Conducting them through the building by way of a panelled entrance hall, Summerlad explained that the stages were temporarily idle, due to the fact that photography on two productions in process had recently been finished and their casts disbanded, only the directors and their staffs remaining to cut and title the films; while the production in which Summerlad was to play the lead was as yet not ready for the cameras.
The working premises lay behind the administration building. But here again Lucinda noted few points of close resemblance to the Culp studios. A field several acres in extent, about half in turf, was surrounded by a sizeable village of glass-roofed stages and structures housing the technical and mechanical departments—a laboratory, a costumier's, property, carpenter and scene-painting shops, directors' offices, dressing, projection and cutting-rooms, a garage, sheds to shelter motor-cars and trucks by the score, stables, a small menagerie, a huge tank for "water stuff," a monolithic fire-proof vault of cement for the storage of film.
Due in great measure to temporary suspension of active camera-work, the place seemed very peaceful and pervaded by an atmosphere of orderliness and efficiency. There were no actors wasting time about the grounds, no sets occupied the huge enclosed stages, the men at work in the several departments seemed all to be busy.
"Well, Mrs. Lee: what do you think of a California studio? Not much like what you've seen back East, eh?"
Lucinda shook her head, and smiled. "I am enchanted with this country," she said; "if what I've seen of it this afternoon is any criterion, I'm afraid it's going to be hard to go away from...."
"You haven't begun to see it yet." Summerlad declared. "Wait till we've had a few motor trips."
"As for your studio, it is most marvellous to me. If they're all like this, I don't wonder people are mad to act in motion-pictures. If Mr. Culp had promised me anything like this, I don't believe I should have had the courage to refuse."
"It's not too late to change your mind, Mrs. Lee," Lontaine suggested. "In fact, if I thought there was any hope you would, I'd go down on my knees to you. Oh, not to act for Culp, but for me; or rather, for yourself, as the head and the star of your own company. No: I'm serious. I've been talking with several people today who want me to try producing out here. I can get unlimited capital to back me. This country today is crying for better pictures—and I know how to make them. I can bring to the American cinema the one thing it needs, a thorough knowledge of European methods. Only one thing makes me hesitate, the lack of a suitable star. All the people of real ability seem to be tied up under long-term contracts. I may lose months looking for the right actress unless you——"
"Why pick on me?" Lucinda laughed. "I'm not even an actress."
"Ah! you forgot I've seen you prove on the screen what you can do. You don't know yourself, Mrs. Lee. There isn't a woman in the country can touch you, if you'll take your ability seriously. You need only two things to make you great, a good director, and self-confidence."
"Aren't you running a great risk, making such flattering overtures to an untried, unknown amateur?"
"Don't worry about me. If I had any hope of being able to persuade you to try it on, I'd tell you to name your own terms, and shoulder the risk without a murmur."
Lontaine's earnestness was so real that one might no longer meet his arguments with levity. There was a strained look of anxiety in the blue eyes, a restrained passion of pleading in the ordinarily languid accents. Or else Lucinda fancied these things.
But a sidelong glance showed that Fanny, too, was apparently hanging between hope and fear....
And a thought revived that had once or twice before presented itself, a suspicion that all was not as well as one might wish with the state of the Lontaine fortunes, strengthening the surmise that Lucinda's decision meant more to them both than Lontaine had confessed.
Still one hesitated to believe....
"But you can't be serious! Do you really want me to become a movie actress under your management?"
"You can't think of anything I wouldn't do to persuade you."
"Why not, Mrs. Lee?" Summerlad urged. "It would be great fun for you, and you can't fail, you can't lose anything. If you only knew how inferior most stars are to you in every way...."
"And if you should fail, Cindy," Fanny chimed in—"what does it matter? Who would know? It wouldn't be you, it would be Lucinda Lee."
"No," Lontaine insisted: "I've got a better screen name than that for her. Not Lucinda: Linda Lee."
"Come, Mrs. Lee: say you'll try it on, if only for the lark of it."
"If I should, Mr. Summerlad, it wouldn't be for fun."
"So much the better."
"Then you will?" Lontaine persisted. "Do say yes."
"Let me think...."
And why not? Lucinda asked herself. She was alone in the world, lonely but for these good friends who needed her help, or seemed to. It would be good fun, it would be interesting, it would satisfy a need of which she had been discontentedly aware even in the days when she had yet to dream of leaving Bel. And—even as Fanny had argued—if she should fail and have to give it up, who would care what had become of "Linda Lee"?
"Very well," she said at length, with an uncertain smile—"suppose we try."
"To tomorrow's morning star of the screen, Linda Lee!"
Thus Lynn Summerlad, mildly exalted, graceful and gracious even beyond his studied habit, flourishing a glass of California champagne above the dinner table in his bungalow in Beverly Hills.
