Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1924)

AUTH^rt v-»iul-/M*» Ray Connable stood at her window looking down into the almost deserted street. A policeman stood on the corner, leaning up against a building. A taxi sputtered by. Across the way, there was a small blur of light and activity at John's, where the late crowds dropped in for something to eat. Everything else was dark and quiet. How different it was from New York at midnight! Ray Connable, with an unaccountable pang of homesickness, shivered in the night air. From the room beyond a sleepy voice said: " Miss Ray, can't you go to sleep? You want me to get up and fix you some hot milk? You'll catch cold standing there like that." "I don't want anything," said Ray Connable, drawing the blue and gold of her mandarin coat about her. "Oh, damn it, Ella, why is the world so rotten?" " You quit worrying. Miss Ray. That woman ain't going to keep on bothering long with no Cleveland Brown," said the unseen counsellor. "She's used to sheiks, she is. Besides, I hear she's got to have somebody new every few days. And when he does get through, my, won't he be glad of somebody to cheer him up? Didn't he send you them roses yesterday?" "Yes. But everything was going so wonderfully until she came along. Well, I'm not going to give up. I'm not. Go to sleep, Ella. I'm all right." But in the still darkness, she put her forehead against the cold comfort of the window pane and said bitterly: "It isn't fair, it isn't fair," And even while Janice lay wide-eyed, staring into the starlit darkness; while little Ray Connable stood straining to see the midnight world go by. Mrs. Henry Brown, in her big brass bed, was awakened by a stealthy footstep on the stairs. She sat up instantly, very formidable and entirely prepared to cope with an army of burglars if necessary. lim when the door opened il vras onlj Daddy Brown who slipped in Like ■ wan and ndiculoui ^host. He edged very quietly and cautiously around to his own side of the big bed, only to be galvanized as be neared ii bj the unexpet ted and violent tones <>l his wile. " \\ here ba\ e j '>u been, I [em j . i basing around gluing your death <>f cold this time of night?" "Win. 1 jusi went downstairs to gel me a drink of water," Baid Daddy Brown. "1 didn't know you was awake, Jennie." "There's plenty of water right up lure in the bathroom," said his wife, switching on the light beside the bed. "Is Cleveland home yet?" "I'm sure 1 don'l know. Mother." "Don't lie to me, Henry. YOU been down Stairs to see if he'd eomc in. Has he?" "Why, now you speak about it. I don't think he has." " What time is it?" "\\ hy, I don't know, Mother." "You can find out by looking al the dork on my bureau." " My gracious, it's most two o'clock." "Two o'clock and Cleveland's not in yet. And when he comes in, he sneaks along so quid. When he was flying around with that chorus girl, he used to stay out late some nights, but at least he'd come banging in, whistling and waking up the whole house. How many nights has he been out this week?" "My gracious, Jennie, you better lie down and go to sleep. Cleveland's not a baby any more. I guess he can stay out a few nights all night, and it wouldn't be unheard of in a young fellow his age." "Henry," said the voice from the bed, and for the first time it broke a little and its commanding note was lost in a pleading that Daddy Brown had not heard in many a year, "Henry, it's not like Cleveland. You're scared, aren't you? I know, every night you're wandering around, most all night. I hear you, up and down, up and down. You think — oh, I'm so worried. What do you think — " Daddy Brown went and sat down on the edge of the bed and patted the hunched shoulders. "I don't know, Jennie, I don't know. I never got into anything like this myself, though I guess most men do. Some one woman, some time, gets into their blood and sort of sets 'em crazy. Usually, it don't last. But this Miss O'Xeil — " "She's a devil," said Cleveland Brown's mother. "No, she isn't. If she was, I wouldn't worry. Straight out and out badness isn't much to worry about with a boy that's got fine principles like Cleveland. But it's funny how much goodness and badness can get all mixed up together in this world. Cleveland's been dodging love a long time. It was bound to catch up with him some time — in this town. I'm just hoping it won't hurt him so bad that — he'll never get over it." "Do you think he'll marry her?" "No, because I don't think she'll let him." "Does he want to, Henry?" " I hope so, Jennie. I wouldn't want my boy to feel like that about a woman and not want to marry her. Yes, I expect right now he'd about give his soul to marry her." The purr of a motor broke the night air. Daddy Brown pulled oil the bedlight. Side by side, as they had lain every night for forty years, they stayed breathless in the darkness. But the motor went by. And the night seemed stiller than ever, almost as still as death, when it had died away in the distance. It was the first time he had ever been in that particular room. The room in Leda O'Neil's house that was to be printed on his mind forever. A strange room that could have belonged to no one but Leda O'Ncil, with her childish love of the bizarre and the sensational. At first sight of it, Cleveland Brown had stopped on the threshold, startled and just a little amused. It was more like a motion picture set — a glorified boudoir from some film extravaganza seen on the screen — than any room in the house of a real woman. 53