Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1936)

[ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 78 ) know now and if he didn't . . . well, she would tell him. It was all right to wait for him to choose, but it was not all right in the presence of this other woman to wait, like a creature totally without pride, to be pushed out. She would get out of her own accord. "Keith," she said, when she caught him aside for a moment during the evening, "I want to talk to you alone for a minute — later." "Surely, Carol," he said agreeably. When Sybil had gone to bed and Bob off to his bungalow, they sat before the fire together. For a while she didn't speak. Her mind drifted into thoughts of other nights, different nights, when they had sat before that fire. Suddenly she pushed the memories away. The past. What had the past to do with the future? She stood up quickly. "I'm leaving, Keith," she said. He looked surprised. "I thought you wanted to talk? " "I mean — tomorrow I'm leaving." "Going home?" she stood with her back against the door, her head tilted back against it. Why not go right away, she thought? There was no use lying in that bed turning and tossing for another night. She could drive all night. The air would be cool and clear. It would feel good against her tired face. SHE packed a few things that she might need. She wrote Keith a short note and then she went out the back way to the garage. She got into her car and drove it out. She got out again and closed the garage door and then she sat behind the steering wheel and looked at the house. She saw the light in the living room. Keith was still sitting there. She wished that she had asked him to kiss her good-by. Her body ached to be held close and safe in his arms . . . just once more. Her hands clenched tightly for a moment and then relaxed. She started the car. She turned her head resolutely away from the house. That was the past. Ahead was a new life. It would Did you ever see such a stellar line-up as this, at a recent NBC broadcast in Hollywood? In the front row. are Barbara Stanwyck, little Sybil Icson sitting on Winiired Shaw's lap. Claire Trevor, and Claudetle Colbert. Behind them. Max Reinhardt converses with Mary Pickford and those shining newcomers, Anita Louise and Olivia de Havilland, who are doing very well "No. Not home." His eyes searched her face. "What do you mean, Carol?" "You must know, Keith, really. You can't be so blind. You and Sybil . . ." "Rut, Carol . . ." He stood up and stared at her. Then abruptly he sank back again. For a moment his hand covered his eyes and then he looked up at her. "I don't know," he said. "I mean — I don't know about me and Sybil. I haven't thought it out. I have hardly realized . . . And not until today. . . . Not until after we got here. I wouldn't have brought her otherw ise. You know that." CAROL nodded. " ll isn't your place to go," he finished. "We'll go." "No. I want to. I want to get away. I want to move. I . . . Excuse me," she broke off. "I . . . There isn't anything more." She went swiftly from the room, afraid of her self control. When she got to her room, never be a good life again. But it must be faced. The car moved along the gravel. It was a black moonless night. The head lights picked the way, showing the dark trunk of an occasional tree along the driveway. Going away. Forever. Her heart caught hard. She couldn't bear it. Desperately she turned her head back for one last look. As she watched, the lights went out in the living room. Keith was going to bed. Tears blinded her eyes. She started to turn back again. Then she never knew how it happened, but there was a sickening swerve, and a sickening crash, and a sickening blackness closing in around her. She hovered and Boated on tin edge of that sickening blackness. Sometimes it seemed for only a moment, sometimes it seemed that it had always linn, that it was life itself. Then light and pain, swift and blinding as li pureed the darkness. And someone beside her with Keith's face and Keith's voice soothing her and Keith's hands touching her gently. Hut it wasn't true. It was never quite bc lievably true. This is hell, she thought. I've died and gone to hell where he will always seem to be near and I'll always know it's not true. But with the gradual lifting of the darkness it was true. He was there beside her. And at last came the strength to speak. "What's happened?" she asked. "You hit a tree." "And I'm hurt?" "Yes." "Badly?" "Yes. But they've promised me you're all right now. They've promised me," he said, and there was strain and desperation in his voice. She thought, I must get wall and set him free. A man couldn't leave a sick wife for another woman. A man wanted his conscience free. Then she closed her eyes too tired to think. But whenever she woke up he was there. Sometimes Sybil was there too. Carol listened to her voice, pleading, held back from irritation. "You should get out, Keith. You've sat here with her for days. Let's go for a ride. She's better now." "She might wake up and want me," he said. "The nurse is here. And Bob's here. If you were wanted he could come after us." "She might need me," Keith said stubbornly. ^•AROL, lying on the bed with her eyes closed ^tight, thought over and over again. I must get well and set him free. I love him too much to tie him to me. If I died I'd tie him too. He'd always think it was his fault. So gradually she got stronger. Gradually she was better. Sybil had gone. There was just Keith and Bob and the nurse. Then the nurse was gone too. She was herself again, except for the thinness, the paleness, the tiredness which would perhaps never leave her again. "Keith," she said to him one night. "I'm well. I must go now. And I won't," she said, trying to joke, "run into a tree this time." His face grew strained. He got up and walked away from her. "No, you don't need me any more." He turned to look at her then. "That was what I liked about you first. . . . You were such a funny little kid. . . . You seemed to need me so much. I wanted to take care of you always And after we were married you seemed able to take care of yourself— and me too. You ran everything for me so smoothly. Then Sybil needed me to help her in the picture. Sh • wasn't any good without me. Then you were hurt. Calling for me. The doctors said if I didn't stay with you you might not get well. You needed me again I knew then that your needing me was what I wanted most from life " "There's no use pretending." she said, and her voice broke a little and she wouldn't meet his eves, "that I won't be lost without you I'll always need you to be whole and happy. The way a woman always needs the man she loves . . ." He strode to her and caught her shoulder^ "Say it again," he commanded. "Say it again. That you love mi She met his eyes "1 love you." "Carol! "he cried. "I . ." But he couldn't speak, and their arms eager and desperately tight around each other were better than words. 80