The toast went by acclamation, and Lucinda laughed, at once gratified, diverted, and disposed to deprecate the spirit of these felicitations as premature.
It all seemed rather ridiculous, when one stopped to think, this taking for granted the success of a venture projected so lately, by no strain of imagination to be considered as already launched, and based wholly upon the postulation that the greenest of novices might by some sorcery of the cinema be ripened overnight into a genius of sorts.
A phrase of Culp's recurred unbidden: "A lot of kids, that's what we got to make pitchers with, a lot of kids."
It was childish, in a way; on the other hand, it was undeniably pleasant to think of oneself as one was being tempted to, as a sort of Sleeping Beauty of the screen only waiting to be awakened to vivid life by one wave of the witching wand of courage and self-confidence; pleasant to let oneself go and believe such things might be.
Nor was this difficult. Whether it resulted from the catching enthusiasm of her company, or from self-reliance new-born of her success in doing without Bellamy, or whether it were the glamour of this romantic land, where man since time out of memory had been accustomed to see his maddest dreams come true, certain it was that there seemed nothing essentially improbable in the assumption that "Linda Lee," could figure if she would as "tomorrow's morning star of the screen."
One had only to listen to the gossip of Lontaine and Summerlad to appreciate that stranger things had happened in the history of motion-pictures. Nothing, indeed, was conceivably more strange than that same history, more fantastic and incredible than the record of its growth, almost within the span of a single decade, from the status of a toy to that of an institution forming an inseparable part of the fabric of life, taking its toll of the humblest, and throning and dethroning kings of finance with the impersonal ruthlessness of an elemental force.
One of the greatest of the producing organizations, whose studios covered whole blocks of the heart of Hollywood, had had its beginnings in a trifling story photographed under a big sun-umbrella in a vacant lot. Its most formidable rival, with which it had ultimately amalgamated, had been first financed with the mean savings of a fur-cutter from the lower East Side of New York. Men whose abilities had proved inadequate to command steady employment at fifty dollars a week in the legitimate theatre were drawing a daily wage of five hundred dollars as directors of motion-pictures. The one-time pantomime comedian of an English company presenting a knockabout vaudeville act had made himself a multi-millionaire through clowning before a camera. Young men whose dramatic equipment was limited to the knowledge of how to show their teeth and slick their hair, young women who had walked into favour on the strength of their noble underpinning alone, were selling their services to the cinema under contracts running for terms of years at five thousand dollars a week; and you could take it from Mr. Summerlad that most of these had come to Los Angeles with not more than one dollar to click against another.
"Why, look at me," he invited in an expansive moment: "never had earned a dollar in my life. Didn't have to, you know: folks had a little money. Six years ago my little sister caught a bad cold and the doctor prescribed a Winter in California. Mother and I brought her out and rented a bungalow in the foothills, up back of the Hollywood Hotel. One day while I was wandering about I saw a car-load of people in paint and evening clothes stop in front of a house with good-looking grounds. I stopped, too. So did others; quite a crowd collected while they were setting up the camera. Presently a little fellow in riding-breeches, with an eyeshade, a shock of red hair, and more freckles than anybody ever saw on a human map before or since, came weaving through the crowd as if he was looking for somebody. When he saw me, he stopped and said: 'You'll do. Got a dress suit?' I laughed and said I had. He took out a little book, wrote down my name and address and said: 'Studio tomorrow morning at eight, made up. We'll need you about three days. Five a day.' Then he hustled on. I went home and told my mother and sister the joke. They egged me on to try it for the fun of it. Within two months I was on the payroll at a hundred a week, and now...."
Summerlad flashed an apologetic smile. "One of the worst faults we movie actors have, Mrs. Lee, is talking big about our salaries. So I wont say any more than this: outside the Big Four—Mary and Doug and Charlie and Bill Hart—there's mighty few that drag down as much green money a week as I do."
"I'm glad to absolve you of the sin of boasting, Mr. Summerlad."
"I suppose that did sound funny; but then, you see, Iama movie actor, I don't pretend to be better than the rest of us.... You wouldn't guess who that director was—assistant director he was then—who gave me my first engagement: Barry Nolan!"
The name was apparently known to Lontaine, for he exclaimed "You don't mean it!" as if no more exciting information had come to his ears in many days.
"The man I've got in mind to direct you in your first picture, Mrs. Lee; that is, if you can get hold of Barry. You couldn't do better, but his salary's ee-normous. He's working down in Culver City now, and I don't know how long his contract runs, but you might be lucky enough to make a deal of some sort. I'd give him a ring and find out for you, but I happen to know Barry's got a party on at Sunset tonight. We might jump into my machine and blow down there, if you like."
