IT WAS Sunday not a day, but
rather a gap between two other
days. Behind, for all of them,
lay sets and sequences, the long waits
under the crane that swung the
microphone, the hundred miles a day
by automobiles to and fro across
a county, the struggles of rival in-
genuities in the conference
rooms, the ceaseless compromise, the
clash and strain of many
personalities fighting for their lives. And
now Sunday, with individual life
starting up again, with a glow
kindling in eyes that had been
glazed with monotony the afternoon
before. Slowly as the hours waned
they came awake like "Puppen-
feen" in a toy shop: an
intense colloquy in a corner, lovers disap-
pearing to neck in a hall. And
the feeling of "Hurry, it's not too late,
but for God's sake hurry before
the blessed forty hours of leisure
are over."
Joel Coles was writing
continuity. He was twenty-eight and not
yet broken by Hollywood. He had
had what were considered nice
assignments since his arrival six
months before and he submitted
his scenes and sequences with
enthusiasm. He referred to himself
modestly as a hack but really did
not think of it that way. His
mother had been a successful
actress ; Joel had spent his childhood
between London and New York
trying to separate the real from the
unreal, or at least to keep one
guess ahead. He was a handsome man
with the pleasant cow-brown eyes
that in 1913 had gazed out at
Broadway audiences from his
mother's face.
When the invitation came it made
him sure that he was getting
somewhere. Ordinarily he did not
go out on Sundays but stayed
sober and took work home with
him. Recently they had given him a
Eugene O'Neill play destined for
a very important lady indeed.
Everything he had done so far had
pleased Miles Caiman, and Miles
Caiman was the only director on
the lot who did not work under a
supervisor and was responsible to
the money men alone. Everything
was clicking into place in Joel's
career. ("This is Mr. Caiman's
secretary. Will you come to tea
from four to six Sunday he lives in
Beverly Hills, number .")
403
Joel was flattered. It would be a
party out of the top-drawer. It
was a tribute to himself as a
young man of promise. The Marion
Davies crowd, the high-hats, the
big currency numbers, perhaps
even Dietrich and Garbo and the
Marquise, people who were not
seen everywhere, would probably
be at Caiman's.
"I won't take anything to
drink," he assured himself. Caiman was
audibly tired of rummies, and
thought it was a pity the industry
could not get along without them.
Joel agreed that writers drank
too much he did himself, but he
wouldn't this afternoon. He
wished Miles would be within hearing
when the cocktails were passed to
hear his succinct, unobtrusive,
"No, thank you."
Miles Caiman's house was built
for great emotional moments
there was an air of listening, as
if the far silences of its vistas hid
an audience, but this afternoon
it was thronged, as though people
had been bidden rather than
asked. Joel noted with pride that only
two other writers from the studio
were in the crowd, an ennobled
limey and, somewhat to his
surprise, Nat Keogh, who had evoked
Caiman's impatient comment on
drunks.
Stella Caiman (Stella Walker, of
course) did not move on to her
other guests after she spoke to
Joel. She lingered she looked at
him with the sort of beautiful
look that demands some sort of ac-
knowledgment and Joel drew
quickly on the dramatic adequacy in-
herited from his mother :
"Well, you look about
sixteen! Where's your kiddy car?"
She was visibly pleased ; she
lingered. He felt that he should say
something more, something
confident and easy he had first met her
when she was struggling for bits
in New York. At the moment a
tray slid up and Stella put a
cocktail glass into his hand.
"Everybody's afraid, aren't
they?" he said, looking at it absently.
"Everybody watches for
everybody else's blunders, or tries to make
sure they're with people that'll
do them credit. Of course that's not
true in your house," he
covered himself hastily. "I just meant gen-
erally in Hollywood."
Stella agreed. She presented
several people to Joel as if he were
very important. Reassuring
himself that Miles was at the other side
of the room, Joel drank the
cocktail.
"So you have a baby?"
he said. "That's the time to look out.
After a pretty woman has had her
first child, she's very vulnerable,
because she wants to be reassured
about her own charm. She's got
to have some new man's
unqualified devotion to prove to herself
she hasn't lost anything."
