Beyond The Rocks: A Love Story Read online

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  _Beyond the Rocks_

  Rodolph Valentino, as Lord Bracondale and Elinor Glyn,the author.]

  _Beyond the Rocks

  A Love Story

  by

  Elinor Glyn

  Author of"Three Weeks"

  With illustrationsFrom the Paramount Photo-Play

  Produced byFamous Players-Lasky Corp.

  starringGloria Swanson with Rodolph Valentino

  New YorkThe Macaulay Company_Printed in the U.S.A.

  ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE

  Rodolph Valentino, as Lord Bracondale and Elinor Glyn, theauthor _Frontispiece_

  "She Wondered What Love Was--" 8

  "Once Upon a Time There Was a Fairy Prince and Princess--" 96

  What Could He Say to Her-- 314

  _Beyond the Rocks_

  I

  The hours were composed mostly of dull or rebellious moments during theperiod of Theodora's engagement to Mr. Brown. From the very first shehad thought it hard that she should have had to take this situation,instead of Sarah or Clementine, her elder step-sisters, so much nearerhis age than herself. To do them justice, either of these ladies wouldhave been glad to relieve her of the obligation to become Mrs. Brown,but Mr. Brown thought otherwise.

  A young and beautiful wife was what he bargained for.

  To enter a family composed of three girls--two of the first family, onealmost thirty and a second very plain--a father with a habit ofaccumulating debts and obliged to live at Bruges and inexpensive foreignsea-side towns, required a strong motive; and this Josiah Brown foundin the deliciously rounded, white velvet cheek of Theodora, the thirddaughter, to say nothing of her slender grace, the grace of a youngfawn, and a pair of gentian-blue eyes that said things to people in thefirst glance.

  Poor, foolish, handsome Dominic Fitzgerald, light-hearted, debonairIrish gentleman, gay and gallant on his miserable pension of a brokenand retired Guardsman, had had just sufficient sense to insist uponmagnificent settlements, certainly prompted thereto by Clementine, whoinherited the hard-headedness of the early defunct Scotch mother, aswell as her high cheek-bones. That affair had been a youthful_mesalliance_.

  "You had better see we all gain something by it, papa," she had said."Make the old bore give Theodora a huge allowance, and have it all fixedand settled by law beforehand. She is such a fool about money--just likeyou--she will shower it upon us; and you make him pay you a sum down aswell."

  Captain Fitzgerald fortunately consulted an honest solicitor, and sothings were arranged to the satisfaction of all parties concerned exceptTheodora herself, who found the whole affair far from her taste.

  That one must marry a rich man if one got the chance, to help poor,darling papa, had always been part of her creed, more or less inspiredby papa himself. But when it came to the scratch, and Josiah Brown wasoffered as a husband, Theodora had had to use every bit of her nerve andself-control to prevent herself from refusing.

  She had not seen many men in her nineteen years of out-at-elbows life,but she had imagination, and the one or two peeps at smart old friendsof papa's, landed from stray yachts now and then, at out-of-the-wayFrench watering-places, had given her an ideal far, far removed from thepersonality of Josiah Brown.

  But, as Sarah explained to her, such men could never be husbands. Theymight be lovers, if one was fortunate enough to move in their sphere,but husbands--never! and there was no use Theodora protesting thisviolent devotion to darling papa, if she could not do a small thing likemarrying Josiah Brown for him!

  Theodora's beautiful mother, dead in the first year of her runawaymarriage, had been the daughter of a stiff-necked, unforgiving old earl;she had bequeathed her child, besides these gentian eyes and wonderful,silvery blond hair, a warm, generous heart and a more or less romantictemperament.

  The heart was touched by darling papa's needs, and the romantictemperament revolted by Josiah Brown's personality.

  However, there it was! The marriage took place at the Consulate atDieppe, and a perfectly miserable little bride got into the train forParis, accompanied by a fat, short, prosperous, middle-class Englishhusband, who had accumulated a large fortune in Australia, quite byaccident, in a comparatively few years.

  Josiah Brown was only fifty-two, though his head was bald and his figurefar from slight. He had a liver, a chest, and a temper, and he adoredTheodora.

  Captain Fitzgerald had felt a few qualms when he had wished his littledaughter good-bye on the platform and had seen the blue stars swimmingwith tears. The two daughters left to him were so plain, and he hatedplain people about him; but, on the other hand, women must marry, andwhat chance had he, poor, unlucky devil, of establishing his Theodorabetter in life?

  Josiah Brown was a good fellow, and he, Dominic Fitzgerald, had for thefirst time for many years a comfortable balance at his bankers, andcould run up to Paris himself in a few days, and who knows, the Americanwidow, fabulously rich--Jane Anastasia McBride--might take himseriously!

  Captain Dominic Fitzgerald was irresistible, and had that fortunateknack of looking like a gentleman in the oldest clothes. If married forthe third time--but this time prosperously, to a fabulously richAmerican--his well-born relations would once more welcome him with openarms, he felt sure, and visions of the best pheasant shoots at oldBeechleigh, and partridge drives at Rothering Castle floated before hiseyes, quite obscuring the fading smoke of the Paris train.

  "A pretty tough, dull affair marriage," he said to himself, remindedonce more of Theodora by treading on a white rose in the station. "Hopeto Heavens Sarah prepared her for it a bit." Then he got into a _fiacre_and drove to the hotel, where he and the two remaining Misses Fitzgeraldwere living in the style of their forefathers.

  Josiah Brown's valet, Mr. Toplington, who knew the world, had engagedrooms for the happy couple at the Grand Hotel. "We'll go to the Ritz onour way back," he decided, "but at first, in case there's scenes andtears, it's better to be a number than a name." Mademoiselle Henriette,the freshly engaged French maid, quite agreed with him. The Grand, shesaid, was "_plus convenable pour une lune de Miel_--" Lune de Miel!