Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1924)

Maybe something like that had happened to her. Poor girl. However, he would refuse the invitation. It was safer. No use rushing into trouble. Then he slopped short. He couldn't. It would be the height of rudeness and cruelty to do that. Why, the poor girl must be feeling dreadful enough about the whole miserable affair. Probably she was suffering sufficiently with remorse and shame without his heaping coals of fire upon her head by rebuffing a simple act of courtesy and gratitude like an invitation to dinner. If he didn't go, what coidd she think except that he was an ill-mannered and narrowminded prig? He hesitated long about the manner of acceptance. Should he write or telephone? No one had ever invited him to dinner by mail before. Her stationery was heavy and white and satiny, like her skin. Finally he, too, wrote a note. Simph — "Dear Miss O'Neil: It is very kind of you to ask me for dinner on Tuesday and I shall be awfully glad to come. "Sincerely, "Cleveland Brown." On a night some two weeks after that dinner party of Leda O'Neil's, all Hollywood would gladly have listened in on three conversations that touched closely the life of Cleveland Brown. Janice and Anabelle Brown, side by side in Janice's white bed, were whispering in the still night hours. A faint starlight poured in through the big, open windows and filled the fresh and simple chamber where they lay. A room like that of a particularly fastidious college girl. "Janice," said Anabelle, in an awed voice, " Cleve's just as different. Why, I never did see such a change in anybody." Janice turned on her side, so that Cleveland's sister saw only the thick, rippling curls of her hair, loose on the pillow. "What do you mean, different?" she asked. "Oh, I don't know. He's grouchy — and he never was before — and he's nervous and he's so absent-minded, honestly it's terrible. He can't seem to get started on his new picture. Mother's just worried to death. Janice, he's just crazy about her, that's all." "Crazy about who?" said Janice. Her voice sounded as though she had stilled a yawn. "Oh, you know. Leda O'Neil. He can't stay away from her. Every minute he's home, he's like a shut-up dog." "Well," said Janice, and she turned restlessly, as though, somehow, she could not find a comfortable spot in the bed, "well, she's the most beautiful thing I ever saw. If I were a man, I'd be crazy about her myself." "Oh, would you, Janice?" Anabelle almost gasped. "Well, if you like that type! Hut my goodness, Janice, you knowshe's got a terrible reputation. They say she's a worse vamp off the screen than she is on. Il seems so funny for Cleve to be running around with a woman like that. Promise you'll in \ er, never tell?" "I won't tell." "Well, 1 was up in Cleve's room the other morning and there was a book on the floor by his bed. One of hers. Il was poctrv. Oh, Janice, il was terrible." -Why terrible?" "You know. 1 1 memorized some of il to tell you, but I'm ashamed to say it." Janice laughed. "If you memorized it. 1 guess it won't hurt _\ ou to say it." "I only had time to read the ones that were marked. This one was." she hurried into it, giggling now and then between "Did the naughty, old bad ramp get him, poor little boy .' Did the wicked vampire just grab him arid eat him up.' Tt'8 a shame, so it is" the lines, " 'Can this be sin? This ecstasy of arms and eyes and lips. This thrilling of caressing finger-tips, 111 is toying with incomparable hair? (J close my dazzled eyes, you are so fair.) This answer of caress to fond caress. This exquisite, maternal tenderness? How could so much of beauty enter in. If this be sin?' "Opposite it she'd written something about — 'this is what 1 tried to explain to you last night." " "What was the other one?" asked Janice quietly. Anabelle took an audible breath and made the plunge: " 'Unbind your hair and let its masses be Soft midnight on the weary eyes of me. I faint before the dazzle of your breast; Make shadows oi your hair that 1 may rest. And 1 will cool my fevered temples there; Let down your hair.' "There's more, but I can't remember it. Can you imagine Cleve reading that kind of junk?" "Cleve's a man." said Janice. "Of course, they sound silly when you say them. Anabelle. because, of course, you don't know what they mean. But can you imagine what they'd sound like to a man if she read them to him? Somehow — I can." There was so long a silence that Anabelle dozed. Awakening with a little start, she said, "Janice. Were vou crying r " Certainly not." a little cold in my In -.aid Janice coldly, "I think — I've taken ad. Do go to sleep, Anabelle." m