"I never get anybody's
unqualified devotion," Stella said rather
resentfully.
"They're afraid of your
husband."
"You think that's it?"
She wrinkled her brow over the idea; then
the conversation was interrupted
at the exact moment Joel would
have chosen.
Her attentions had given him
confidence. Not for him to join safe
groups, to slink to refuge under
the wings of such acquaintances as
he saw about the room. He walked
to the window and looked out
toward the Pacific, colorless
under its sluggish sunset. It was good
here the American Riviera and all
that, if there were ever time to
enjoy it. The handsome,
well-dressed people in the room, the lovely
girls, and the well, the lovely
girls. You couldn't have every-
thing.
He saw Stella's fresh boyish
face, with the tired eyelid that always
drooped a little over one eye,
moving about among her guests and
he wanted to sit with her and talk
a long time as if she were a girl
instead of a name ; he followed
her to see if she paid anyone as much
attention as she had paid him. He
took another cocktail not be-
cause he needed confidence but
because she had given him so much
of it. Then he sat down beside
the director's mother.
"Your son's gotten to be a
legend, Mrs. Caiman Oracle and a
Man of Destiny and all that.
Personally, I'm against him but I'm in
a minority. What do you think of
him? Are you impressed? Are
you surprised how far he's
gone?"
"No, I'm not
surprised," she said calmly. "We always expected a
lot from Miles."
"Well now, that's
unusual," remarked Joel. "I always think all
mothers are like Napoleon's
mother. My mother didn't want me to
have anything to do with the entertainment
business. She wanted
me to go to West Point and be
safe."
"We always had every
confidence in Miles." . . .
He stood by the built-in bar of
the dining room with the good-
humored, heavy-drinking, highly
paid Nat Keogh.
" I made a hundred grand
during the year and lost forty grand
gambling, so now I've hired a
manager."
"You mean an agent,"
suggested Joel.
"No, I've got that too. I
mean a manager. I make over everything
to my wife and then he and my
wife get together and hand me out
the money. I pay him five
thousand a year to hand me out my
money."
"You mean your agent."
"No, I mean my manager, and
I'm not the only one a lot of
other irresponsible people have him."
"Well, if you're
irresponsible why are you responsible enough to
hire a manager?"
"I'm just irresponsible
about gambling. Look here "
A singer performed ; Joel and Nat
went forward with the others to
listen.
II
The singing reached Joel vaguely;
he felt happy and friendly
toward all the people gathered
there, people of bravery and industry,
superior to a bourgeoisie that
outdid them in ignorance and loose
living, risen to a position of
the highest prominence in a nation that
for a decade had wanted only to
be entertained. He liked them he
loved them. Great waves of good
feeling flowed through him.
As the singer finished his number
and there was a drift toward
the hostess to say good-by, Joel
had an idea. He would give them
" Building It Up," his
own composition. It was his only parlor trick,
it had amused several parties and
it might please Stella Walker. Pos-
sessed by the hunch, his blood
throbbing with the scarlet corpuscles
of exhibitionism, he sought her.
"Of course," she cried.
"Please! Do you need anything?"
"Someone has to be the
secretary that I'm supposed to be dictating
to."
"I'll be her."
As the word spread, the guests in
the hall, already putting on their
coats to leave, drifted back and
Joel faced the eyes of many
strangers. He had a dim
foreboding, realizing that the man who had
just performed was a famous radio
entertainer. Then someone said
"Sh I " and he was
alone with Stella, the center of a sinister Indian-
like half-circle. Stella smiled
up at him expectantly he began.
His burlesque was based upon the
cultural limitations of Mr. Dave
Silverstein, an independent
producer ; Silverstein was presumed to be
dictating a letter outlining a
treatment of a story he had bought.
" a story of divorce, the
younger generators and the Foreign
Legion," he heard his voice
saying, with the intonations of Mr. Silver-
stein. "But we got to build
it up, see?"
A sharp pang of doubt struck
through him. The faces surrounding
him in the gently molded light
were intent and curious, but there
was no ghost of a smile anywhere
; directly in front the Great Lover
of the screen glared at him with
an eye as keen as the eye of a
potato. Only Stella Walker looked
up at him with a radiant, never
faltering smile.
