Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1920)

/^ V 72 he would be able to get there, as her last sight of him fighting with a policeman promised trouble for him. Yet somehow she had confidence in his ability to get out of scrapes. And he did. He gasped when he saw her. "You here?" he exclaimed. "Of course. I'm Mrs. Chadbourne. I didn't have time to tell you after I found you were Jack Garrison." "Jeffs wife!" Garrison's jaw fell. "I arranged that Jeffrey should be called away tonight," Georgiana cooed. "But — is that fair to Jeff," he pro tested manfully. "What does it matter to you and me?" she vamped. "Jeff Chadbourne is the best pal I ever had," he retorted. "There is nothing left for me but to go out of the lives of both of you forever." She was close to him now, and he felt her warm breath on his cheek and sensed the suppleness of her body ready to cling to him. "Don't tempt me," he cried. "You are talking madness." "Love is madness!" she whispered. "Tell Jeff I envy him his happiness with all my heart," he groaned, and rushed away. He grabbed his hat in the hall and dashed down the stairs too anxious to go while his resolutions held, to wait for the elevator. "He's crazy about you all right." Katy observed, unblushingly. "Yes, and he'd drive me crazy too. If he ever said 'Good little girls don't do that,' I'd murder him." That might have been the end of it, only the wheel was not yet through spinning. Word came from the Long Island estate that old Mrs. Chadbourne had been discovered to have an attack of measles, and Jeffrey and his wife would be quarantined for at least a fortnight. "Two weeks," Georgiana cogitated. "I believe in two weeks I could make a human being out of that poor fish. It's worth trying. Katy!" "Yes'm." "We've got two weeks to make over John Garrison into material that we can live with." You would never have thought that a young widow with no more advantages than those few which had been allowed Georgiana could have made such a thorough job of it. It must have been Katy and inspiration, for the poor child herself could never, in normal moments, have thought out such a complete campaign of demoralization. But then, too, she was ven,fond of Garrison, and was determined not to let him escape her. She enlisted the aid of his friend Sam, who was entirely in sympathy with the plan. With his aid she broke up a luncheon of the Purity League in the dining room of the Blinkmore Hotel, at which a suitably inscribed loving cup was to have been presented to Mr. John Garrison, as a testimony to the esteem in which he was held by the organization. She found out wherever he was going and beat him to it. He could not escape her night or day. At last Garrison decided to put an end to it once and for all. On the understanding that they were to have a good, oldfashioned, serious talk, Georgiana lured the bedevilled young man to the Chadbourne apartment. And she had the stage all set, with herself as the jewel of the piece. Garrison leaped into his subject: "I'm going away, but before I go I want to plead with you to drop this life and be a decent, respectable mate for poor old Jeff." "I don't want to be respectable," she retorted, cHnging to him. It was too much for Jack Garrison. With a sweep he Photoplay Magazine \ In Search of a Sinner NARRATED, by permission, from the Emerson-Loos adaptation of Charlotte Thompson's story of the same name, produced by Joseph Schenck for the First National Exhibitors' Circuit, and presented with the following cast: Georgiana Chadbourne Constance Talmadge Jack Garrison Rockcliffe Fellowes Jeffrey Corliss Giles Sam . . . William Roselle Helen Marjorie Milton Katie Evelyn C. Carrington The Blonde Lillian Worth Henry ... ... .Arnold Lucy Roue Charles Whittaker / gathered Georgiana in his arms, and gave her the first lesson she ever had in what kissing could be like when there was real conviction behind it. And Georgiana knew she had won her battle. He wasn't hopelessly good. But in an instant the manhood in him asserted itself, and with a pang of conscience he flung her off. "Poor old Jeff," he groaned. "And we're brother Elks, too." Georgiana looked at him and wondered what direction he v/ould jump next. She soon found out. "Oh what's the use of being decent?" he cried, and rushed into the hall. "Where are you going?" Georgiana called as he opened the door. "To hell!" he snapped, and banged the door. "When you come back I guess you'll be human," she said to the door. On his way to his announced destination Garrison stopped long enough to send a telegram to Jeffrey Chadbourne, reading: "Goodbye. I can no longer stay in this Babylon. Do you know where your wife is and what she is doing?" When Jeffrey received this he thought Garrison must have found the place where what was unsold July I, 1919, was kept, because at that particular moment his wife was in the library of their country house playing solitaire. So he decided that as his old friend, that very good man John Garrison, was in trouble, it was up to him to take a chance, break quarantine, and help him out of whatever hole he had fallen into. So he broke all speed records and an hour before midnight jerked a hot and protesting motor to a sudden stop in front of the apartment house where Jack was staying alone, Sam Harding having been called out of town on business. Jeff found his friend flinging clothes into a trunk and suitcase in frenzied haste. "What's the idea Jack?" he asked. "Never mind me — look after your home." Jack grunted. "But what are you going to do?" "I'm going to find the worst woman in New York and take her on a trip to Europe," Jack growled. "I've lost all vestiges of honor and decency, and I'm through with that stuff for keeps. But never mind me. I tell you. Watch your own home." "You've been drinking." " 'Course I have. And I'm just getting started. But remember — my last words to you are, keep an eye on your home." The constant repetition of the refrain began to worry Jeff at last and he thought it might be well to investigate. There must be some cause for Jack's raving. So he hurried home. Everything seemed all right. Georgiana was cheerful — even radiant. "Whafs the matter with old Jack Garrison?" he asked. "He keeps telling me to keep an eye on my home." "What is he doing?" "Packing. Says he's going to find the wildest woman in New York and take her to Europe." "Oh! He mustn't get that bad!" Georgiana cried, and throwing a cloak about her dragged Jeff back to Jack's apartment. The wheel of fate is spinning a bit less rapidly. Its whistling is softening down to a purr. "I guess when you really love a man you want him to be kind of good, after all," said Georgiana, when Jack had been persuaded to unpack, and had listened to the explanation of why he had been subjected to temptations that would have made St. Anthony hesitate.