Picturegoer (1922)

Salvage h JQMM FLEMIMC •""\yrus Ridgeway, being quick in / * all things, had no need to I pause long at the matrimonial dish and pick around. From I his financial pursuits he stayed % long enough to select the one \^ who would grace his name and ^^ fortune, propose the marriage, buy the ring, and name the day. It took Mm less than a fortnight ; then the wheels revolved as ever. Bernice, mistaking width of girder for strength of will, became Mrs. Cyrus Ridgeway. And everybody seemed satisfied. Hut a year with the grandest machine tends to dull the musical charm of its creaking. Twelve months after her marriage, if Bernice admired her husband at all, it was rather in the spirit of the stranger to New York who admires the Flatiron Building. His might she could not doubt ; his strength was apparent even to those who had never met him, but had only felt the tremors of him from afar ; but might and strength — in the material sense — are things that can be admired at a distance. Bernice began to wonder what was the advantage — or the sense — in joining the Flatiron Building in matrimony. Her taste in domestic architecture had been at fault, and she was beginning to appreciate it. " We might be happier," she suggested, " if we had a child." " Certainly we need a child," he agreed, not taking his eyes from the morning mail. It was the third minute of breakfast, and he had not yet looked at her. " You would like a child ? " she asked. " What's to become of the house of Ridgeway if we don't have one ? " he asked coldly. It was then she told him that soon the name of Ridgeway was to be perpetuated.. " Ah ! " he said. " Good ! " " You are pleased ? " " There will now be somebody to carry on the work that 1 leave behind," he said. " If it's a boy ! " It will be a boy ! " he snapped, in the manner of a man who can order the universe. And it was. A boy. A boy, but . . . The nurse, well-paid in Ridgeway gold, explained to Bernice. He was born terribly deformed, Mrs. Ridgeway — terribly deformed. He died." Dead ! Her baby dead ! The baby that was to have bridged the gulf in their home, that was to have shown Bernice that her husband was more \ * than a splendid piece of architecture and that was to have taught Ridgeway himself that life holds more than shares in oil — dead ! She turned to her husband for sympathy in her hour of trouble. Yes," said he ; " dead. But . . . as well, though, perhaps. A deformed CHARACTERS : Bernice Ridgeway ) Pauline Kate Martin j Fredfiuck Cyrus Ridgeway Fred Martin Ruth Martin The Maid The Cripple Ralph Lewis Milton Sills Helen Stonk Rose Cade Raymond Hatton S'arralcd by permission from the Jury film of the sum, title. man, a terribly deformed man, carrying on the Ridgeway name— my name. As well, perhaps." " Cyrus ! " she cried. " There, there ! Be calm," he commanded. " We must think of these things . . ." The day came when Bernice was convalescent and was ready, as her husband said, to t.ike a holiday. And Bernice was resolved to take the holiday the longest holiday that life could hold. To Ridgeway she said nothing, but, dressing herself only in the poorest dress that her wardrobe held, leaving her costly dresses and jewels behind, she went out of the dignified mansion of the Ridgeways for ever. She stood a moment at the gate, looking back. " Dead ' " she murmured, her pale hand clutching her throat. " Dead ! Hope, love, my child and my future all dead ! " Ridgeway had found his wife, as he explained afterwards, in the gutter, and he supposed that it was to the gutter she returned when she cut herself adrift from all that he had to oiler her. In truth, although she had not been of so exalted a station as her husband, Bernice was of royal blood in her earlier days by comparison with what she now sank to. To hide foi ever from the scenes and the memories of her husband and her marriage was now her only aim to fly to some place where lie should never be able to find her. To the gutu-r, then, she went — but from choice as well as necessity. She took up her residi in Tracey's Rents for another reason than that she must earn her living .it the factory near by. Here she was lost lost to the pasl And here, at long last, in some mild measure, Fate was kind to her. One daw at her window, she beheld across the street a w • whom she felt at once an absoibin^ interest. It was not mereh '