"If we make him a Menjou
type, then we get a sort of Michael
Arlen only with a Honolulu
atmosphere."
Still not a ripple in front, but
in the rear a rustling, a perceptible
shift toward the left, toward the
front door.
" then she says she feels
this sex appil for him and he burns out
and says 'Oh, go on destroy
yourself ' "
At some point he heard Nat Keogh
snicker and here and there were
a few encouraging faces, but as
he finished he had the sickening real-
ization that he had made a fool
of himself in view of an important
section of the picture world,
upon whose favor depended his career.
For a moment he existed in the
midst of a confused silence, broken
by a general trek for the door.
He felt the undercqrrent of derision
that rolled through the gossip ;
then all this was in the space of ten
seconds the Great Lover, his eye
hard and empty as the eye of a
needle, shouted "Boo ! Boo !
" voicing in an overtone what he felt was
the mood of the crowd. It was the
resentment of the professional
toward the amateur, of the
community toward the stranger, the
thumbs-down of the clan.
Only Stella Walker was still
standing near and thanking him as
if he had been an unparalleled
success, as if it hadn't occurred to
her that anyone hadn't liked it.
As Nat Keogh helped him into his
overcoat, a great wave of
self-disgust swept over him and he clung
desperately to his rule of never
betraying an inferior emotion until
he no longer felt it.
"I was a flop," he said
lightly, to Stella. "Never mind, it's a good
number when appreciated. Thanks
for your cooperation.''
The smile did not leave her face
he bowed rather drunkenly and
Nat drew him toward the door. . .
.
The arrival of his breakfast
awakened him into a broken and
ruined world. Yesterday he was
himself, a point of fire against an
industry, today he felt that he
was pitted under an enormous dis-
advantage, against those faces,
against individual contempt and col-
lective sneer. Worse than that,
to Miles Caiman he was become one
of those rummies, stripped of
dignity, whom Caiman regretted he
was compelled to use. To Stella
Walker on whom he had forced a
martyrdom to preserve the
courtesy of her house her opinion he
did not dare to guess. His
gastric juices ceased to flow and he set his
poached eggs back on the
telephone table. He wrote :
"DEAR MILES: You can imagine
my profound self-disgust. I con-
fess to a taint of exhibitionism,
but at six o'clock in the afternoon,
in broad daylight ! Good God I My
apologies to your wife.
"Yours ever,
"JOEL COLES."
Joel emerged from his office on
the lot only to slink like a male-
factor to the tobacco store. So
suspicious was his manner that one
of the studio police asked to see
his admission card. He had decided
to eat lunch outside when Nat
Keogh, confident and cheerful, over*
took him.
"What do you mean you're in
permanent retirement? What if
that Three-Piece Suit did boo
you?
"Why, listen," he
continued, drawing Joel into the studio restau-
rant. "The night of one of
his premieres at Grauman's, Joe Squires
kicked his tail while he was
bowing to the crowd. The ham said
Joe'd hear from him later but
when Joe called him up at eight o'clock
next day and said, 'I thought I
was going to hear from you/ he hung
up the phone."
The preposterous story cheered
Joel, and he found a gloomy con-
solation in staring at the group
at the next table, the sad, lovely
Siamese twins, the mean dwarfs,
the proud giant from the circus pic-
ture. But looking beyond at the
yellow-stained faces of pretty
women, their eyes all melancholy
and startling with mascara, their
ball gowns garish in full day, he
saw a group who had been at Cai-
man's and winced.
"Never again," he
exclaimed aloud, "absolutely my last social
appearance in Hollywood 1 "
The following morning a telegram
was waiting for him at his
office:
"You were one of the most
agreeable people at our party. Expect
you at my sister June's buffet
supper next Sunday. v
"STELLA WALKER CALMAN."
The blood rushed fast through his
veins for a feverish minute.
Incredulously he read the
telegram over.
"Well, that's the sweetest
thing I ever heard of in my life ! "
III
Crazy Sunday again. Joel slept
until eleven, then he read a news-
paper to catch up with the past
week. He lunched in his room on
trout, avocado salad and a pint
of California wine. Dressing for the
tea, he selected a pin-check
suit, a blue shirt, a burnt orange tie.
