Bijou Follies - Top of the Bill

Power

They neither force nor avoid the subject of his imminent departure. Above all, they don't dramatize it. Mostly, according to Annabella, they talk silly things about it. As for instance: "How long will it be before you begin to miss me?"
   "Half an hour."
   "You are very gallant. Now I will tell you what I think. I think that for one month the excitement of new things will be stronger than anything else. But after one month I hope you will begin to feel not so good."
   Or he tells her of an encounter with some studio wit. "You're going into the Marines?"
   "Yes."
   "You know you're a coward, don't you? Anyone who quits Twentieth Century-Fox for the Marines is a coward."

carrying on . . .
   Which makes Annabella the brave one, since she went back to work at the same studio. During the years of her marriage, she's appeared on the stage but not in the movies. This was by no set purpose. There's never been any question between her and Ty of marriage or career. They're both too well-balanced. Had the right screen part come along she would've taken it.
   Things happen, she thinks, always at the right moment. It just happened that soon after Ty enlisted, they asked her to do "Secret Mission," a story she liked, in which she plays a French girl in the Paris of today. Before, she would have done it for fun. Now she does it because to be busy helps, but, too, because the money is important.
  She wants so much to be able to keep their house. "If only for that, the work would be worthwhile. Because our home, it is our life. Even if I am alone in it, he is there in a way. And for him, when the war is over, it will be good to come back to our lovely, happy house. He will be tired of having an awfully little bed in an awfully little corner."
  The one thing she won't do is sign a long-term contract. Because imagine he goes to some other place, and he has a week's furlough -- she must be free to go to him -- maybe it would be for the last time before he sails far away. No picture, no money in the world would be worth her freedom of movement then. No, not even the house.

But that's tomorrow. She'd rather talk of today. And today she thinks it's comical that, in his pictures, Tyrone has worn every uniform but never the uniform of the Marines. So she doesn't even know what her husband will look like.
"But I have an idea," she informs you gravely, while her eyes shine. "Not to brag, being the wife, still, I have an idea that Tyrone will look --- not too bad."