at an average of
sixty-five miles an hour, braving death a dozen times. For her public
was dear to her, and she would not have it disappointed, and there she
was before them in her trim driving suit, still breathless from the wild
ride.

Then she told them--Merton especially--how her directors had again and
again besought her not to persist in risking her life in her dangerous
exploits, but to allow a double to take her place at the more critical
moments. But she had never been able to bring herself to this deception,
for deception, in a way, it would be. The directors had entreated in
vain. She would keep faith with her public, though full well she knew
that at any time one of her dare-devil acts might prove fatal.

Her public was very dear to her. She was delighted to meet it here, face
to face, heart to heart. She clasped her own slender hands over her own
heart as she said this, and there was a pathetic little catch in her
voice as she waved farewell kisses to the throng. Many a heart besides
Merton's beat more quickly at knowing that she must rush out to the
high-powered roadster and be off at eighty miles an hour to St. Louis,
where another vast audience would the next day be breathlessly awaiting
her personal appearance.

Merton had felt abundantly repaid for his journey. There had been
inspiration in this contact. Little he minded the acid greeting, on
his return, of a mere Gashwiler, spawning in his low mind a monstrous
suspicion that the dying aunt had never lived.

Now he read in his magazines other intimate interviews by other talented
young women who had braved the presence of other screen idols of both
sexes. The interviewers approached them with trepidation, and invariably
found that success had not spoiled them. Fine artists though they were,
applauded and richly rewarded, yet they remained simple, unaffected,
and cordial to these daring reporters. They spoke with quiet dignity of
their work, their earnest efforts to give the public something better
and finer. They wished the countless readers of the interviews to
comprehend that their triumphs had come only with infinite work and
struggle, that the beautiful comes only through suffering and sacrifice.
At lighter moments they spoke gayly of their palatial homes, their
domestic pets, their wives or husbands and their charming children. They
all loved the great out-of-doors, but their chief solace from toil was
in this unruffled domesticity where they