Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1920)

38 Photoplay Magazine "You know I never promised to marry you!" said Phyllis, the nequin. "I said 1 d try to love you — and I ■will! "I must have my career first, Tito," she said calmly. "You know I want to become a great actress before I marry. Marriage is so sort of final. And I must leave you now." "Where you go, sole mio?" Tito asked caressingly. A slightly embarrassed expression flitted across Phyllis' perfect features. "A friend of mine, a Mr. Tarrant, has asked me to go for a spin in the park," she said nervously. "A rich broker. I met him at a party. Are you jealous?' Tito laughed joyously. "How can I expect you to have the face and body like that and be shut up like a nun? Of course every man in this world is craze for you. Carissima, when I do not trust you I do not love you." "Well, I"m off then," said the girl carelessly. "Au'voir, old dear. Thank you for everything." And with a kiss blown from her pink fingers, she was gone. Tito stood in the long room in which dusk was fast gathering. So engrossed was he in the memory of Phyllis' beauty that he failed to see the figure of a young girl which entered softly and stood near the model throne watching him. It was the figure of Norah, his devoted assistant, who had been his right hand ever since he started his establishment in a small shop on lower Fifth Avenue. Her beauty was not as obvious, as blatant as that of Phyllis, but a keen eye could have seen that it was undeniable in spite of her plain, somber shop dress. "Tito," she said gently. He turned sharply at the sound of .her voice and welcomed her with an elaborate, Italian gesture. ' "Ah, 'Norah, my little friend, how it goes to-day?" he beamed. "But you have not the care-free air. Is it Hodgkins who bothers you with those so tiresome accounts?" "It is only for your sake that we are worried, Tito," the girl said gravely. "Hodgkins would not be a good business manager if he did not tell you how involved your affairs are. You could free yourself from debt if you would collect the money people owe you." "But these people, they are my friends," Tito remonstrated. "You do not make a dun on a friend, Norah." Norah s piquant face first frowned, then dimpled. "You're impossible, Tito," she said gently. "Run along now to the reception-room. Mrs. Warrington Brown is waiting for you, that fat wife of the oil magnate, you remember. She says you promised her a gown that is 'different.' " Tito arose languidly and started toward the door. "I make her the gown called 'The Husband at Home.' Very restful, very chic and a little bit naughty. But that fat woman! With all my genius, the gown would keep her husband at home. She spoil the day for me." He went out, murmuring imprecations on the unhappy dowager. Norah, her face betraying the love which she never hinted at in his presence, followed, to quiet his mutterings as they neared the patron. Long igo, she had accepted his passion for Phyllis, and with the poise of her firm little character she had learned to treat him merely as her friend and employer. But she could not help her dreams or the look of longing that woukl creep into her eyes when she knew he could not see it. Just now, however, her mind was not on her own troubles. Lida Moore, a show-girl, and her devoted friend for years, had telephoned that she was in great trouble and must see her at once. Norah had left word that she was to be shown into the private office of the establishment, but she was unprepared for the girl's entrance as she rushed in. tear-stained, sobbing, half-hysterical. When Norah had soothed her until her words became more coherent, she told the old. old story of violated trust and brief, shattered happiness. "You ne\er knew, Norah." she sobbed. "I tried to keep it from you. I wish I had never left here. Tito was so good to me and you and Mollie were ^°' like big sisters. But I did leave, and I suppose you know the rest." "I only know what the girls ha\e gossiped about," said Norah steadily. "They said you had mo\'ed into a wonderful apartment and had a big blue car and gorgeous furs and a string of pearls. Lida, I know what your salary is and you couldn't do all that unless some man — who is he. Lida?" "I had hoped you wouldn't hear." said the other dully. "Well, here are the pearls, the car is outside and the man is the man I love. "And he has left me," she went on, her voice again rising to hysteria. "He has gone to someone as young as I was when he first met me. He made me a settlement and left. There was nothing I could do. 'Gocd-by. Lida," he said. '1 wish it hadn't been you.' " and with another outburst of self-pity, the girl threw herself full length on the chaise-longue. Norah bent over her, aching with pity. "The brute,'" she murmured. "But he isn't worth one of your tears. Lida. You must forget him and love some decent man as your husband — an honorable love." "Never in all my life," sobbed the girl, "can I care for anyone as I have for Robert Tarrant." At the name, Norah suppressed a gasp of recognition. She had met Tarrant on one of the trips he had made to the atelier to see Phyllis. She had also reason to believe that Phylhs had lied about the nature of the "harmless drives" which she and Tarrant had taken. But she said nothing to Lida, only quieted her with caresses and words of hope until she was composed enough to make her way back into the car again. Meanwhile a little romance of a far more cheerful nature was progressing in the anteroom just off the atelier. The heroine was the diminutive "Daisy," who had startled Tito with her willingness to be "sacrificed," and the hero was Riccardo Tosello, whose