I recall that once I attempted to talk to him about a certain picture of his. “You were splendid in that scene,” I began. “Glad you liked it,” he interposed politely but carelessly. And then, his eyes glowing at the approach of a really significant subject, he asked, “Have you seen Mary’s new picture yet?” I shook my head. He looked at me almost reproachfully. “Oh, it’s great--best thing she’s ever done!” Feebly I tried to turn back the conversation into its original channel. “You certainly were great in that scene with the----” “Oh, yes, but Mary,” he interrupted again; “my how that girl does know how! She has the sure instinct.” Et cetera, et cetera. Regarding his wife’s superior talents, Fairbanks is as consistently uplifted as a wall-motto. He is no less sensible of those attributes of hers which are not directly connected with the screen. “Mary has so much common sense, hasn’t she?”--friends of the celebrated pair have heard Doug say this time and again. As to Mary, I have already stated my certainty that Douglas Fairbanks represents the great romance of her life. To see her with him is to see Mary at her best. She never calls him “Doug”--indeed, I have an idea she doesn’t much like to hear his name thus shorn by other people--and somehow into her utterance of that “Douglas” you find, no matter how casual the speech, the way she really feels about him. Mary Pickford, according to her most intimate friends, fell in love with Douglas Fairbanks the first time she saw him--fell in love in terms on which she had never known it. As years have gone by this first mad infatuation has been directed by real understanding, by the closeness of their professional interests--most of all by a solemn gratitude on her part for the care with which he so constantly surrounds her. Only last October when Douglas and Mary came on to New York for the openings of their latest pictures I had dinner with the two. “Mary,” said I when for a moment Fairbanks left us together, “you’re looking wonderful. It seems to me you are ten years younger than when I last saw you.” “Yes,” replied she, “and it’s all due to Douglas. He’s as wonderful a husband as he is an actor. Always, always, his first thought is of me and you know what that means to me.” I did know. I remembered the gallant battling little figure of Famous Players days, of how she had always protected others--her mother and her family--and I was touched by the thought that now this great gift of protecting love was hers. When I first met Mary she was married to Owen Moore. Regarding this marriage, Mack Sennett has told me an interesting story.