uncheon."

Merton Gill was entranced by this exposition of the quieter side of
his idol's life. Of course he had known she could not always be making
narrow escapes, and it seemed that she was almost more delightful in
this staid domestic life. Here, away from her professional perils, she
was, it seemed, "a slim little girl with sad eyes and a wistful mouth."

The picture moved him strongly. More than ever he was persuaded that
his day would come. Even might come the day when it would be his lot
to lighten the sorrow of those eyes and appease the wistfulness of that
tender mouth. He was less sure about this. He had been unable to learn
if Beulah Baxter was still unwed. Silver Screenings, in reply to
his question, had answered, "Perhaps." Camera, in its answers to
correspondents, had said, "Not now." Then he had written to Photo Land:
"Is Beulah Baxter unmarried?" The answer had come, "Twice." He had been
able to make little of these replies, enigmatic, ambiguous, at best. But
he felt that some day he would at least be chosen to act with this slim
little girl with the sad eyes and wistful mouth. He, it might be, would
rescue her from the branches of the great eucalyptus tree growing hard
by the Fifth Avenue mansion of the scoundrelly guardian. This, if he
remembered well her message about hard work.

He recalled now the wondrous occasion on which he had travelled the
nearly hundred miles to Peoria to see his idol in the flesh. Her
personal appearance had been advertised. It was on a Saturday night, but
Merton had silenced old Gashwiler with the tale of a dying aunt in the
distant city. Even so, the old grouch had been none too considerate.
He had seemed to believe that Merton's aunt should have died nearer to
Simsbury, or at least have chosen a dull Monday.

But Merton had held with dignity to the point; a dying aunt wasn't to
be hustled about as to either time or place. She died when her time
came--even on a Saturday night--and where she happened to be, though
it were a hundred miles from some point more convenient to an utter
stranger. He had gone and thrillingly had beheld for five minutes
his idol in the flesh, the slim little girl of the sorrowful eyes and
wistful mouth, as she told the vast audience--it seemed to Merton that
she spoke solely to him--by what narrow chance she had been saved from
disappointing it. She had missed the train, but had at once leaped
into her high-powered roadster and made the journey