LITMIR.BIZ

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employed Crumb offered her a five-year contract. It was only for 50 dollars a week; but it included a clause which automatically increased the salary to 100 a week, 250, and then 500 dollars in the event that they starred her. She knew that it was to Crumb that she owed the contract — Crumb had seen to that.

      Very gradually, then — so gradually and insidiously that the girl could never recall just when it had started — Crumb commenced to make love to her. At first, it took only the form of minor attentions — little courtesies and thoughtful acts; but, after a while, he spoke of love — very gently and very tenderly, as any man might have done.

      She had never thought of loving him or any other man; so, she was puzzled at first, but she was not offended. He had given her no cause for offense. When he had first broached the subject, she had asked him not to speak of it as she did not think that she loved him, and he had said that he would wait; but the seed was planted in her mind, and it came to occupy much of her thoughts.

      She realized that she owed to him what little success she had achieved. She had an assured income that was sufficient for her simple wants while permitting her to send something home to her mother every week, and it was all due to the kindness of Wilson Crumb. He was a successful director, he was more than a fair actor, he was good-looking, he was kind, he was a gentleman, and he loved her. What more could any girl ask?

      She thought the matter out very carefully, finally deciding that, though she did not exactly love Wilson Crumb, she probably would learn to love him and that, if he loved her, it was in a way her duty to make him happy when he had done so much for her happiness. She made up her mind, therefore, to marry him whenever he asked her; but Crumb did not ask her to marry him. He continued to make love to her; but the matter of marriage never seemed to enter the conversation.

      Once, when they were out on location and had had a hard day, ending by getting thoroughly soaked in a sudden rain, he had followed her to her room in the little mountain inn where they were stopping.

      “You’re cold and wet and tired,” he said. “I want to give you something that will brace you up.”

      He entered the room and closed the door behind him. Then, he took from his pocket a small piece of paper folded into a package about an inch and three-quarters long by half an inch wide with one end tucked ingeniously inside the fold to form a fastening. Opening it, he revealed a white powder, the minute crystals of which glistened beneath the light from the electric bulbs.

      “It looks just like snow,” she said.

      “Sure!” he replied with a faint smile. “It is snow. Look, I’ll show you how to take it.”

      He divided the powder into halves, took one in the palm of his hand, and snuffed it into his nostrils.

      “There!” he exclaimed. “That’s the way — it will make you feel like a new woman.”

      “But what is it?” she asked. “Won’t it hurt me?”

      “It’ll make you feel bully. Try it.”

      So, she tried it, and it made her “feel bully.” She was no longer tired but deliriously exhilarated.

      “Whenever you want any, let me know,” he said as he was leaving the room. “I usually have some handy.”

      “But I’d like to know what it is,” she insisted.

      “Aspirin,” he replied. “It makes you feel that way when you snuff it up your nose.”

      After he left, she recovered the little piece of paper from the waste basket where he had thrown it, her curiosity aroused. She found it a rather soiled bit of writing paper with a “C” written in lead pencil upon it.

      “‘C,’” she mused. “Why aspirin with a C?”

      She thought she would question Wilson about it.

      The next day, she felt out of sorts and tired, and, at noon, she asked him if he had any aspirin with him. He had, and again she felt fine and full of life. That evening she wanted some more, and Crumb gave it to her. The next day, she wanted it oftener, and, by the time they returned to Hollywood from location, she was taking it five or six times a day. It was then that Crumb asked her to come and live with him at his Vista del Paso bungalow; but he did not mention marriage.

      He was standing with a little paper of the white powder in his hand, separating half of it for her, and she was waiting impatiently for it.

      “Well?” he asked.

      “Well, what?”

      “Are you coming over to live with me?” he demanded.

      “Without being married?” she asked.

      She was surprised that the idea no longer seemed horrible. Her eyes and her mind were on the little white powder that the man held in his hand.

      Crumb laughed.

      “Quit your kidding,” he said. “You know perfectly well that I can’t marry you yet. I have a wife in San Francisco.”

      She did not know it perfectly well — she did not know it at all; yet it did not seem to matter so very much. A month ago, she would have caressed a rattlesnake as willingly as she would have permitted a married man to make love to her; but now, she could listen to a plea from one who wished her to come and live with him without experiencing any numbing sense of outraged decency.

      Of course, she had no intention of doing what he asked; but, really, the matter was of negligible import — the thing in which she was most concerned was the little white powder. She held out her hand for it, but he drew it away.

      “Answer me first,” he said. “Are you going to be sensible or not?”

      “You mean that you won’t give it to me if I won’t come?” she asked.

      “That’s precisely what I mean,” he replied. “What do you think I am, anyway? Do you know what this bundle of ‘C’ stands me? Two-fifty, and you’ve been snuffing about three of ‘em a day. What kind of a sucker do you think I am?”

      Her eyes, still upon the white powder, narrowed.

      “I’ll come,” she whispered. “Give it to me!”

      She went to the bungalow with him that day, and she learned where he kept the little white powders hidden in the bathroom. After dinner, she put on her hat and her fur and took up her vanity case while Crumb was busy in another room. Then, opening the front door, she called:

      “Goodbye!”

      Crumb rushed into the living room. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

      “Home,” she replied.

      “No, you’re not!” he cried. “You promised to stay here.”

      “I promised to come,” she corrected him. “I never promised to stay, and I never shall until you are divorced, and we are married.”

      “You’ll come back,” he sneered, “when you want another shot of snow!”

      “Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “I guess I can buy aspirin at any drug store as well as you.”

      Crumb laughed aloud.

      “You little fool, you!” he cried derisively. “Aspirin! Why, it’s cocaine you’re snuffing, and you’re snuffing about three grains of it a day!”

      For an instant a look of horror filled her widened eyes.

      “You beast!” she cried. “You unspeakable beast!”

      Slamming the door behind her, she almost ran down the narrow walk and disappeared in the shadows of the palm trees that bordered the ill-lighted street.

      The man did not follow her. He only stood there laughing, for he knew that she would come back. Craftily, he had enmeshed her. It had taken months, and never had quarry been more wary or difficult to trap. A single false step earlier in the game would have frightened

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