Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1920)

I ness of gesture peculiarly her own, and said, 'I t'ink I hav' been made for vone leetle moment . . . this . . . an' then 1 go away . . ." "And I cried out on this. I held her again and asked her to be my wife, but she drew still further away from me and told me that could never be. " 'Love is not like this,' I cried out. 'LoVe means the comradeship that comes with years of work and play together, of growing old together, of heaven reached together . . . but together . . . always together . . .' " 'To me,' she said, 'love mean vone leetle mpment in a long, long time . . . vone leetle dream, so still and white, vone leetle kiss that mean the all of life. You have taught me this, my f rien' . . . there is no more than that.' "I pleaded with her again. And again. And then she said to me, so sadly, "All the worl' know vy I may not ben your wife, my frien', all the worl' but onlee you, it seem.' ''And then it came to me . . . the things I had heard at Van Tuyl's reception, the whispering, hidden things. Something terrible smote me to pain, and then from the pain a sweetness came, and I said : "'There, darling, there; dont cry. Please dont cry. "And as she spoke the voices of the choir boys came in and intermingled ... I looked at her . . . and as I looked I looked up and all at once our tears came, hers and mine ..." You've been fair, and brave, and honest. I know. I understand. You have, and those are the things that count, the fine things, the things I've always believed in. It was all so long ago. You've done so much since then. Darling . . . tell me . . . what is the matter . . . ? Rita ... it zvas long ago, wasn't it? Wasn't it?' " 'Yes . . . yes . . . of course,' she told me. 'Oh, dont talk about it any more. It hurt me . . . here . . . where my heart beat for you . . . take me in your arms an' kiss me . . . kiss me . . . lik' you did . . .' "Something was hurting me, tho. I couldn't place it. And her eyes . . . her eyes evaded mine. The subterranean whisperings of that evening began to creep toward the surface of my thoughts. I grasped her shoulders. 'Rita,' I said, 'tell me . . . not . . . not, Van Tuyl . . . !' "She recoiled from me then, and her face, as white as her ermine, stared at me like some living gardenia. 'No . . . vhat you t'ink ? Y'ou don' . . . ' "'Rita . . . tell me! Then let me call him. He is upstairs, taking tea. Let me call him as my oldest friend and we will announce our engagement. Darling, forgive me, but this thing must be straightened.' "She begged me not to tell him. She swore it was all right, but that she wanted to wait. But T couldn't wait. I had got past my power of waiting. "I sent for Van Tuyl. "I told him Madam Cavallini was my promised wife, that she had told me of her past, and I avsked him if he were a part of it. Thru it all she pleaded with me to believe in her; she implored me with her dark eyes, with her white hands, with her warm words . . . but I had to know ... a terrible insistence was driving me on . . . and on . . . and those things . . . those things that I had heard were coming back and coming back and forming a whole that sickened my soul . . . "A place called Millefleurs, they had said, there Van Tuyl had lived with the famous Cavallini, a paradise on earth, the two of them . . . Impossible! Intolerable! Ah, how things are intolerable to youth! Utterly intolerable it was to me . . . my patron, my more than father, my friend, the pillar of my Church and the woman who had become the blood withfn my veins, the fire in my heart . . . . "Van Tuyl was grave, correct, taken aback. He told me that he feared I was making a crass mis take. For himself, he