, do not think of such a thing! The sunlight will come into this again, will come to us again. Julian will " What Julian willed was never known. There was a mad rush, as of some infuriated animal on the stairs, and Don Julian, red with his wounds and his rage, was upon them. The devastating names he called them, the anathema he hurled was but There was a mad rush as of some infuriated animal on the stairs, and Don Julian, red with his wounds and his rage, was upon them. The devastating names he called them and the anathema he hurled was but half heard (Thirty)