SOULMATES OF THE SCREEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 289, 7 December 1925, Page 18

SOULMATES OF THE SCREEN.

BY GAYNE DEXTER. PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS: JOHN WORTH, the famous Hollywood producer, have raised to etardom and married GLORIA IvAILL, a beautiful film actress who, however, gives her love to RUSSELL BLAIXE, "the screen's greatest lover. 7. Worth finds in a cafe orchestra a lovely girl, RHODA MIRAXDE, who creates a sensation when she is introduced to Hollywood as the new star. She is engaged for a film by IF. K. TRESSIDER, who intends to revive a famous story of the screen, "Leoparda,"' in which DOUGLAS VAUGHN plays leading man. Both Vaughn and Russell Blame, in their different ways, are particularl}' interested in the beautiful new star, and Blame one evening takes her out to a remote cafe. Here Blame tries to make love to her, but she repels his advances, and motors alone back to Hollywood. As she retires that night, she discovers Eomo verses which Blame has given her and which she has pushed inside her frock. CHAPTER X. Rhoda chilled. Both hands gripping the rail behind she stood high of head, her body rigi.l in a slow defensive curve. A silent moment thus before sm shrugged and trailed her gaze away. "Do you understand what 1 mean, Rhoda? Just we two." "I don't care to understand. -, "But you will," he whispered, ing her from the rail, claiming her to' himself 8O wholly that the cigarette, stiu caught between his fingers, burned him with an exquisite pain. Infinite measure of ecstasy pain evoked. Whether Rhoda forfeited or forfended mattered little. From stinging flesh this glorioue agony leaped into his brain ana clamoured through him as a passion, coercive, destroying. "But you will. Rhoda, you will. It is not for you or mc to say yes or no. It is decreed. We are our own gods. This is our ■world. We share it alike, and the only gift we can make to one another is ourselves. -, "Flesh. Fle3h," ehe said. "Physical gods." "There can be no such gods," ho entreated. "I am a woman; and you have set the limit on woman's inspiration." "But not to you. All power ia yours. Rhoda! Rhoda!" She lay inert in his arms, neither yielding nor resisting. Her eyes were closed. "Rhoda! Rhoda!" he whispered again, shaking her. Could he but excruciate her to life! She looked up, speaking softly. "Hold mc. Hold your ideal with hair flamered and eyes as green as sea. Must I have more than that? You boasted your ideal, and queer echoes answer boasts. I can repeat it word for word: 'She must have hair flame-red, and eyes as green as sea. She must have artistic impulse, the love of a wife, the cameraderie of a sister, the understanding of a mother. The woman ivho will inspire mc, who will consent to be set apart from my life when Art claims mc, and yet be waitingwith sympathy and comfort when each creation is complete." tou said it, •and no word in Hollywood is lost. John Worth remembered. Hβ created me—for you. We are gods. And now you hold mc. The ideal! The husk. What is within? You cay the inspiration to sacrifice, to make death a trifle. No. No. Nothing but the power to hate you do." His face pressed close. "That's a woman's lie!" he said fiercely. "1 am dead in your arms." He drew one arm free. A warm redolence, some unknown myrrh, reached her. The cigarette tip described an orange arc, slowly nearing her cheek. Rhoda saw, but did not move; nor wished to move, by one breath banish entrancement at the glow. Dead in hie ; arms, with death that was life unbegun. It would burn and kiss. "Pain ia resurrection," he whispered. The voice startled her to herself. She revolted from him. One hand flew up, dispelling the cigarette in sparks; the other forced at his chest, shocked her from his grasp. He snatched, won a fragment of her corsage's draped net. "lou're mad!" she cried, stamping out the cigarette. Although each spark blackened and tobacco shreds and paper were dispersed, she still trod the asn and crushed into it a dread. She feared herself; demanded of herself what madness possessed her, too, and breathlesly repeated, "Mad. Mad. Mad." The smudged floor accused. Crossing ncr arms before her bosom, she huddled within them. "Why did you do that?" she trembled out. "You wished mc to." "You drove mc to wish, it." "And you drove mc. Rhoda, we exalt one another," he pleaded, tightening about his fingers the torn fabric of her dress. "Is this exaltation? >To. Insensibility." "lou are wakened." "To what 1 have etamped out of myself there, with the ash." Rhoda pointed to the floor. "As long as you live it will command you. Some day you will obey. You fight it now. At the studio you hold yourself in leash, because the woman you play is you. You fear her. ,, ".Nothing commands me,"she answered swiftly. "iiien, who are you? Were you born without impulse, without instinct? Are you a creaiure come the world heir to bo man, no woman;" Rhoaa turned from him. A bat fluttered past tne rail. She followed its ugly snape out of darkness into darkness. Proudly she said: "I am heir to a magnificent inuruuier anu a woman ia.».cii in her recklessness. I have the mind of one in the body of the other. I can govern their strength and weakness." With fever cooling in his tnroat, transport waning to ache of seared flesh, Blame sagged perceptibly. Crumpling the torn net, he threw it down. With ash it lay between them. Rhoda gathered her wrap about her and walked towards the door. "My car will take you liome," he managed to cay. "I will hire one from the restaurant," she responded, and was gone. Blame etill stood, a scowl tightening his browß as he groped for recolljct.ons, and mumbled aloud to aid memory. Created for him. . . The ideal; the body. . • Within, the power to hate. . . . Created by a magnificent murderer and a woman taken in recklessnes. ... No; by John Worth, for him. At last grown brave on his own voice, he was encouraged to stare from the verandah westward where Hollywood showed minor lights; in fancy, to dive through interspaces, to gibber at Worth c window and to haunt the

