Picture Show (May-Oct 1919)

Th<: rictun Shoii; 'Au{/tn:t 25, J, 1919. Don't Miss this Thrilling Serial, being the Adventures in the Life of a Cinema Star. READ THIS FIRST. MISS JANICE CLAKE. sister of JIarigoUl, tlio well-known lilm artiste, takes the place of )icr sister in a new film which Daore Lawtoii is producing. It deals with circns life, and Mangold, who has won lame easily, refuses to endanger her life by acting with wild animals. Janice has just foiiipleted a few scenes successfully when one of the lions attacks her and seriously injures lier. The accident complicates matters, for the identity of Janice has been hidden l)y order of her sclfisli sister, and noliody in tlie studio suspeeta that anyone but Jlarigold has made the scenes. Janice is lying ill in the cottage of Rov Sugden, the young producer, who is in love with Marigold. And, owing to tlie remarkable likeness of the two girls. Hoy also believes that tlie victim of the accident is Mangold. When Janice is on the road to recovery, and just before she returns to her home at Brighton, she breaks the engagement with Roy, and tells him that she will tcleplione him in the evening. On reaching Brighton. Janice is surprised to tind that a change host overcome her sister and tliat slie is pleased to see her Janice tells Marigold to telephone Roy, and Marigold replies, " Very well, dear, I want to .see liiin and set everything right between us." you CAN NOW READ ON. The Lover Arrives. IT somehow bothered me to have him call me "Marigold,' " Janice said, when her sister came back from the telephone. " I hope you don t mind. I asked him to call me ' Jane ' — mother's name for me." There was a brief silence. The sisters were in Janice's room, to which the latter had been carried and made to rest. The son was setting, ond it was shadowy in the httte white room. Janice was glad that they could not see each other's face very plainly. " You mean that he'll probably call me ■ Jane ' ? " Marigold asked. " Plain Jane, no doubt," her sister replied. Again there was a little silence, then Marigold said : " Well, I'll remember that. And— about the broken engagement " " Oh, it wasn't final. You can tell him now that you know your own heart." " What an idea ! " said Marigold. " To you suppose anv giri ever does ? " '• Yes, of course I do," her sister replied, in startled amazement. Janice changed the subject. " So lie — he's coming clown ? " ■' Rather ! My word. Jan, but you've been a marvellous understudy in more ways than one. You should have heard Roy. Somehow I felt ratlier guilty. I was being very matey and all that — but he just fastened on to the fact that I wanted to see him ' again so soon,' as it were. He's on his way now — hired the old bone-shaker at the inn— and ought to be here within the hour." Janice shivered and drew her shawl about her shoulders. Coming here, but she would not see him, nor even hear his voice. Her little white room overlooked the garden, but she did not mean to s«ay in it while Roy and Marigold had their great reconciliation. Yet lie woidd be here, and the thought of his mere presence near her lilled her with dreadful rapture. Thank Heaven Jlarigold hadn't the ghost of a su.spicion, and she was light-hearted and cheerful in a way that Janice had never known her to be before. It was queer what Dacre Lawton had said about her, that she was learning to know life. Was that what ma<le her gentler and less selfish ? And how could Marigold learn lessons about life cooped up in this pokey little hole with a querulous .semi-invalid ? Marigold, who had the world at her feet, and who had been everywhere and met everybody. It seemed incredible to simple-minded Janice. Lawton had taken him.sclf off soon after tea, and Janice, from the big chair by the window in her bedroom, had seen Marigold walk down to the gate with liim, clinging affectionately to his arm. She really looked like a child, thought Janice — who, herself, suddenly felt quite aged — Janice Clare. a school girl ribbon in the pink ginghaii dress that was now a little out of date in fashion as it was faded of hue, and with her silken hair bunched together with bow. She waved good-bye to Lawton, and then mischievously blew him a kiss. After that she leaned on the gate, chin resting thoughtfully on folded arms. Janice, who had always been passionately devoted to her sister, experienced a little pang in contemplating Marigold's beauty, forgetting that, so far as it was concerned, she and Marigold were doubles. Nothing could make her believe that she was as beautiful as Marigold. For a long time Marigold stood there, while the twilight faded a little and a misty haze rose over the sea. Then came the hoot of a motor-horn, and the so\md of an engine working noisily, if otherwise harmoniously, and Roy Sugden had arrived. It had been Janice's intention to retire to the back of the house the instant he appeared, but desire was too strong for her. She would go presently — yes, she promised herself that — as she crouched white-faced in the