Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1927)

(J5 "sMOTION PICTURP 01 I MAGAZINE L c razy Quilt "I'll tell you what," she said. "Tell my chauffeur he can go. I wont want the car again today. But ask him if he will lend me his raccoon coat. I have no furs." "Bosh," said Robert Landis. "Movie stars have wraps of chinchilla, sable and ermine. . . ." "This movie star has one fur wrap . . . for evening wear," laughed Judith. "It was bought last week for the premiere of 'Woman.' " While he went down-stairs to get the raccoon coat from her chauffeur, she hastily changed into a rust jersey sport suit she had worn in the picture. She put on woolen stockings and a soft rust felt hat. Then she wrapped herself in the raccoon coat and together they laughed like two schoolchildren as he turned his car uptown and into the country. "I had forgotten about this delicious sort of thing," said Judith, sniffing the frosty air. "I had even forgotten how white and untrammeled snow can be. . . ." "I loathe the city," said Robert Landis, daring to look at her now and then because they had left the confusing traffic far behind them. "And when I have to drive around all closed up in a motor, I'm miserable. You're not cold, are you ?" Judith shook her head. Her cheeks were bright, whipped into color by the December wind. And her hair had escaped in one or two tendrils from the close hat. No wonder Robert Landis waited for a good opportunity and then looked at her with frank admiration. They sped up a hill, because he knew a view that the crown promised. "That's so like you," laughed Judith. "You live just like that. I feel stupid and plodding and blind when I'm with you." "How's that ?" he asked her. "Why . . . you take the things you want from life, somehow," she said. "I cant quite explain what I mean. Others of us proceed very cautiously like children going along a dark hall timidly so as not to disturb any of the mysterious bugaboos that might jump out from unsuspected corners. Have you no fear?" "I know a fearful fear, Judith," he said using her first name and apparently not conscious that he was doing it. "My fear is the fear of missing some experience . . . of lacking some new taste ... of missing some emotion. I'm often a damn fool, I suppose. But I do not want to live anemically. Today is the only guarantee we have, you know. So . . ." He raised his fur-lined glove from the wheel dramatically, eloquently. Judith snuggled closer into the raccoon warmth. "I know." she said, "I have that fear too sometimes. Life slips into the past so quickly. All you keep of today is a memory." They turned into a long drive between dark pine-trees. And then they came to a huge log cabin. Bright red curtains hung at the windows. A large dog barked ferociously. "We have arrived," he said. "Wait until you taste the waffles." "I should be dieting," Judith admitted. "But I dont plan to today. I must lose ten pounds before I face the cameras again. You know what the screen does to you, makes you look half again your $*; Lage (Continued from page 74) They entered the large room where a great divan faced a cavern blazing with spicy logs. There were tables here and there complemented with chairs. But he led her right to the lounge. "Serve us here," he said, and it was done. The waffles were all that was said of them. Judith ate as greedily as a small child. And Robert Landis watched her happily. It was six o'clock when they started for home. With the sun gone down, it was much colder. The stars shone almost stiffly in the black winter sky. And the wind rushed past them as if on an important errand. Actually they said little. Now and then a splutter of conversation. Then silence, not strained or awkward but a happy, satisfied kind of silence. "Good-bye," Judith told him when the car stopped before the apartment. "You have given me a gorgeous afternoon. I had almost forgotten about the country and the way it feels to drive in the open with the stars spinning past over your head." "Good-bye, Judith," he said, still holding her hand. "I suppose I'll see a very different Judith Tower at the premiere, a poised, sophisticated and silken woman . . . not the happy little girl with the big appetite who drove with me today." Judith loved his smile. It was so big. Because he had a big mouth, of course. But this very practical explanation never occurred to her. Suddenly she felt a sense of guilt. It was eight o'clock. And they had planned dinner for seven-thirty. She always went out of her way to plan things so that she and Harvey might be together when she was not working. She blamed her work in a way for the fact that they had somewhat drifted apart. They got along without each other. And Judith was not sure that this was quite so desirable as the modern novelists postulate. She thought the essence of marriage was an interdependence. She would rather have liked that. Now here it was eight o'clock. She rang the bell furiously and heard Lillian hurry to the door. "Is Mr. Dunn home, Lillian?" she asked. "Yes'm, he's home." And then Harvey appeared in the doorway of the livingroom. "Where have you been?" he asked, inclined to be cross but making a slight, half-hearted attempt to hold his temper in leash. "You told me you were going to Sherry's for tea and that Robert Landis was going to interview you." "I was," Judith said and suddenly she felt guilty about another thing. That fur ccat. It was not in keeping with the personality that Harvey had outlined for her. It was not compatible with the fragile, silken, perfumed things he had told her to wear. It was rough and cumbersome and out-of-doorsy. "Mr. Landis thought it would be pleasant to motor in his car. It is a sport model, something like yours. We went way up into the country and stopped at a big log cabin for waffles and coffee. . . ." Harvey troubled to constrain himself no longer. "You little idiot," he said. "You've gone and ruined all I've done to create an illusion for you." He finished what remained of his whisky and soda in one gulp, hardly paus ing in his tirade. "Beautiful but dumb. All you had to do was be the thing I created for you and you cant even be that." "It was fun," said Judith. "We had a lovely time and Mr. Landis says . . '." Harvey grabbed her arm and pulled her back as she turned to go up-stairs. His fingers pressed deeper and deeper into her flesh, each of his finger-tips felt like a drop of hot iron. "Dont Mr. Landis me," he said. "You're a whited sepulcher all right. Suspicious of me every time I look at a woman because you know how men act when they take a woman out, I suppose. . . ." The import of his words filled her with anger. And with her free hand she slapped him across the face. Her eyes were black with fury. "Let go my arm," she said. "And dont touch me again until I give you permission, if I ever do. I'm nearly thru trying to hold together this broken thing of our marriage." Harvey did as she told him. He seemed fearful of the fire he had lit. Yet a few minutes after she had gone up-stairs he ran up after her. He found her sitting before her dressing-table with the tears of a woman's quiet weeping on her face. And when he took her in his arms, waiting for no permission, her arms went about his neck eagerly. "Harvey darling, what is happening to us?" she cried. "Where will we land if we keep on like this. It is all so ugly and so much less than I wanted it to be. We are spending our todays in quarrels and anger and laying up horrid memories for the future ... oh, Harvey." He wept a little, too . . . shamefacedly as men weep. "Miss Judy, dinnah's gaten kole," whined Lillian from down-stairs. "Coming right away, Lillian," called Judith, but her voice was not very steady. Chapter XV Tt seemed that almost everyone in New York who was anyone attended the premiere of "Woman" on Christmas Eve. Judith was to sit in a box with Harvey and the McAllisters. She dressed with care. And she and Harvey drove to the theater, arriving there about eight-thirty. The car's progress to the entrance was slow. Other motors were discharging their brilliant occupants. And the crowd in front of the lobby and in the lobby made this slow work. Reserves did their utmost to keep -a lane free for ticketholders, but found it almost impossible to keep back the surging, pushing people. The more curious peered expectantly into the cars waiting to get to the awninged marquee, hoping to see some star. Harvey told Judith it was a pity not to turn on the light and let them see her, she was so beautiful. And he spoke truthfully. She was ravishing in the snowy ermine evening cloak with its soft white fox collar. Her hair was parted in the center and brushed sleekly on the sides to where it curled slightly in wide marcelled waves and showed gleaming copper lights. Her eyes were a dark green . . . her skin pale . . . her lips scarlet. With her white stockings, sheer as webbing, she wore scarlet velvet slippers. (Continued on page 78)