fool. Khoda Mirande offered for Gloria Kaiil. It struck him as ridiculous, no. that Worth should conceive of his accepting a substitute (gladly wou d Blame accept), but that any man should so struggle to possess Gloria. "Take her, dear boy; and thank you," he chuckled, rehearsing the renunciation acrqss the rail. Soon he fell slent and perverse. Some day the story would be told, in confidence, of course, but Hollywood scatters its" secrets. The prospect twineed his vanity. But what if he ignored Rhoda and 'stuck to Gloria? Ah! Then he himself would tell the story, and to his own laudation. The idea pleased momentarily. Revision dimmed its brightness, for Russell Blame, contemplating monogynous years, decided that spite could be lmrdensoinc. Xor could it encompass Rhoda Mirande, who returned as a hot impression in his brain. She had goaded him, and in his own arms denied his ascendancy. Here she had stood, above this dead cigarette, this flimsy net, calling "Mad—mad—mad." Though he shut his eyes the picture persisted unt'l, newly aroused, Blame strode from the verandah, settled his account and hurried to his waiting limousine. "As fast as you can nfter the car that left a few minutes ago. Run close behini nil the way and keep your searchlight on it," he commanded the chauffeur. On Rhoda Mirande there beat, as the limousine crept up, a white mercurial beam that pierced the tonneau'e rear window and made conflagration of her hair. Instead of passin?, it pursued. Did she plance back it repaid her glance blindingly—an inescapable eye. When she alighted before the Plaza Apartments Blame rode by. Too quietly to disturb Mammy Gastin, who, waiting with the faithfulness of her kind, continued her tremulous snores in a hall chair —companion antique to herself—Rhoda entered the suite. S'e stole to her boudoir, switched off the lamps, and sat on the edge of the bed. Darkness comforted little. In her heart the pendulum swung, then struck some heavier weight and recoiled in distressful oscillation. She rocked backwards and forwards. Somewhere the mirror found an orange reflection; there was no other lipht; rocking, she imasrined this sh°ft drew near, then away, that she strained towards it, swayed from it, until, driven and dizzy, she fumbled about the «mII pressed switches, and restored the room to life. Mammy Gastin shuffled in. "I didn't hear you," she apologised, and commenced to unhook Rhoda's gown. "Go to bed Mammy, please, You're tired. I can undress myself." "You're not vexed with mc for being asleep?" the old woman asked wistfully. Rhoda patted the white head and won all Mammy's wrinkles to a happy maze. "To-ni?ht I want to be alono with myself and see myself as others seem to." Said Mammy, shaking her all-wise pate: "Sometimes it's good to take your make-up off." There fell when Rhoda loosened her corsage, the folded sheet of Russell Blaine'e vorse. She picked it up and read; afterwards, with a helpless little gesture, dropped it Into a drawer. (Continued daily.)