Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/322

 An intervening close-up of this rock revealed her tearful face as she cleansed the granite surface. Above her loomed a painted exhortation to "Use Wizard Spine Pills." And of this pathetic old creature he was made to say, even as he clasped the beloved in his arms—"Remember, she is my mother. I will not desert her now just because I am rich and grand!"

At last he was free. Amid applause that was long and sincere he gained his feet and pushed a way out. His hoarse neighbour was saying, "Who is the kid, anyway? Ain't he a wonder!"

He pulled his hat down, dreading he might be recognized and shamed before these shallow fools. He froze with the horror of what he had been unable to look away from. The ignominy of it! And now, after those spurs, he knew full well that Baird had betrayed him. As the words shaped in his mind, a monstrous echo of them reverberated through its caverns—the Montague girl had betrayed him!

He understood her now, and burned with memories of her uneasiness the night before. She had been suffering acutely from remorse; she had sought to cover it with pleas of physical illness. At the moment he was conscious of no feeling toward her save wonder that she could so coolly have played him false. But the thing was not to be questioned. She—and Baird—had made a fool of him.

As he left the theatre, the crowd about him commented approvingly on the picture: "Who's this new comedian?" he heard a voice inquire. But "Ain't he a wonder!" seemed to be the sole reply.

He flushed darkly. So they thought him a comedian. Well, Baird wouldn't think so—not after to-morrow. He paused outside the theatre now to study the lithograph in colours. There he hurled Marcel to the antlers of the elk. The announcement was Hearts on Fire! A Jeff Baird Comedy. Five Reels—500 Laughs."

Baird, he sneeringly reflected, had kept faith with his patrons if not with one of his actors. But how he had pro-