Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/248

 he had yet come into contact, did not arouse him to resistance. These three and one other. Paul, he could understand after a fashion, and Zimbule, a sheet of flame burning a path before her desire, he understood only too well. In the past he had avoided this flame, only, it would appear, to walk voluntarily into it in the present. And the question he asked himself, so much had his experience alalready taught him, was whether it was worth while to struggle against this flame any longer, whether it would not be better to. . . But did Zimbule still cherish her old desire? That doubt assailed him fifty times a day and it had lodged in his mind afresh when he heard a voice down the corridor calling, Mr. Proowit! Mr. Proowit! He started guiltily as he bade the boy come in, and he was in a perspiration of dread and fear when Rex entered to tell him that he was wanted at once in the studio below.

He quickly rubbed a little more flesh paint into his cheeks—the first day, following the advice of some ancient thespian, he had used yellow powder, but a lad in the next room who visited Harold to borrow towels, rabbits' feet, matches, soap, and eyebrow pencils, had informed him categorically that the employment of yellow powder was obsolete. This ain't a Pearl White serial, he explained. Them days is over. . . . Harold drew on his dinner coat, examining himself once more in the mirrer, catching therein a glimpse of the impertinent and