Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1930)

How lucky WAS this spoiled little queen who ruled all but one heart? Doreen, wearing her fantastic gold-sequined bathing suit, studied Clyde's girl. She wore a cheap little crepe frock. But envy stabbed Doreen as Clyde looked at his sweetheart The contractor quickly took the cue. " Oh, something in the Greco-Roman style? " "Now you're talking."' Mr. Silvers' enthusiasm kindled. "Greco-Roman. That's what I want — with a gold fountain in the middle, " he said. "And some nude figures up on top of the fountain, and a place below like a seashell where my wife can sit and let the water splash over her. " He had confused GrecoRoman with De Mill can. THE contractor knew his racket. ''The fountain will certainly be original." he agreed. "But, if you will permit me to say so, Mr. Silvers, you would secure a much more exotic effect," he purposely used the producer's pet word, " by placing it at the far end of the pool and on a higher level, so that the water cascades down the steps. " He sketched a design on the back of an envelope to show Mr. Silvers just what he meant. "O. K.," agreed Mr. Silvers, visualizing a miniature Niagara. "Now about lights — I want colored lights concealed along the sides of the pool and on the bottom, so that at night the water will shimmy like waves — see?" "Yes," agreed the dazed contractor, "lights would produce an iridescent effect. Of course you understand that will run into money — " Mr. Silvers' shrug indicated this was quite unimportant. " No amount of money is too much to spend on a home, " he said emphatically. "This place has cost me a hundred grand already, but what I mean is, no amount of money is too much to spend on a home." The contractor agreed that anything for the home was a good investment. And so Mr. Silvers' golden pool out-Romaned the Romans. Like a lake of clear amber it nestled in the velvety green of the hillside, and at night, when the lights were on, it shimmered with a phosphorescent glow. But, ironically enough, the gorgeous girl whom Ben Silvers was glorifying could not swim! Very decorative she was, in a bathing suit of golden sequins which would have been more at home on a musical comedv mer maid. She lolled in the hollow of the gold seashell, dimpling plavfuliv at her admiring husband, as the water from the fountain cascaded. But the novelty of this soon wore off. " Daddy, " she asked at the conclusion of her first swimming partv, "don't you think I ought to take swimming lessons?" "Sure! I'll have a man here tomorrow." At the Athletic Club, where the producer occasionally played poker, he found Clyde Berg, who had been recommended to him as one of the best instructors on the Coast. "How much do you make here?" "Twenty-five dollars for three afternoons a week." "I'll give you thirty-five to come up to my pool and teach mv wife, Doreen Dawn, how to swim. " Mr. Silvers merely noticed that young Berg was athletic looking and seemed to know his business. Doreen was more observing. She first saw Clyde standing at the edge of the pool, clad in a one-piece tank suit. As she looked him over appreciatively, she experienced a thrill, new to her. "This is my wife— Miss Dawn." Mr. Silvers introduced them. "How-do-you-do," she said, trying to force her eyes from his supple, hard young body, so broad-shouldered, yet so narrow-loined. "Berg here says he can teach you to swim and dive in ten lessons, sweetheart. " Though he never went in the water himself, Mr. Silvers was attired in a black and green bathing suit and a batik dressing gown which gapped open and revealed his thin, blue-veined legs. AS Doreen's gaze wandered to her husband, then back to Clyde, she was thinking: "God certainly does play favorites." Aloud, she said : "Do you think I will be an apt pupil, Mr. Berg?" She flashed him the devastating Doreen Dawn smile which had caused so many screen casualties. Now that she looked at his face she saw that he had a clean cut, almost rugged beauty; a profile which might have graced a Florentine cameo, and unruly blond hair which fell intoa crisp ringlet over one eye. Yes, he really was handsome—in an unstandardized way. She was acutely conscious of a desire to run her hands along the satin smoothness of his bronzed torso. "I am sure you will be, Miss Dawn. " he said politely. His eyes traveled from her face to her bathing suit; not boldly, but with a certain boyish shyness which amused and delighted