Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

The Glory Road 115 than anything else to give offense in those tirst crucial weeks of adjustment after Paul's departure. Inevitably, then, the doubtfully viewed ways had become the familiar and accustomed ones, and her suspicions bad been lulled to sleep. Now she found herself wondering what had taken place in her, for she seemed no longer to think, oi her marriage to Paul Temple with a tender, secret glow of anticipation, but as an accepted and prosaic fact Were she and Paul to be like so many of these other married and betrothed Couples about her. she wondered, apparently indifferent, a little free, unideal? She had dreamed of something different, something holier, more sacred. Must that go too, like so many of the other girlish dreams and illusions? .... AND as she thought, the short twilight ^^ deepening about her. Holt constantly obtruded himself upon her mind ; his broad, freckled face, the sense of fun he conveyed, some of the things he had said, his mannerisms. Vivid as was Paul Temple in 'his characteristic letter, yet Holt was more vivid because he was nearer. It was as if dust had settled over the picture of Paul in the secret place of her heart, while Holt's, constantly before her, had been kept bright. She was going to marrv Paul of course. How wonderful and splendid and tender he was ! And yet Stephen Holt had said, "I love you !" Stephen Holt, who had wrung a fortune from the desert, who seemed the very essence of his ^"est. who had conquered culture after conquering the sand. (He was always this to her; never the power behind the "Western Graphic Company.) He had said "I love you!" and she knew that he meant it. He had, by those words, made himself a factor — one who must be taken into account. His remark, made on the terrace of the Country Club, that she had been unfair to herself in becoming engaged to Temple without experience of other men, returned to her, and she both scorned it and was troubled by it now as she had been then. More troubled still was she bv the fact of his declaration. That sort of thing could not go on, of course. He must be made to understand that. She was another's. She was the woman, and natiiralU upon her, since he had revealed himself, rested the responsibility for his conduct She felt that she was able to control and com mand the situation, for she was going to marry Paul Temple and she had told Holt so plainly, just as plainly as she had told herself so n<>w . lie could not misunderstand that ; it had been clear and simple and final. If he was the man he had led her to believe he was. he would appreciate this fact and act accordingly. And yet there was that last look of unconquerable determination, and his last words to be reckoned with : "You can marry anybody you like, but you're going to love me!" She felt a little dismay as they returned to her. Then she laughed at them as absurd, reminding herself with a sense of security that she was going to marrv Paul ; as a knight might have assured himself that he was cap-a-pie as he approached a dangerous spot on the highroad. JUNE was young and proud; she was J experiencing the delayed enjoyments of worldliness ; she was unconscious of the strength of the thing she had permitted to spin its apparently weak strands about her ; she was acquainted with the theory of spontaneous combustion only by hearsay. Not for a moment had she consciously compromised her beliefs or ideals. She felt again now as she had always felt, secure in her strength and ability to control the events that were arising about her. And with that security came again the certainty of her love for Paul. As she rose from the window-seat in the darkness to dress before getting supper, she kissed the letter she held, conscious of peace, of having faced a problem squarely, and of having disposed of it. CHAPTER XIV 1 OS ANGELES in three years has be■Lj come the Carnival City of the world. Within her far-flung boundaries lie desert, mountain, sea and plain. Her Riviera encroaches upon her Zermatt, her Zermatt upon her Sahara, and her Sahara upon her rich, water-rescued fields. In all of these, as well as in the noisy. business-like streets of stone that form her