Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1921-Jan 1922)

Alone with his guest, he made an eager gesture, "Now, Monsieur !" "Well—" hesitated Philip, "if it wasn't for my company, I wouldn't ask it, but we're being pressed by the new Forest Fisheries Corporation and — well, if you would sell us the right of way across your land, sir" — he laughed embarrassed ly — "dont feel you have to. I — I'm afraid I wasn't wholly philanthropic in pulling your daughter out of the river ! It would have — annoyed me awfully to have had her drowned !" D'Arcambal wrung his hands. "The right of way is yours, it is less than nothing! And now you must go and change or you will take cold. I fear you will have to put up with such garments as these" — he gestured to his quaint velvets and brocades. "I have never been in France in all my life, Monsieur, yet I have tried to bring France here, to keep alive the old ways somewhat." Thru the unwonted courses of the company dinner which old Rose took out of sundry cans and boxes for the occasion, D'Arcambal watched the two young people, and read signs which he recognized ; the heart is a harp on which is played old tunes, no matter how lax its strings and how out of tune. "They are in love with one another, tho they do not know it yet," he mused. "They try not to look at one another, they cannot keep their eyes away. There is a light in their faces that does not come from my poor oil lamps — yes, I must speak to him tonight." After Jeanne had slipped away, pouting at being sent to bed like a child, the two men sat before the leaping fire in the library, a room so large that the firelight could not reach the far corners where shadows hung like cobwebs. A silence fell upon them, which, presently, D'Arcambal broke with an effort. "You love my daughter, Monsieur." It was not a question but a statement. The younger man started, qT-MOTION PICTURR I Jeanne, yet I have never been able to decide how I might begin. There is one very dear who must be shamed by my tellim And once more "If it hadn't been for you — " breathed the man. His eyes were on her small, lovely face, beneath the warm, brown tangle of her hair, with the look which no woman ever mistakes, the mating look colored and stared at him with a slowly to discovery. "Perhaps," he said, "perhaps I do. I've been pretty busy all my life, sir, and I dont know much about love, but — well the world has looked different colored, somehow, since I saw her the first time -" wonder which grew "There is something I must tell you," D'Arcambal said slowly, almost tiredly. "I have always known that I must tell it to the man who loved FLOWER OF THE NORTH Told in short-story form, by permission, from the Vitagraph production of the scenario by Bradley J. Smollen, based on the novel by James Oliver Curwood, and directed by David Smith. The cast : Philip Whittemore Henry Walthall Jeanne D'Arcambal Pauline Starke Thorpe Harry Northrup Pierre Joe Rickson Blake Jack Curtis D'Arcambal Emmett King MacDougal Walter Rodgers Cassidy William McCall Iachigo Vincente Howard his eyes lifted to the lovely, ardent face shining out of the tarnished frame. "Her mother — " Philip murmured, "the mouth is the same. It makes a man think of a kiss — " he broke off, blushing. "Her mother. Yes." D'Arcambal spoke with long pauses between the words. "My wife, my beloved wife. Jeanne is very much like her. I think there is almost no trace of the — the father in her." The knuckles of his old hands were white with the strain of their clasp. Philip sat motionless. In the silence, the sound of a white ash dropping from a charred log was loud and obtrusive. "Her father," continued the Chevalier, firmly, "was a James Thorpe, factor at the Settlement. A coward and a beast — but handsome. She ran away with him, and two years later she came back with her child. Pierre heard her at the door of his cabin. She — she died before she could speak to him." Philip Whittemore leaned forward impulsively and touched the hardwrung hands. "Surely you didn't think that that would make any difference to — to a man who loved Jeanne, sir?" The frayed white ruffles of his stock stirred on the old Chevalier's shrunken breast with his gusty sigh. "She does not know," he murmured, "it would be kinder if she never knew. But in honor, 33 PAG i