New Britain herald., 1927-02-02
CHAPTER XVIII


 ..- CHAPTER XVIII It is a queer thine-but somehow a mans love for woman nearly always grows and thrives upon her coldness and indifference. It's too bad that women never seem to find it out. But it's true. all the same. Men are just that way. They never want the woman who is ready 10 fall in their arms the minute they hold them out to her.
 It was true of Gus MacCloud. and his feeling for Robbie Ransom.
 Ever since he could rememb r, girls had been throwing themselves at him. Making baby-eyes at him. Leading him on. Trying, by some hook or crook, to marry him. To begin with, he was very good looking in the blond high colored way that attracts most women. Then, he had money. Not money that he earned only, but money that came from his family back east.
 1 Moreover, he was an assistant director And in Hollywood even an assistant director is not to be sneezed at--especially by girls like Robbie. who are trying to break into pictures.
 So, naturally enough, Gus had | fallen into the habit of thinking i,.pretty well of himself. He showed it in his swaggering walk, in his hard way of locking at people and his rude way of talking to them. Robbie Ransom was a mystery 10 1 MacCloud. She neither flirted with 1 him, flattered him, nor dropped dead with joy when he began to notice her. He simply couldn't figure her out.
 But he knew he was in love with 1 her, whether he wanted to be or not.
 | 'I'm having the dickens of a good time, just driving along here with you. Do you know it:' h. asked her. as they swung out Santa Monica Boulevard and turned to- ward the ocean that moonlit fall night
 He meant it. too. But Robbie 1 didn't believe him for a second l Why, how could he find thrill in 1 taking a drive with her when he was used to trailing around with such people as Joan Joyce and the l Roy Schultzes?
 Apple cake" she chaffed nim. "'S truth! Believe me or not" He reached for her hand, and found | that both of them were hidden under her yellow evening cape. She saw what he was trying to do. and laughed shyly. Somehow. sitting there in her yellow cape. with her yellow hair blown 3;.ck from her face, she made him think of a tight-wrapped rosebud. A lit- tie yellow one. And tenderness stirred deep within him as he looked at her.
 How in the deuce did you ever happen to come to Hollywood? ?' | he asked suddenly. "A little thing like you"
 i Robbie laughed again. a delight ed little titter "Nothing could keep me away" she told him. "Td have come if I'd had to walk all the way with a corn plaster on every toe! And why shouldn't have comeo Hundreds of girls do every year. Girls who are years younger than I am. I'm old-for the movies. Twenty-two, you know They drove on for another mile in silence.
 Then Gus slowed down his car, and waved his hand toward a hill that rose on their right. Like most of the Hollywood hills. it was CO., cred with Spanish houses.
 "See that house with the three eucalyptus trees in front of it?' he asked Robbie.
 She nodded The house was a long, low one of white plaster. with red roof. It was in darkness ex- cept for a light in one window.
 That's my house." MacCloud said. "Id like to show it to you some time"
 He waited a second. Then he asked abruptly: Would you like to see it tonight? Are you inter- ested in houses?"
 Yes" Robbie said breathlessly.
 She knew it wasn't the thing to say. At twenty-five a woman knows everything she ever is going to know, certainly.
 She knew that this was ten tlmes more wicked than the Tia Juana trip. To go into q mans house with him alone, late at night. Beyond all doubt it was a shady thing 10 do-and yet she wanted to do it. She wanted to be alone with MacCloud-to talk to him-to see what he was really like when you got 10 know him.
 ''I don't suppose I ought to go in," she said softly as the cream-col- cred roadster stopped before the door of the house. But she got out
 On the other side of the hedged  driveway stood another house. A palepink stucco house, much larger than MACCloud's little low enc.
 Suppose your neighbors should see me go in, What would they think" she whispered to Mac Cloud
 He only laughed and pushed her into the dark hall of the house.
 "My neghbors are at the actors benefit, so there's not chance of their seeing you," he told her. In the darkness, she felt his hands on her shoulders, lifting the cape from them.
 He pushed back some curtains at the side of the hall, and Robbie walked into what seemed an as-