There were dark circles of
fatigue under his eyes. In his second-hand
car he drove to the Riviera
apartments. As he was introducing him-
self to Stella's sister, Miles
and Stella arrived in riding clothes
they had been quarreling fiercely
most of the afternoon on all the
dirt roads back of Beverly Hills.
Miles Caiman, tall, nervous, with
a desperate humor and the un-
happiest eyes Joel ever saw, was
an artist from the top of his curi-
ously shaped head to his
niggerish feet. Upon these last he stood
firmly he had never made a cheap
picture though he had sometimes
paid heavily for the luxury of
making experimental flops. In spite
of his excellent company, one
could not be with him long without
realizing that he was not a well
man.
From the moment of their entrance
Joel's day bound itself up in-
extricably with theirs. As he
joined the group around them Stella
turned away from it with an
impatient little tongue click and
Miles Caiman said to the man who
happened to be next to him :
"Go easy on Eva Goebel.
There's hell to pay about her at home."
Miles turned to Joel, "I'm
sorry I missed you at the office yesterday.
I spent the afternoon at the
analyst's."
"You being psychoanalyzed?"
"I have been for months.
First I went for claustrophobia, now
I'm trying to get my whole life
cleared up. They say it'll take over
a year."
"There's nothing the matter
with your life," Joel assured him.
"Oh, no? Well, Stella seems
to think so. Ask anybody they can
all tell you about it," he
said bitterly.
A girl perched herself on the arm
of Miles' chair ; Joel crossed to
Stella, who stood disconsolately
by the fire.
"Thank you for your
telegram," he said. "It was darn sweet. I
can't imagine anybody as
good-looking as you are being so good-
humored."
She was a little lovelier than he
had ever seen her and perhaps the
unstinted admiration in his eyes
prompted her to unload on him it
did not take long, for she was
obviously at the emotional bursting*
point.
" and Miles has been
carrying on this thing for two years, and
I never knew. Why, she was one of
my best friends, always in the
house. Finally when people began
to come to me, Miles had to admit
it."
She sat down vehemently on the
arm of Joel's chair. Her riding
breeches were the color of the
chair and Joel saw that the mass of
her hair was made up of some
strands of red gold and some of pale
gold, so that it could not be
dyed, and that she had on no make-up.
She was that good-looking
Still quivering with the shock of
her discovery, Stella found un-
bearable the spectacle of a new
girl hovering over Miles; she led
Joel into a bedroom, and seated
at either end of a big bed they went
on talking. People on their way
to the washroom glanced in and
made wisecracks, but Stella,
emptying out her story, paid no atten-
tion. After a while Miles stuck
his head in the door and said, "There's
no use trying to explain
something to Joel in half an hour that I
don't understand myself and the
psychoanalyst says will take a
whole year to understand."
She talked on as if Miles were
not there. She loved Miles, she
said under considerable
difficulties she had always been faithful
to him.
"The psychoanalyst told
Miles that he had a mother complex. In
his first marriage he transferred
his mother complex to his wife, you
see and then his sex turned to
me. But when we married the thing
repeated itself he transferred
his mother complex to me and all his
libido turned toward this other
woman."
Joel knew that this probably
wasn't gibberish yet it sounded like
gibberish. He knew Eva Goebel ;
she was a motherly person, older
and probably wiser than Stella,
who was a golden child.
Miles now suggested impatiently
that Joel come back with them
since Stella had so much to say,
so they drove out to the mansion in
Beverly Hills. Under the high
ceilings the situation seemed more
dignified and tragic. It was an
eerie bright night with the dark very
clear outside of all the windows
and Stella all rose-gold raging and
crying around the room. Joel did
not quite believe in picture
actresses' grief. They have other
preoccupations they are beautiful
rose-gold figures blown full of
life by writers and directors, and after
hours they sit around and talk in
whispers and giggle innuendoes,
and the ends of many adventures
flow through them.
