Screenland (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

86 oCREENLAND SCREEN STARS ♦HITCH y OUft BEAUTy TQ A STAR * "But of course. I'll leave at once. On the first plane I can get." Orloff smiled grimly as Anatole turned away from the telephone. The thought of Nicole's returning was the first ray of hope he had felt since Ranier's arrest that morning. Now that she was coming he could fight the whole world if necessary. After all when a man was in trouble he did best to ' turn to a woman rather than another man. Then she was there, and Orloff played the game of make-believe he had planned, so that it was she who drew the story from him bit by bit as if he were reluctant to have her know of his difficulties, as if even now it were he who was the stronger one. Nicole's hands tensed as he blamed his friends for the disaster, and she believed him when he said he was innocent. Then when he had finished she turned to him. "Will you marry me, Stefan?" she asked. For a moment she remembered Tony and his arms around her. Remembered his voice, "darling, darling, darling." But she must put his arms and his voice away from her, put Tony away and Switzerland and the ridiculous ride on the farmer's cart and laughter and all lost lovely things away from her. "We will have a wedding such as Paris has never seen I" She tried to talk gayly. "We will invite the most important people in the city, all the top government officials. Don't you see, it will publicize them as your most intimate friends ! When your crisis comes they will be in the same embarrassing boat. In saving their own reputations they will have to save yours." "Nicky, you're a genius." All his waning confidence was coming back to Orloff. Oh. he had been clever, cleverer than he thought when he picked this girl to be his unwitting partner. It was on the day of her own wedding that Nicole met Helen. Even before she mentioned her name Nicole knew who she was, this girl who stared at her as if she hated her. "I understand you and my Tony were great friends in Switzerland." The girl was wasting no words. "A friend of his told me all about you. Did you know the dear boy is arriving today? I left word for him to meet me here." Then Tony was coming toward her and Nicole steeled herself to meet his eyes, to meet Helen's words as the girl chattered about her trousseau, tying Tony to her side with every soft word and gesture. "Your taste is so exquisite." She was smiling as she spoke but Nicole sensed the malice under the soft words. "Thank you." Nicole was avoiding Tony's eyes now. "Perhaps," she took a quick breath before she could go on, "perhaps it's because I understand so well. You see, I'm going to be married myself tonight." Somehow she was able to get out of the salon, to withstand Tony's voice and his eyes sickening with pain, to lift her chin and face him calmly as she answered his questions. "No, I didn't say it because I was angry. Tony." She saw the color leave his face but she had to go on, calmly, quickly as if she were not tearing her own heart too. "You see, I told Stefan I would marry him the night I came home." "Why are you doing it?" he demanded. "Why?" "Maybe it's because he's wealthy and famous." She saw him wince but still she went on. "Maybe it's because I want to put an end to gossip. But I'd rather you paid me the compliment of believing it's because I love him." "Then what was it happened to us?" His hands reached out and turned her squarely around so that he forced her to look at him. "A friendship." Nicole's laugh was shaken. "Or if you prefer, a flirtation." There was a long pause, then Tony's voice came again bitter in its hurt. "I apologize for having been mistaken. But you see it wasn't that way with me at all." He was gone then, the door closing behind him, closing him out of her sight, out of her life. And the sound of it was still in her ears as she stood beside Orloff in his drawing-room and heard the words that made her his wife. A foolish gesture, this marriage, a quixotic gesture doomed to failure, for the ceremony was scarcely over when gendarmes forced their way into the house with an order for Orloff's arrest. It was only when she saw him making desperate efforts to escape that she knew how mistaken she had been. For every word he said showed his fear and guilt. All the things she had admired in him were gone now. Only disillusionment remained. But there was still her loyalty to make her stand by this man who had been her friend. This man who was her husband. So when he sent for her to come to his hiding place she felt she had no other choice than to go. Only when Tony came as she was leaving did she falter. "If you are going to tell me not to go, I wish you wouldn't." Even changed as she was there was that undefeated spirit in her voice that won the man's quickening admiration. But his voice was bitter as he spoke. "And if you are going to remind me that you are his wife and that your life is his and that you love him enough to follow him into God knows what, please don't. Because I won't enjoy listening." For a long time they faced each other, his eyes defiant now, hers trying to hold back the tears that had been so close in all the torturing days without him. Then she said simply, "No, I don't love him." She shut her travelling case and took it in her hand and there was something in her manner that kept him from taking it from her and carrying it down to the waiting taxi. "I couldn't leave with you believing that." She was gone then, and it was as if everything worthwhile and real was gone with her. Tony, Tony. Tony! The words throbbed in her brain like tiny hammers. Strange, she had left him behind in the big empty house on the Champs Elysee, and yet here he was with her, in her heart and her A screen trouper boards a troopship! Anna Lee, British beauty, is off to do a film of "Soldiers Three."