shadows. " Hello ! ' Marigold called out to him as he jumped briskly out of the car. " You didn't let any grass grow under your feet getting here, did you ? " He paused, and the watcher at the window saw how puzzled he looked. " Well ? " Marigold asked hghtly. He came inside the garden and paused again. Janice's heart thumped madly. For three weeks Roy and she had been in close association daily, living under the same roof and taking most of their meals together. It would he strange, in spite of the great likeness between the sisters, if now he did not suspect something. " What have you been doing with yourself ? " he asked. And his voice was puzzled, too. " How do you mean ? " Marigold incjuired quickly. " You're changed — absolutely different," he stated. " W"hat an idea ! " " I can't make you out," he went on stubbornly. " And your voice over the telephone sounded different, too." Marigold laughed merrily, a»d motioned him towards one of the basket chairs. " So you got down all right — with Lawton's kind assistance," be added, with the ghost of a sneei\ < ■ jMarigold plucked at the folds of her pink gown. " Don't you like Dacre ? " she asked. " Oh, so he's ' Dacre,' is he ? I never heard you call him that before." " Why shouldn't 11" " No reason that I can think of any more than why you shouldn't prefer his company to mine to take you home, and then send for me afterwards like you'd whistle for a dog." Janice covild scarcely believe her ears. Roy had never spoken to her as rudely as this, and, knowing Marigold, she expected to hear her fly into a temper. But Marigold did nothing of the sort ; she merely sat there looking rather pensive, and making the skirt of her gown into tiny pleats. All the time Roy was regarding her very critically. By ELIZABETH YORK MILLER. " I should think — if I didn't know such a thing to be impossible — that you'd added quite half a stone to your weight during the clrivc down here this afternoon, as well as an extraordinary coat of tan. And in other ways you scarcely seem like the same girl to me." He spoke in a mystified but detached manner, as though striving to elucidate some interesting problem that was, however, far beyond him. '■ Why did you ask me to come down 'I " he asked abruptly, changing the subject. " To — to talk about us — our future and all that," Marigold replied. But yovi wouldn't discuss it at Lavender Cottage ! " "I couldn't very well," Marigold replied, more truthfully than he was aware. " You mean, because you were my guest ? " " Something like that. Roy, do you still want me to marry you ? " At that point Janice withdrew from the window, and it was a pity that she did so. R Rcy is Puzzled. OY got up and paced to and fro restlessly. " I can't thinl< why you play fast and loose with me," he said, with some display of irritation. " I don't understand you at all, Marigold." " 1 thought I was to be ' .Jane,' " Marigold said, remembering what .Janice had told her. " You don't seem like little Jane to me a bit now," he replied in that odd, critical way he had suddenly developed. " Really, I believe I'm jealous of ' Jane,' " Marigold said laughingly. " Is she nicer than Marigold ? " '■ Much — but she wasn't very kind, either."' " My dear Roy, I'm trying hard to be kind ! " " Please don't. I'd rather you didn't make the effort. I feel that you are acting. Listen, Marigold ; it's very curious, but when you, little ' plain Jane,' broke our engagement and behaved in such a fashion that I thought my heart was broken, too, I didn't believe you, really. I felt that you were acting then, for some unknown reason, and that underneath your simulated indifference you cared for me. There was a trick you had of watching me out of the comers of your eyes, and of flushing up when I came into the room. It was as though some unseen power had forbidden you to express a great lovo which I was egotistical enough to think you had for me." " This all sounds very strange," Marigold commented. " I dare say it does. And now I feel that you're playing another part with everything reversed. You ask me if I still want to marry you— and I'm sure you don't care about me at all." She said nothing, hut sat staring at -him while the twilight faded, remembering what she had said to Janice about not knowing one's own heart. " Is it Dacre Lawton ? " Roy asked ^quietly. " Why, whatever put such an idea into your head ? " You knew that I was jealous of him at Lavender Cottage." " Were you ? I mean — good heavens, but that's an odd notion ! " "Possibly. I'm in your , hands. Marigold, entirely ; but, of course, you can't keep me dangling forever."' " Y6u mean about our engagement ? " "Yes." " Well, then, Roy, shall we wait just a little longer ? As you say, I can t keep you dangling forever. But somehow I don't tliink you care as much as I imagined you did." " And I'm sure that you don't," Roy added quickly. They shook hands at parting, and Roy left with the strangest sensation he had ever experienced in his life. It seemed to him that the (Continued on Booe 8.)