Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1919)

^MOTION piCTURR 1101 I MAGAZINE «U IPers'otvaJl DavtvHtves's' Oh, the Relief! of Knowing that Your Underarms are Normally Dry and Absolutely Odorless "NJO matter how warm the day, ■*■ ' you will be saved humiliation: no matter how thin the gown, it cannot be harmed by annoying moisture. At all times, but particularly in warm weather, use NONSPI NONSPI is an old, reliable remedy for a disordered condition. It harmlessly diverts excesssive perspiration from the underarm to other portions of the bodv Recommended by physicians, " first-class toilet and drug dealers everywhere. Unscented and contains no artificial coloring. It is not intended to appealto sight or smell, but depends for its welfare upon merit alone. kTwo applications a week sufficient. No increase in price. 50c (several months' supply) of toilet and drug dealers or by mail direct. Or send 4c for testing sample and what medical authorities I* say about the harmfulness of excessive armpit perspiration. The Nonspi Company 2628 Walnut St., Kansas City, Mo. *1 1 ^lACE POWDER c^ iff As fragrantas the flowers ofjFrance and asjair as itsiDaughters 15 cents brings a dainty BEAUTY BOX with generoui samples of AZUREA FocePowJe; Sachet Powder and Perfume' Samples to Canada Prohibited. byCanadianGofernrnent Q paris L. T. P I V £)R^« CHAS. BAEZ Sole Agent>rU.StSi"a/ Canada Dept.E-R. 24 East 22d. Street New York City The Third Degree {Continued from page 58) with his money and his friends. Besides, what can a man expect. . . . When one is fifty-five — he thought, softly, of the new Mrs. Jeffries, Sr. — one has earned a sort of a right to delve into romance as a promised aftermath, but at twenty or so one has the making of one's life to consider, one's prestige, one's interests . . . romance . . . bah ! When Howard, Jr., burst upon him one spring day a week or so after his graduation and announced his "wife" Howard, Sr., all but terminated his own midsummer night's honeymoon by an apoplectic stroke. The young couple were installed in the suite formerly occupied by Howard, Jr., until such time as proper investigation could be made. "They dont like me, Howard," miserably said Annie, the night of their arrival. "They're queer," dismissed Howard ; "but they will, sweetheart, they'll never be able to help it." Howard, Sr., "helped" it quite remarkably when, as a result of his investigating, he was apprised of the fact that Sands pere had died, consumptively, in jail, and Sands mere in a hovel which suffered by comparison with said jail, of the same complaint. The girl, Annie, had been brought up in an asylum of charity, had worked for a while in a factory, and had then been a waitress in the Modest Restaurant, where Howard, Jr., had wooed her over the soapsuds and trays. Howard, Jr., was sent for and ejected. "I'll allow you five thousand a year to keep you from starvation," bellowed Jeffries, Sr., who could not put utterly from him the small pathetic picture of his infant son blubbering over bread and milk. "Put it in the collection plate and be d to you" bellowed back Jeffries, Jr. "I'll tell you where to send our things." It was hard sledding for the Jeffries, Jr. Howard was inadequate when it came to that astounding thing, "a job." He had been educated — super-educated — to what end? He was a misfit. He was a super-product. The world where dollars were sweated for had no use for him. Oftentimes, in the forty-dollar-amonth apartment, there was not enougb to eat. Howard, Jr., would not hear of Annie going back to work. "Let me prove that I'm no good first," he begged of her ; "let me prove it tho it kills me." Annie smiled at him. She never did anything else. Annie was the sort of woman to whom love is a cross — a cross whereon to stretch herself and be pierced thru and thru — a cross whereupon she was scourged perpetually — a Gethsemane spent alone. . . . "Robert Underwood" Howard proclaimed abruptly one day, after an hour or more of the sullen brooding that had become habitual with him; "Robert Underwood owes me exactly two hundred dollars. I never thought of asking him back for it — then. It didn't mean enough for the asking. But now ... I loaned it to him the day that chap hypnotized me, Annie. D'ye remember? He bet the chap he couldn't hypnotize anybody, and the chap bet he could — and he did — I was 'it.' I'm going to ask him for it. I've his address somewhere around." Robert Underwood admitted Howard, Jr., himself. He did not exclaim so much at the reduced state of Howard, Jr., as Howard, Jr., exclaimed at the abnormal state of Underwood. "Gad, Bob," he said, with a return of the affection he had felt for the man back in the ingenuous f reshie days ; "what's up — or down?" Underwood waved him to a seat. The studio was dimly lit by a sky-light from above. Its corners were indefinite with wine-color velours. There were bronzes about, an oil or two. A censer swung from an old-gold cord, and the fragrant smoke blew up against the gray ending of the day. And j'et it was bitter. It was sharp with the intolerable bitterness of the man whose twisted spirit, somehow, permeated it. There were memories about it as acid as gall. There were hopes as decaying as wormwood. "Everything's down, Howard," the host said, drearily; "I've had my death-blow, old man." "Death-blow? Nonsense, what are you talking about? In the midst of all this affluence . . ." "Affluence? Oh, this. . . yes. But that isn't what I mean. It isn't exactly affluence, however, being gorgeously unpaid for. But that's the smallest part of it. One can always be a soldier of fortune if one's spirit isn't broken. Mine is. Broken clean in half. A woman. I'm that sort, Howard. A woman can break me. One did. I'm dying of a hideous starvation. It's true. I'm famishing for her as truly as tho she were bread and meat and wine. I'm starving . . . to . . . death . . ." Howard, Jr., tried to force a natural laugh. "You're morbid, old man," he ventured, "you need a drink." Underwood smiled. "I am drunk," he said solemnly ; "I'm soaked thru and thru with the stuff. It cant touch me anywhere. It cant reach the famine. It's too deep." Howard, Jr., braced himself. He felt that he might better ask a corpse for money. Then he thought of Annie and the hollows under her eyes and the bareness of the cupboard at home. . . . He helped himself to a drink. Then he took another. Underwood was still talking, drearilv, still coupling women with hell, hell with women, still with that fearful note of longing punctuating his scorn. "That two hundred you owe me," Jeffries, Jr., finally managed to articulate; "what of that?" He heard Underwood give a short laugh. . . . An hour or so later, on Underwood's divan-bed, he heard another short laugh ... a woman's. . . . "My new stepmother," his brain registered dimly, then he slept again. He woke to a blare of lights, to sharp discursive voices, to the feeling of something metallic about his wrists, to a voice saving gruffly, "dont sham drink. Come to"!" On the way down-stairs he elicited the information that Underwood had been found dead in the apartment, shot thru the temple. He deduced from this, with a spasm of horror, that however death had overtaken Underwood, it had done so in the five hours during which he, Howard, had been sleeping there. Death . . . why, it had been pursuing Underwood when they had talked together in the fore part of the evening ... it had been in the lurking shadows ... at his very heels . . . poor Underwood ... so bitter .. . {Continued on page 90) 84 IA££ ,\ ^