Picture-Play Weekly (Apr-Oct 1915)

6 PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY was certain to be so much talk, for the fact that her innocence of the outside world, due to the life she had led up to her sixteenth jiear, was as boundless as though she had come from another planet, as well as for the rare attractiveness of her face and form. Not the least pleased of the Vandeveer establishment over Meta's entrance of it was Mrs. Vandeveer's only son and petted pride, George. He was a dissipated young man, with an ambition' to be known as a "rake" and a man about town. He fell head over heels in love with Meta — and shortly begged her to have pity on his plight. It was the attraction which anything novel and pretty has for a child — which was all Meta, the daughter of the forest, amounted to in her unsophistication — that led her to mistake the pleasure she took in having him near her, the only man outside of her father, the newspaper reporter, and two or three of the crude villagers, whom she had ever seen in her life, and by long odds the handsomest and most polished of these, for love — and she consented .to become engaged to George. At the end of a month or two, Mrs. Vandeveer was planning an elaborate lawn fete at which her dainty charge was to be introduced, for the first time, as a surprise to her many friends. "I want you to invite Norman, mother," George announced, in the highhanded way in which he had always spoken to her ever since the days of his spoiled childhood. "I want him to see Meta and hear what he thinks of her !" He referred to his closest friend. Norman McPherson, whose books were beginning to win him recognition from the world as a poet of no mean ability. Accordingly, Norman came to the garden party. When he was presented to Meta, the moment their eyes met they were held as though neither could draw them apart. The poet's lips were parted with eagerness, as his gaze drank in the loveliness of her face. Meta, her cheeks pink, at last lowered her eyes and turned away to hide the fluttering of the leaves over her heart, where for the first time she had heard the singing of the worldold song. She was in her woodland garb, as jMrs. Vandeveer had arranged that she was to treat the guests to an exhibition of dancing in the role of a wood nymph. As she performed before the interested circle of onlookers, Norman's eyes still fixedly followed her every movement. He thought he had never seen such grace, such poetry of motion, in all his life before! He was beyond being merely in love by this time with the girl whom he had seen for the first time only a half hour before. He worshiped the very blades of grass over which her toes skimmed so lightly. Norman was the first to reach her side when her dance was done. "What do you think of her, old fellow ?'' Witli the hail. George, who had come up behind them, clapped his friend's shoulder in high spirits. Norman spoke gravely, almost as one mentioning a holy thing. "I think she is the most beautiful, the purest thing in the world !'' George drew Meta's arm through his with a self-satisfied air. "Glad you like her," he nodded shortly. "We're engaged." All the color was drained from Norman's cheeks. He winced, as from an actual blow. Then, squaring his shoulders manfully to accept the burden of bitter disappointment that was placed upon them, he held out his hand to his friend. "I heartily congratulate you !" he said. The tbree walked away down one of the paths of the garden. Norman received permission from Meta to smoke, but then he discovered that he had left his pipe back at the house. He excused himself to return and get it. George and Meta walked on together. Suddenly, through the rosebushes that bordered the pathway ahead of them, the figure of a man whose eyes glared with the unnatural light of madness sprang into view. He crouched menacingly before George and the girl who had come to a surprised halt. ''At last I have tracked you down 1" the man hissed at them. "You are at my mercy now — and I mean to kill you in my bare hands !" The man was a dangerous maniac, who must have contrived to escape from the near-by asylum. In pitiable cowardice, George had sprung back behind Meta, leaving her to face the madman alone and unprotected as he crept nearer, with arms outstretched, in readiness to spring upon her. But he never did so. At that moment, Norman, returning along the path, and taking in the scene at a glance, launched himself through the air past the girl and her craven escort upon the maniac's back, and thus rescued her from her peril. Norman, in the months that followed, tried his best to forget her. But it was beyond his power. Her sweet face, and the charm of her, had become so indelibly graven upon his memory that she filled all his thoughts by day and his dreams at night. He could not win her. The battle had been already lost to him, before he could even enter it. But at least he could let her know of his love ! This he set about doing in a book. He put his soul into the work, which at last was finished and given to a typist to prepare for the publishers. George, having some documents which he wished typed before he sent them out from the architect's office, where he played at working, saw the manuscript lying on the desk of the girl who had stepped out for a moment. As he read the pages to which his eyes had first been drawn by the sight of Norman McPherson's name at the top of them, George's weakly, handsome face grew grim. If Meta ever read this book she would know all ! George had explained Norman's failure to present himself at the Vandeveers' home again, which Meta did not understand, by telling her that the poet had informed him after his introduction to the girl that' he thought her dress and dancing at the lawn fete immodest — in short, that he did not approve of her. When the typist returned to the room, George showed her a sum of money. "Destroy this," he told her, laying his hand on the manuscript of the novel, "and I will give you this." The girl, tempted, it seemed, by the glitter of the bribe, at last consented to carry out his wishes. But she did not do so exactly to the letter. She typed the story through to the end, and then sent the copy to Norman. The original manuscript she placed in her trunk. George disco\ ered her treachery when he met Norman on the street a few days later. Norman had the typed manuscript in