us. I do not blame them, for I am to be envied."

"Because you are with Jean Hope?" she smiled.

"Because I am with Consuello Carrillo," he answered. "I do not know Jean
Hope yet. I am to meet her, tonight."

"You saw her before the camera," she reminded him.

"But never on the screen," he returned.

"And what if you don't like her?"

"My consolation will be that she is only a shadow, a make-believe."

"You are different," she told him, "and it's not because you lack
imagination. Most everyone does not disassociate a film player from her
shadow. They think of her always as the type or character in which they
admire her most. To them she is always the same, always perfect, a
picture, a memory. How disappointed those dream lovers would be if they
could suddenly be brought face to face with the player as she really is,
with her little vanities and human frailties."

"Disappointed or disillusioned, which?" he asked.

"You are right," she replied, "they would be disillusioned rather than
disappointed. There is a difference. For instance, I would be
disappointed rather than disillusioned in Reggie if he should blunder
and miss his opportunity of becoming mayor of Los Angeles."

Her words struck him like a blow. They brought to him the realization
again that she faced a disillusionment of which she had no warning. How
could he save her from it? Would she go on believing in Gibson? It would
be like her to defend him until the last, to go with him to a place
where his disgrace was not known and begin life all over again.

"Suppose," he said, watching her intently, "that it was not
disappointment but disillusionment."

"You mean--in Reggie?" she asked, apparently unable to comprehend what
he had said.

Unable to speak the word, he nodded. She laughed lightly and he forced
himself to smile.

"I know him too well to ever be disillusioned," she said.

"Love, they say, is blind," he ventured.

"I know his faults as I do mine," she said slowly, "and love him for
them. You see, we've known each other since we were children."

He could not reply. The awfulness of the truth dumbed him and an
impetuous desire to protect her swept through him. But he was powerless,
helpless. A wild idea of sacrificing his loyalty to his paper by warning
Gibson of the impending exposure of his perfidy so that he might
renounce "Gink" Cummings and be worthy of Consuello's love flashed in
and out of his brain.

His silence seemed to mys