The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On | Page 2

with a thoughtful earnestness that Rainbow would scarce have credited, he quoted a verse from what he was wont to call Billy Beebe's Bible:
"One Moment in Annihilation's waste, One Moment of the Well of Life to taste-- The Stars are setting, and the Caravan Starts for the Dawn of----Nothing. Oh, make haste!"
After late dinner at the Gadsden Purchase, Pringle had tidings of the Motion Picture Palace; and thither he bent his steps. He was late and the palace was a very small palace indeed; it was with difficulty that he spied in the semidarkness an empty seat in a side section. A fat lady and a fatter man, in the seats nearest the aisle, obligingly moved over rather than risk any attempt to squeeze by.
Beyond them, as he took the end seat, Pringle was dimly aware of a girl who looked at him rather attentively.
He turned his mind to the screen, where a natty and noble young man, with a chin, bit off his words distinctly and smote his extended palm with folded gloves to emphasize the remarks he was making to a far less natty man with black mustaches. John Wesley rightly concluded that this second man, who gnashed his teeth so convincingly, and at whom an incredibly beautiful young lady looked with haughty disdain, was the villain, and foiled.
The blond and shaven hero, with a magnificent gesture, motioned the villain to begone! That baffled person, after waiting long enough to register despair, spread his fingers across his brow and be-went; the hero turned, held out his arms; the scornful young beauty crept into them. Click! On the screen appeared a scroll:
Keep Your Seats. Two Minutes to Change Reels.
The lights were turned on. Pringle looked at the crowd--girls, grandmas, mothers with their families, many boys, and few men; Americans, Mexicans, well-dressed folk and roughly dressed, all together. Many were leaving; among them Pringle's fat and obliging neighbors rose with a pleasant: "Excuse me, please!"
A stream of newcomers trickled in through the door. As Pringle sat down the lights were dimmed again. Simultaneously the girl he had noticed beyond the fat couple moved over to the seat next to his own. Pringle did not look at her; and a little later he felt a hand on his sleeve.
"Tut, tut!" said Pringle in a tolerant undertone. "Why, chicken, you're not trying to get gay with your old Uncle Dudley, are you?"
"John Wesley Pringle!" came the answer in a furious whisper, each indignant word a missile. "How dare you! How dare you speak to me like that?"
"What!" said Pringle, peering. "What! Stella Vorhis! I can hardly believe it!"
"But it's oh-so-true!" said Stella, rising. "Let's go--we can't talk here."
"That was one awful break I made. I most sincerely and humbly beg your pardon," Pringle said on the sidewalk.
Stella laughed.
"That's all right--I understand--forget it! You hadn't looked at me. But I knew you when you first came in--only I wasn't sure till the lights were turned on. Of course it would be great fun to tease you--pretend to be shocked and dreadfully angry, and all that--but I haven't got time. And oh, John Wesley, I'm so delighted to see you again! Let's go over to the park. Not but what I was dreadfully angry, sure enough, until I had a second to think. Why don't you say you're glad to see me--after five years?"
"Stella! You know I am. Six years, please. But I thought you were still in Prescott?"
"We came here three years ago. Here's a bench. Now tell it to me!"
But Pringle stood beside and looked down at her without speech, with a smile unexpected from a face so lean, so brown, so year-bitten and iron-hard--a smile which happily changed that face, and softened it.
The girl's eyes danced at him.
"I'm so glad you've come, John Wesley! Good old Wes!"
"So I am--both those little things. Six years!" he said slowly. "Dear me--dear both of us! That will make you twenty-five. You don't look a day over twenty-four! But you're still Stella Vorhis?"
She met his gaze gravely; then her lids drooped and a wave of red flushed her face.
"I am Stella Vorhis--yet."
"Meaning--for a little while yet?"
"Meaning, for a little while yet. That will come later, John Wesley. Oh, I'll tell you, but not just now. You tell about John Wesley, first--and remember, anything you say may be used against you. Where have you been? Were you dead? Why didn't you write? Has the world used you well? Sit down, Mr. John Wesley Also-Ran Pringle, and give an account of yourself!"
He sat beside her: she laid her hand across his gnarled brown fingers with an unconscious caress.
"It's good to see you, old-timer! Begin now--I, John Wesley Pringle, am come from going to and fro upon the earth and from walking up and down in it. But