Sometimes he pretended to listen
and instead thought how well
she was got up sleek breeches
with a matched set of legs in them,
an Italian-colored sweater with a
little high neck, and a short brown
chamois coat. He couldn't decide
whether she was an imitation of an
English lady or an English lady
was an imitation of her. She hovered
somewhere between the realest of
realities and the most blatant of
impersonations.
"Miles is so jealous of me
that he questions everything I do," she
cried scornfully. "When I
was in New York I wrote him that I'd
been to the theater with Eddie
Baker. Miles was so jealous he
phoned me ten times in one
day."
"I was wild," Miles
snuffled sharply, a habit he had in times of
stress. "The analyst
couldn't get any results for a week."
Stella shook her head
despairingly. "Did you expect me just to sit
in the hotel for three weeks
?"
"I don't expect anything. I
admit that I'm jealous. I try not to be.
I worked on that with Dr.
Bridgebane, but it didn't do any good. I
was jealous of Joel this
afternoon when you sat on the arm of his
chair."
"You were?" She started
up. "You were! Wasn't there somebody
on the arm of your chair? And did
you speak to me for two
hours?"
"You were telling your troubles
to Joel in the bedroom."
"When I think that that
woman" she seemed to believe that to
omit Eva Goebel's name would be
to lessen her reality "used to
come here "
"All right all right,"
said Miles wearily. "I've admitted every-
thing and I feel as bad about it
as you do." Turning to Joel he began
talking about pictures, while
Stella moved restlessly along the far
walls, her hands in her breeches
pockets.
"They Ve treated Miles
terribly," she said, coming suddenly back
into the conversation as if
they'd never discussed her personal
affairs. "Dear, tell him
about old Beltzer trying to change your
picture."
As she stood hovering
protectively over Miles, her eyes flashing
with indignation in his behalf,
Joel realized that he was in love with
her. Stifled with excitement he
got up to say good night.
With Monday the week resumed its
workaday rhythm, in sharp
contrast to the theoretical
discussions, the gossip and scandal of
Sunday; there was the endless
detail of script revision "Instead of
a lousy dissolve, we can leave
her voice on the sound track and cut
to a medium shot of the taxi from
Bell's angle or we can simply pull
the camera back to include the
station, hold it a minute and then
pam to the row of taxis" by
Monday afternoon Joel had again for-
gotten that people whose business
was to provide entertainment were
ever privileged to be
entertained. In the evening he phoned Miles'
house.- He asked for Miles but
Stella came to the phone.
"Do things seem
better?"
"Not particularly. What are
you doing next Saturday evening?"
"Nothing."
"The Perrys are giving a
dinner and theater party and Miles
won't be here he's flying to
South Bend to see the Notre Dame-
California game. I thought you
might go with me in his place."
After a long moment Joel said,
"Why surely. If there's a con-
ference I can't make dinner but I
can get to the theater."
"Then I'll say we can
come."
Joel walked his office. In view
of the strained relations of the Cai-
mans, would Miles be pleased, or
did she intend that Miles shouldn't
know of it? That would be out of
the question if Miles didn't
mention it Joel would. But it was
an hour or more before he could
get down to work again.
Wednesday there was a four-hour
wrangle in a conference room
crowded with planets and nebulae
of cigarette smoke. Three men and
a woman paced the carpet in turn,
suggesting or condemning, speak-
ing sharply or persuasively,
confidently or despairingly. At the end
Joel lingered to talk to Miles.
The man was tired not with the
exaltation of fatigue but life-
tired, with his lids sagging and
his beard prominent over the blue
shadows near his mouth.
"I hear you're flying to the
Notre Dame game."
Miles looked beyond him and shook
his head.
"I've given up the
idea."
"Why?"
"On account of you."
Still he did not look at Joel.
"What the hell, Miles?"
"That's why I've given it
up." He broke into a perfunctory laugh
at himself. "I can't tell
what Stella might do just out of spite
she's invited you to take her to
the Perrys', hasn't she? I wouldn't
enjoy the game."
The fine instinct that moved
swiftly and confidently on the set,
muddled so weakly and helplessly
through his personal life.
