Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1912)

116 THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE 1 'Where the principals cannot agree, old friend, on such a matter, a friend should share the confidence, as you have with me. For I esteem it a light thing to wipe out this little matter.' ' So saying, he sat at his heavy secretary, drew a check for the total of Gray's obligations, and handed it to him, with the timidity of one presenting a dun. "God bless you," said Gray, between astonishment and tears, "for I cannot do so adequately. You have undoubtedly prolonged the sweetness of my life for many years." Euphemia approached John fearsomely, tho her eyes shone like two stars. Her face could be likened to the coloring of a full-blown thistle, a violet blue shading in the eye sockets, deep pink on the firm cheeks, and from breast to chin as milk white as the heart of the flower. With a gesture of deep affection and humility, she caught his hand and pressed a kiss upon his fingers. The action was so spontaneous, from such an open heart, that the veriest hater of the sex could not have taken offense. John's whole nature seemed to burst into sunshine at the reciprocity she had given thru her lips. For a moment he framed his hands around her cheeks and looked at her earnestly and kindly, as if he would engrave her face and deed upon his memory. Then, as they went toward his door, he bowed in his oldfashioned manner and seated himself among his books — with his back resolutely turned to the lozenge window and its patch of light on his floor. And now into this dove-cote of soft happiness there steps forth from the stage-coach Sir John Millais, the painter and Pre-Raphaelite, beau and bon vivant. No lurker behind window panes is he, drinking in with full eye what Nature has tinted on flower, field or fair one. Ruskin had been his firm champion, battling against criticism, fighting the fight of a newer and more natural art with his wonder-laden pen. These two were firm friends — the very opposites in nature, drawn to each other by dominant dissimilarities. The critic saw in chiaroscuro, the genesis back of the stone or painting ; the artist lived and breathed his warm, beautiful shapes and colors. Together they were fire and fuel to all that they could beg from life or Nature. The library became their fortress; their ammunition, the enthusiasm of prophets for a new gospel, and many recent sketches from Millais' portfolio must be looked over and reviewed before the open fire. The little patch of sunlight came and went on the carpet, giving its warm message unheeded. Days went by — days of crimson and gold pictures made unwitnessed in the little bower. And so they might have gone on a-making until winter had withered the frame, had not Euphemia taken it upon herself to transpose a touch of them into the seclusion of her neighbor's library. She appeared before them, somewhat abashed, with a heaping armful of red roses, wet with d^w. The stars came into her eyes again, and her cheeks burned at the presence of the handsome stranger. The rhapsodists looked up, and as she made them a drooping curtsey, holding her offering close to her breast, Sir John started to his feet. ' ' The colors of a Southern dawn, ' ' he murmured; "the stars first bright, then paling to the rising pink. ' ' He made her a courtly bow, and John Ruskin, with his arms full of her gift, had sense enough to introduce them. She stayed a moment, and was gone, but the scent of the wet, red rOses and the colors of dawn had remained to stay in the somber room, between them. In her little, low-ceiled room that night, as she had done many nights agone, Euphemia prayed long and earnestly for the gentle man who had so kindly used her father. His clearcut face-, with hair swept back from forehead, and lips full of movement and character, would seem to picture itself on her white wall, then bend over a task and slowly fade from view. On that night, too, she visualized the