Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1924)

io4 Photoplay Magazine — Advertising Section Freckles GROW WORSE The longer you wait, the more you will regret. Nothing ruins one's appearance like freckles. Start using Stillman's Freckle Cream now, and remove theml Double action — not only are your freckles dissolved away, but your skin is whitened, refined and beautified. Guaranteed to remove freckles, or your money back. Most widely used preparation in the world for this purpose. Snowy white, delicately perfumed, a pleasure to use. Two sizes, 50c and SI at all druggists. Write for " Beauty Parlor Secrets" and read what your particular type needs to look best. Full of beauty treatments, makeup hints, etc. If you buy S3 worth Stillman toilet articles in 1924, we will present you with beautiful, large size bottle perfume, freel Send for booklet now. Stillmans Freckle cream Removes Ft Whitens the ckles Skin 'Write for M "Beauty Parlor Secrets" m The Stillman Co., 32 Rosemary Lane, Aurora, 111. Please send me "Beauty Parlor Secrets" and details of your perfume offer. Address For the skin that soap irritates, or that cold cream makes too oily, Almomeal is the ideal cleanser and skin food for daily use. It refreshes, clears, cleans and corrects like magic. Use it like soap. At <i(( department and drug stores. DR. PALMER'S ALNIOMEAL COMPOUND Send 10c for larec sample f>«ckagc. HOLTON & ADAMS, 25 Eist 22 nd St., New York Nnme_ Srrect_ -City. SUBSCRIBE for PHOTOPLAY Subscription rales ore listed on page five, below Contents. longed for her with every drop of Mood in his body, he knew that she was not the woman he wished to love. To him had come that bitterest of all tragedies. The woman he loved was not the kind of a woman he loved. Even-thing about her except herself was odious to him. He was afraid of her thoughts, her idea>, her desires, her past. It was not that he judged her. Only that he was sorry. Could they ever be happy together? If she consented to marry him — oh yes, he had asked her to marry him, what else could he do? — what would be the result? For the very thing that made Cleveland Brown a factor in the eyes of a nation that has stood for bravery in men and purity in woman, the unexplainable something that brought to a suffering world the healing flow of sweet, clean laughter, knew this passion for what it was. He wanted to trust her. He mu>t trust her. But a little nagging doubt of which he was ashamed kept clawing at him. Could he trust her? It was the bitter irony of man who cannot trust the woman who is his, because of the very fact that she has given herself to him. If his, why not another's? Time and again he had to close his mind to the implication of that first night when she had lain too naturally, too accustomed!}", in his arms. It was true that he never had again seen her drink too much. But why had she come to him like that, as though she came so to any man who was beside her? Every ideal, almost every dream that he had dreamed, lay shattered at the white feet of Leda O'NeiJ, where he knelt so abjectly. V\ THEN he was away from her, he would *^ have given anything if this had not happened to him. Yet, like all lovers, he could not pray, could not bear even the thought, that it might end. Then, when he was with her, his fears melted. His forebodings vanished. He was ashamed of his unworthy thoughts. Happiness and pride and possession and a fevered dream of the future flooded him. She was so lovely. So sweet. Most of all, she seemed to love him so. He could not understand it, at first he could scarcely believe it. But she did. She gave him kiss for kiss, vow for vow, adoration for adoration. She enmeshed him in the cloying fragrance of her loveliness, until he was as helpless as a fly in a honeypot. If they married — when they married — wouldn't she change all her wildness? W ouldn't she wish only to please him? After all. he did not wish to rob her of any right freedom, he did not wish to change or intrude upon her :~plendid individuality. He began at last to believe in this future happiness. After the first sweep of the thing, when he could not think at all, after the succeeding horror of his own fears and intuitions, came a new joy. a new belief with which she filled him. "I do love you. boy.'' she said to him, in one of those young, playful moods of which she was capable. The sunshine filled the Spanish patio where she loved to lie in a big cushioned hammock, The water lilies on the little pond caught it in their pearl cups. The tiny fountain splashed merrily. And the climbing roses and the tall, pink amaryllis perfumed the warm, lazy air. She wore one of the Simple, almost girlish frocks in which she looked so young and unaffected. "I really do love you," she said, "only I've never believed people like us should marry. I don't believe in marriage for arti>ts. It shoots your work all to pieces. Why can't we just go on — as we are? " •• Because I can't." said Cleveland Brown, and his jaw had a stubborn line, though his eyes were pleading, "1 can't. Leda. Don't you see? I love you. I wanted to get away from marriage if I could. I've never seen it bring much of anything but sorrow. Put love is one of the things you can't help. I wish I could. I didn't want to love you or anybody." That always made her laugh. She was one of the rare women who have a beautiful laugh. It filled the patio with music. If its tone was edged with a pleased vanity, Cleveland Brown was too enchanted to recognize it. She leaned over and brought her lovely face close to his and made her great dark eyes bigger and bigger. " Did the naughty, old, bad vamp get him, poor little l>oy? Did the wicked vampire just grab him and eat him up? It's a shame, so it is." He laughed at her, but he kept a stubborn control of himself. He had determined that she should give him an answer. And it was hard for him to hold to it, because he was so happy with her, like this. He wanted to frolic and laugh and romp, like a schoolboy. "Yes. you did," he said. Leda settled back in her hammock, pushing it gently to and fro with the toe of one whiteshod foot. "But I don't want to get married," she wailed. "Xeither do I," said Cleveland Brown heartily. She shot him a swift, annoyed glance. But it softened at the sight of his face. There were drawn fine lines down his cheeks. .And his mouth was set too steadily. It touched her. "I'm sorry, honey." she said, "but I can't quite see it. Tied together — for life. It's like a cage. A prison. It gives me a panicky feeling. And divorce is awfully bad for your boxoffice value right now. It'd hurt you worse than it would me. How many happy mz rriages are there in Hollywood among professional people? " "Lots." "Liar. Just two. How many divorces? Millions. Oh. there are plenty of couples sticking it out. But it's hell. I think that's worse than not getting married." Her eyes grew thoughtful and she swung slowly, humming the melody of an Indian love song — a melody that would have power to twist Cleveland Brown's heart as long as it beat. She was wondering, though of course he could not guess it. if there might be any advantage in marrying him. Wondering about her ability to be fairly true to any man. The habit and the lure of the game were strong upon her. "The more you have seen of the others the less you will settle to one." she quoted slowly to herself. The world had always conceded that there were men who would chase a new petticoat until the coffin lid was nailed down very tightly. Leda had a vague suspicion that there were women of that kind. too. She believed that Cleveland Brown was the finest man she had ever known and she actually didn't want to break him. He was so human and so full of fun and so kindly, with his decency. There was no self-righteousness about him to make her resent it. The thing was that she knew, with a shrewdness only a few men who had done business with her would have believed possible, that her own day of stardom and popularity was doomed to be short. SHE might hold on a year more — two at most. And then she would be through. The slightest dimming of her beauty, the moment that the public grew tired of her face, she must go. She had seen it happen already, even in the brief history of pictures. It was the most horrible of all things to her. To be cast into the discard. To be forgotten. To slip into second-rate things and second-rate loves. To find yourself left out, the dazzling hcydey of courted popularity over. Her soul shuddered at the thought. More than that, she saw leaner years ahead. Much leaner years. Her salary had never been enormous, and. though her extravagance had always been curbed, she had not saved a great deal. Xot enough. She loved beautiful things, rich things. She wanted to buy. to own. t o have everything that came to her fancy. She Every advertisement in rnoTorLAY magazine is guaranteed.