"Look, Miles," Joel
said frowning. "I've never made any passes
whatsoever at Stella. If you're
really seriously canceling your trip
on account of me, I won't go to
the Perrys' with her. I won't see her.
You can trust me
absolutely."
Miles looked at him, carefully
now.
"Maybe." He shrugged
his shoulders. "Anyhow there'd just be
somebody else. I wouldn't have
any fun."
"You don't seem to have much
confidence in Stella. She told me
she'd always been true to
you."
"Maybe she has." In the
last few minutes several more muscles
had sagged around Miles' mouth.
"But how can I ask anything of
her after what's happened? How
can I expect her " He broke off
and his face grew harder as he
said, "I'll tell you one thing, right or
wrong and no matter what I've
done, if I ever had anything on her
I'd divorce her. I can't have my
pride hurt that would be the last
straw."
His tone annoyed Joel, but he
said:
"Hasn't she calmed down
about the Eva Goebel thing?"
"No." Miles snuffled
pessimistically. "I can't get over it either."
"I thought it was
finished."
"I'm trying not to see Eva
again, but you know it isn't easy just
to drop something like that it
isn't some girl I kissed last night in
a taxi. The psychoanalyst says
"
"I know," Joel
interrupted. "Stella told me." This was depressing.
"Well, as far as I'm
concerned if you go to the game I won't see
Stella. And I'm sure Stella has
nothing on her conscience about any
body."
"Maybe not," Miles
repeated listlessly. "Anyhow I'll stay and take
her to the party. Say," he
said suddenly, "I wish you'd come too.
I've got to have somebody
sympathetic to talk to. That's the trouble
I've influenced Stella in
everything. Especially I've influenced her
so that she likes all the men I
like it's very difficult."
"It must be," Joel
agreed.
IV
Joel could not get to the dinner.
Self-conscious in his silk hat
against the unemployment, he
waited for the others in front of the
Hollywood Theater and watched the
evening parade : obscure replicas
of bright, particular picture
stars, spavined men in polo coats, a
stomping dervish with the beard
and staff of an apostle, a pair of
chic Filipinos in collegiate
clothes, reminder that this corner of the
Republic opened to the seven sas,
a long fantastic carnival of young
shouts which proved to be a
fraternity initiation. The line split to
pass two smart limousines that
stopped at the curb.
There she was, in a dress like
ice-water, made in a thousand pale-
blue pieces, with icicles
trickling at the throat. He started forward.
"So you like my dress
?"
"Where's Miles?"
"He flew to the game after
all. He left yesterday morning at least
I think " She broke off.
"I just got a telegram from South Bend
saying that he's starting back. I
forgot you know all these people?"
The party of eight moved into the
theater.
Miles had gone after all and Joel
wondered if he should have
come. But during the performance,
with Stella a profile under the
pure grain of light hair, he
thought no more about Miles. Once he
turned and looked at her and she
looked back at him, smiling and
meeting his eyes for as long as
he wanted. Between the acts they
smoked in the lobby and she
whispered :
"They're all going to the
opening of Jack Johnson's night club
I don't want to go, do you?"
"Do we have to?"
"I suppose not." She
hesitated. "I'd like to talk to you. I suppose
we could go to our house if I
were only sure "
Again she hesitated and Joel
asked :
"Sure of what?"
"Sure that oh, I'm haywire I
know, but how can I be sure Miles
went to the game?"
"You mean you think he's
with Eva Goebel ?"
"No, not so much that but
supposing he was here watching every-
thing I do. You know Miles does
odd things sometimes. Once he
wanted a man with a long beard to
drink tea with him and he sent
down to the casting agency for
one, and drank tea with him all
afternoon."
"That's different. He sent
you a wire from South Bend that
proves he's at the game."
After the play they said good
night to the others at the curb and
were answered by looks of
amusement. They slid off along the
golden garish thoroughfare
through the crowd that had gathered
around Stella.
"You see he could arrange
the telegrams," Stella said, "very
easily."
That was true. And with the idea
that perhaps her uneasiness was
justified, Joel grew angry: if
Miles had trained a camera on them he
felt no obligations toward Miles.
Aloud he said :
"That's nonsense."
