, 1923-04-15

Ned Ling at lunch time told her OF
a year of meditation spent on ono
ldiotic Incident. He had no got II right
yet. It might not be ready for this
picture or the next. Some day II
would come Just right. n then It
would appear IKE an Improvisation OF
the movement.
He was. especially delicate about tho
broad bits. He was a lover OF coarse
jokes; he loathed the Purltanism that
gave them m immoral quality. Yet
they would not have been half so
funny or perhaps not funny at all IL
It were not for the forhidding OF them.
Just as ~nakedness would have no spice
or commercial value. and would sug-
gest no evil thoughts II It were ig-
nored or made compulsory. or IL the
wrongheaded moral SITS did not sur
round It with horror and give It the
fascination Of rarity.
Mem suffered acutely from Ned
Ling's discussions OF risky hunor. She
had never heard such III
She was like a trained nurse getting
her first glimpse of life through the
eyes Of n doctor. learning not to swoon
at tho lifting OF tho wells.
~ 1Ahb AAA u uoCAOT 3 lupdIlenCo
Of prudery. the same contempt for tho
vicious indecency OF what he called
the n~Rstynice. He Jolted Mem hor-
rlbly but he shook the furniture of her
soul into more solid places.
Like a nurse. like n woman doctor,
Mem was far more decent after this
course of training han before. But it
took all her nerve to keep from wine
ing, from protesting. from taking up
that obsolescent womnn's weapon,
How dare your
She learned in time to laugh whole
heartedly. like n man, at the coarse
v%erities. She was not educated up to
Rabelais. Few women have yet como
so high in the upper humanities.
She would never love the great vui-
g~arities but h was emanclpated from
the smaller squeamishness. the wide
eyed doll mind. and tho Kate Green
away innocence.
Tha was why. perhaps. sha could
revel so wonderfully in 1.-THE Beggar's
Opera when she saw 1t.
1t was the first opera she ever did
see grand or comic. Not v a mu.
slcal comedy had passed her eyes and
ears. Her father did not believe in
opera, and II he had his way Mozart.
Verdi. and Wagner would have been
as dumb as Shakespeare-for he alb
horred h playhouse. too. The cata-
loguo of his abhorrences was upend.
Ing. He abhorred almost everything
human that he could think OF except
when It was twisted into n form Of
prayer. He liked opera when Il was
disguised rs oratorlo and the singers
wore their own clothes Instead OF OWL
costumes. He liked plays about Santa
Claus. n he vaguely approved the
old miracle plays the church had fos-
tored, since he never dreamed how in.
decent many of them were. He was
beginning TO admit that motion pic
lures of educational or religious pur-
pose might atone for their sins.
But Mem would as BOOT have asked
permission to go to a dance as to a
theater in Calverly.
Los Angeles had. for a city OF it's
SIZE. a minimum OF theatrical enter
tainments. The long haul across the
deserts made II prohibitive of late
years for most companies to visit the
Pacific coast. She had seen a few
plays given by the city stock COM.
panies and by the Hollywood Commu-
nifty Players. She had even dragged
her mother to those devilish amuse-
ments n brought her away with
out n sniff of birthstone.
Her acquaintance with the world
was almost exclusively OF the movies,
movish. Like the people Of all other
trades. then the cinemators had a
free evening they spent 1t in more OF
the same. The picture houses were
frequented by the picture people
OF whom tire were thousands In Los
Angeles.
Her first opera was curiously the
last opera n might be expected to
see at all in her day.
Somebody In London had been IN
spired to revive the sensation of 172s.
It had run for a solid year in the
new London and another a In
New York. It's ancient art had glist-
ened like a Toledo blade. It made
tho epigrams of Oscar Wilde and
Bernard Shaw look ~old.fashione6.
An opera whose hero was a thief
and whose scenes were sordid-the
gayest Of operas, It d~umfounded Mem
as it had set old London aghast.
There whore the rival italian com
panles had made war in an other
wise undisputed field. It suddenly
arose and laughed them off the
boarCs - drove Handel into bank
ruptcy. drove him 70 such despair
that he went TO ireland. and. casting
about for something to do beside The
operas that were n closed career for
him. tossed off in three weeks-''The
Messiah" and became immortal as
a religious force.
Thus much Mem !sarned before
the curtain rose. After II was up
she learned to laugh uproariously at
the utmost d%eiicacies OF indecency.
It made an earthquake in Mems soul
10 sit alongside Ned Ling and listen
TO the scene where the heroine hor-
rifles her parents by announcing her
marriage to n handsome young man
horrifies them not because she
wished 10 marry n highwayman. but
because she wished 20 marry at all,
except possibly some old man for
, financial reasons.
Mem was nghhst when they rldi-
ouled their daughters talk OF love-;
al length the father protested. no