Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Aug 1919)

)TION PICTURE CLASSIC !y may learn first of all to trust you and love you. Be a •penter among them, if you know what I mean, even as ;us of Nazareth.” iVinthrop Stark had intended to follow faithfully the adinition of the reverend bishop. Winthrop Stark was that t of a person. He had not counted upon Zara. 9[e had walked far past the sight of any person when he ne, inadvertently, upon Zara. He thought, as he viewed • before she saw him, thought quite abstractly, of course, ng Winthrop Stark, New England missionary, what a magicent thing she was. Modeled in Amazonian fashion, with bs as free as the air she breathed exultantly, skin deeper n wild olives, eyes like great jewels, hair a thick halo of imeless bronze, clean blood that leaped and bounded under sheen of her skin, a magnificent creature. She seemed, lught Stark, to be the primitive spirit of the South Seas, e meaning of the bludgeoning moon, the riddle of the innprehensible flowers, the answer to the negroid meaning of resistless sea. Of course, Winthrop Stark did not think se things concretely. They ran thru his brain, inchoately, i were gone before the girl rose and stood before him, asuring his clean sweep of limb, his steady eyes, his stern n, with her jeweled eyes. I am Zara,” she announced herself, in a colorful contralto, ira, daughter of Majah, King of Kolpee.” Vinthrop Stark took off his clerical hat and smiled, l am the new missionary,” he said, and then, somehow, he 5 silent. He seemed to read something in the dark, liquid s full upon him sadder than fate, more immutable than rnity. He had an unaccountable sense of wishing he had er come to Kolpee, never dared to dream that he could vert these fervid children with their riotous heathenry. You stay long?” Zara questioned him. itark essayed a smile. “Until I have done my work,” he wered, gravely. 'he girl tossed the defiant bronze strands from her brilliant, :vy eyes. “What work you do?” she questioned him. “You : for pearls. But no.” But no,” smiled the young and zealous missionary, “unless call souls pearls, which you probably do not. I have come e, Zara, to teach your people the Word of God. The word i.ove. Of divine love.” 'he red, sullen lips beneath his gaze smiled. Zara had ■erstood the meaning of the word love. She, too, had fimed, here on this island, sleeping, a mammoth flower in blue cradling of the sea. The winds, the scents, the heavy na of living had taught her much of love. Pulke, the chief :rl diver, had tried to teach her more. Unlike the scents i the winds and the sea, he had failed. He dived deep and ught up from the jealous depths the rarest pearls of the lific, but he could not dive deep enough to find the hot, :wakened heart of Zara, Princess of Kolpee. He could not deep enough for that. /inthrop Stark could not dive for pearls at all. He knew :iing of the profession. He knew little of these dark :ples. Yet, as he stood there on the hot gold sand, with the I touching his fair head and a smile in his cold New Engil eyes, there awoke in the half-tamed breast of the South E Island princess a passion everlasting. Secrets were reJed to her. Meanings became clear. All her formless, ) rful, swirling days became patterned and clear to her. Ire was no confusion anywhere. She smiled up at him— T Winthrop Stark had the absurd idea that she had found ( , here are no fine shadings of convention in the South Sea ilads. A man talks with a woman beEie she is a woman and not for any (e obtuse reason. Pulke, the pearl 'r, saw the missionary talking with Se on the beach . . . saw them talking Sir the hot, triumphant sun, saw them 1 ng under the wan, beguiling moon. < saw red. The man from the new c might be here, even as he had said, ' peak of his God, but it was not of That afternoon in Stark’s cabin Zara put her arms about him. She pulled his reluctant head to hers. She whispered to him . . . that he was a god and she worshiped him (Thirty-nine ) I'