There were Christmas trees
already in the shop windows and the
full moon over the boulevard was
only a prop, as scenic as the
giant boudoir lamps of the
corners. On into the dark foliage of
Beverly Hills that flamed as
eucalyptus by day, Joel saw only the
flash of a white face under his
own, the arc of her shoulder. She
pulled away suddenly and looked
up at him.
"Your eyes are like your
mother's," she said. "I used to have a
scrap book full of pictures of
her."
"Your eyes are like your own
and not a bit like any other eyes," he
answered.
Something made Joel look out into
the grounds as they went into
the house, as if Miles were
lurking in the shrubbery. A telegram
Waited on the hall table. She
read aloud :
"CHICAGO.
"Home tomorrow night.
Thinking of you. Love.
"MILES."
"You see," she said,
throwing the slip back on the table, "he
could easily have faked
that." She asked the butler for drinks and
sandwiches and ran upstairs,
while Joel walked into the empty re-
ception rooms. Strolling about he
wandered to the piano where he
had stood in disgrace two Sundays
before.
"Then we could put
over," he said aloud, "a story of divorce, the
younger generation and the
Foreign Legion."
His thoughts jumped to another
telegram.
"You were one of the most
agreeable people at our party "
An idea occurred to him. If
Stella's telegram had been purely a
gesture of courtesy then it was
likely that Miles had inspired it, for
it was Miles who had invited him.
Probably Miles had said :
"Send him a wire he's
miserable he thinks he's queered him-
self."
It fitted in with "I've
influenced Stella in everything. Especially
I've influenced her so that she
likes all the men I like." A woman
would do a thing like that
because she felt sympathetic only a man
would do it because he felt
responsible.
When Stella came back into the
room he took both her hands.
"I have a strange feeling
that I'm a sort of pawn in a spite game
you're playing against
Miles," he said.
"Help yourself to a
drink."
"And the odd thing is that
I'm in love with you anyhow."
The telephone rang and she freed
herself to answer it.
"Another wire from
Miles," she announced. "He dropped it, or it
says he dropped it, from the
airplane at Kansas City."
"I suppose he asked to be
remembered to me."
"No, he just said he loved
me. I believe he does. He's so very
weak."
"Come sit beside me,"
Joel urged her.
It was early. And it was still a
few minutes short of midnight a
half-hour later, when Joel walked
to the cold hearth, and said tersely :
"Meaning that you haven't
any curiosity about me?"
"Not at all. You attract me
a lot and you know it. The point is
that I suppose I really do love
Miles."
"Obviously."
"And tonight I feel uneasy
about everything."
He wasn't angry he was even
faintly relieved that a possible en-
tanglement was avoided. Still as
he looked at her, the warmth and
softness of her body thawing her
cold blue costume, he knew she
was one of the things he would
always regret.
"I've got to go," he
said. "I'll phone a taxi."
"Nonsense there's a
chauffeur on duty."
He winced at her readiness to
have him go, and seeing this she
kissed him lightly and said,
"You're sweet, Joel." Then suddenly
three things happened : he took
down his drink at a gulp, the phone
rang loud through the house and a
clock in the hall struck in trumpet
notes.
Nine ten eleven twelve
It was Sunday again. Joel
realized that he had come to the theater
this evening with the work of the
week still hanging about him like
cerements. He had made love to
Stella as he might attack some mat-
ter to be cleaned up hurriedly
before the day's end. But this was
Sunday the lovely, lazy
perspective of the next twenty-four hours
unrolled before him every minute
was something to be approached
with lulling indirection, every
moment held the germ of innumerable
possibilities. Nothing was
impossible everything was just begin-
ning. He poured himself another
drink.
With a sharp moan, Stella slipped
forward inertly by the tele-
phone. Joel picked her up and
laid her on the sofa. He squirted soda-
water on a handkerchief and
slapped it over her face. The telephone
mouthpiece was still grinding and
he put it to his ear.
" the plane fell just this
side of Kansas City. The body of Miles
Caiman has been identified and
"
He hung up the receiver.
"Lie still," he said,
stalling, as Stella opened her eyes.
"Oh, what's happened?"
she whispered. "Call them back. Oh,
what's happened?"
