The story was a tawdry, meaningless thing
about the adventures of two men who had stolen a diamond cross--a
strange world into which to come to find Howie. Chance had caught him
into it--he was one of the people passing along a street which was being
taken for the picture. His moment was prolonged by his stopping to do
the kind of thing Howie would do, and now it was as if that one moment
was the only thing saved out of Howie's life. They who made the picture
had apparently seen that the moment was worth keeping--they left it as a
part of the stream of life that was going by while the detective of
their story waited for the men for whom he had laid a trap. The story
itself had little relation to real things--yet chance made it this
vehicle for keeping something of the reality that had been Howie--a
disclosing moment captured unawares.
She was thinking of the strangeness of all this when again the people
seated back of her said a thing that came right to her. They were saying
"scrap-heap." She knew--before she knew why--that this had something to
do with her. Then she found that they were talking about this film. It
was ready for the scrap-heap. It was on its last legs. They laughed and
said perhaps they were seeing its "last appearance."
She tried to understand what it meant.
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