"Ill call them right away.
What's your doctor's name?"
"Did they say Miles was
dead?"
"Lie quiet is there a
servant still up?"
"Hold me I'm
frightened."
He put his arm around her.
"I want the name of your
doctor," he said sternly. "It may be a
mistake but I want someone
here."
"It's Doctor Oh, God, is
Miles dead?"
Joel ran upstairs and searched
through strange medicine cabinets
for spirits of ammonia. When he
came down Stella cried :
"He isn't dead I know he
isn't. This is part of his scheme. He's
torturing me. I know he's alive.
I can feel he's alive."
"I want to get hold of some
close friend of yours, Stella. You
can't stay here alone
tonight."
"Oh, no," she cried.
"I can't see anybody. You stay. I haven't got
any friend." She got up,
tears streaming down her face. "Oh, Miles
is my only friend. He's not dead
he can't be dead. I'm going there
right away and see. Get a train.
You'll have to come with me."
"You can't. There's nothing
to do tonight. I want you to tell me
the name of some woman I can
call: Lois? Joan? Carmel? Isn't
there somebody ?"
Stella stared at him blindly.
"Eva Goebel was my best
friend," she said.
Joel thought of Miles, his sad
and desperate face in the office two
days before. In the awful silence
of his death all was clear about
him. He was the only
American-born director with both an interest-
ing temperament and an artistic
conscience. Meshed in an industry,
he had paid with his ruined
nerves for having no resilience, no
healthy cynicism, no refuge only
a pitiful and precarious escape.
There was a sound at the outer
door it opened suddenly, and
there were footsteps in the hall.
"Miles!" Stella
screamed. "Is it you, Miles? Oh, it's Miles."
A telegraph boy appeared in the
doorway.
"I couldn't find the bell. I
heard you talking inside."
The telegram was a duplicate of
the one that had been phoned.
While Stella read it over and
over, as though it were a black lie,
Joel telephoned. It was still
early and he had difficulty getting any-
one ; when finally he succeeded
in finding some friends he made Stella
take a stiff drink.
"You'll stay here,
Joel," she whispered, as though she were half-
asleep. "You won't go away.
Miles liked you he said you " She
shivered violently, "Oh, my
God, you don't know how alone I feel."
Her eyes closed, "Put your
arms around me. Miles had a suit like
that." She started bolt
upright. "Think of what he must have felt.
He was afraid of almost
everything, anyhow."
She shook her head dazedly.
Suddenly she seized Joel's face and
held it close to hers.
"You won't go. You like me
you love me, don't you? Don't call
up anybody. Tomorrow's time
enough. You stay here with me
tonight."
He stared at her, at first
incredulously, and then with shocked
understanding. In her dark
groping Stella was trying to keep Miles
alive by sustaining a situation
in which he had figured as if Miles'
mind could not die so long as the
possibilities that had worried him
still existed. It was a
distraught and tortured effort to stave off the
realization that he was dead.
Resolutely Joel went to the phone
and called a doctor.
"Don't, oh, don't call
anybody 1 " Stella cried. "Come back here and
put your arms around me."
"Is Doctor Bales in?"
"Joel," Stella cried.
"I thought I could count on you. Miles liked
you. He was jealous of you Joel,
come here."
Ah then if he betrayed Miles she
would be keeping him alive
for if he were really dead how
could he be betrayed?
" has just had a very severe
shock. Can you come at once, and
get hold of a nurse?"
"Joel!"
Now the door-bell and the
telephone began to ring intermittently,
and automobiles were stopping in
front of the door.
"But you're not going,"
Stella begged him. "You're going to stay,
aren't you?"
"No," he answered.
"But I'll be back, if you need me."
Standing on the steps of the
house which now hummed and pal-
pitated with the life that
flutters around death like protective leaves,
he began to sob a little in his
throat.
"Everything he touched he
did something magical to," he thought.
"He even brought that little
gamin alive and made her a sort of
masterpiece."
And then :
"What a hell of a hole he
leaves in this damn wilderness
already!"
And then with a certain
bitterness, "Oh, yes, 111 be back I'll be
back!"