"There's no hurry, Mr. Summerlad. Remember, Mr. Lontaine hasn't taken the first step toward forming a company yet; he isn't in a position to make Mr. Nolan any definite offer."
"Well, but I'd hate to have you lose a chance. Barry's a wonder. Even Griffith takes a back seat when Barry Nolan picks up the megaphone. And there isn't anything I wouldn't do for him. Lord! how he worked to break me in."
Summerlad sighed, reminiscent. "Them was the happy days. We worked hard for little money, but we had a good time and a healthy one, out in the open air practically all day long. Light effects were then just beginning to be discussed; I don't believe two studios on the Coast had enclosed stages. Generally speaking, all our work was done either on location or on open stages under diffusers."
Lucinda repeated the last word with an enquiring inflexion, and Summerlad explained.
"You see, in those days we had to depend on the sun to light our interior sets, and direct exposure meant hard contrasts of light and shadow that didn't look natural. So we stretched great sheets of thin cloth on wire frames overhead, and they broke up the sun's rays and diffused an even glow all over the sets. But of course that restricted us to overhead lighting for all interiors, and that was monotonous and unnatural besides, because ordinary rooms aren't lighted from the ceiling. And my! but it used to be cosy, working under diffusers on a summer's day!"
"But if you depended on the sun so exclusively," Fanny wanted to know, "what did you do in the rainy season?"
"Loafed, that's all: just loafed. There wasn't anything else to do but loaf around and watch the sky for signs of a break and tell each other how good we were. That was another reason why artificial lighting had to come; it cost too much to carry studio overheads with all production at a standstill during a rainy season that would maybe last five months, or a heavy production payroll when often the rain would stop camera-work for five days on end, and you never could count on two clear days together. So, one after another, the big studios began to build enclosed stages and work more and more by Kliegs and Cooper-Hewitts, till at last—well, today the open stage is almost a thing of the past, and acting for the camera isn't the good fun it used to be—kenneled all day long on a sweltering stage, and the lights getting your eyes like they do. Sometimes, after a spell of work on interiors, I'm as good as blind for a week.... Funny to think—isn't it?—the California studios are using artificial light almost exclusively, except of course for location work, when what brought them out here was steady sunlight that didn't cost anything seven or nine months out of each year."
"But if there is no longer any real reason, such as the economy of sunlight, why do the producers stop on here?"
"Because they took root in Los Angeles in the early days, before people had forgotten that principles of ordinary economy might be applied to making pictures, and what took root grew, till today there are hundreds of millions invested in picture plants here. Also because all the picture people have dug in around the plants. Nearly every good actor has his permanent home here, likewise most of the bad ones; and those who do get a job in the East hurry back as soon as they finish up, so as not to be among the missing if they're wanted for another job. You can cast almost any picture perfectly in a few days in Hollywood, whereas any place else, except maybe New York, it would take weeks to locate your people and bring them together, and there'd be transportation to pay for into the bargain."
Lontaine interposed a question of a technical nature, and as Summerlad answered him at length, Lucinda's attention wandered, she began to think more about the speaker, less about what he was saying. Undeniably a most satisfying creature, at least to look at. Bending over the table, his face glowing as he illustrated his meaning with an animated play of hands: though his words were all for Lontaine. Summerlad's consciousness was constant to Lucinda, his quick eyes were forever seeking hers.... Hard hit and making no secret of it.
Not that it mattered, more than for the good it did one's self-esteem to be respectfully if openly adored by a personable young man whom one found agreeable. Vanity had been sorely sprung by Bellamy's sacrifice of his wife's love to his appetite for the cheap excitement of flirting with women of cheap emotions. His pursuit of her Lucinda valued at no more than one last effort to salve the hurt her desertion of him had dealt to his vanity. Neither had Daubeney's devotion meant a great deal: being something too familiar through old acquaintance not to be misprized. It had needed some such new conquest as this to make Lucinda think well of herself again; this at least proved her charms not yet passée. Reassurance for which she was disproportionately grateful; and gratitude is commonly the most demoralizing of vices.
Lucinda inclined to approve the style in which Summerlad maintained himself. The bungalow, secluded in wide and well-kempt grounds, might have served as the warm-weather retreat of a Grand Duke. And if there was a suspicion of rule-of-thumb in some of its effects, at least it could be said that Summerlad had shown sound judgment in selecting an interior decorator of sound taste.
The dinner had been well cooked and served by a deft Japanese. As it neared its close a more cheerful partie carrée would have been far to seek. Indeed, had Lucinda entertained genuine misgivings as to the wisdom of her decision to try her luck on the screen, they must have been compensated by its action on the spirits of her friends. And it couldn't have been anything else, for they had partaken sparingly of the native champagne which, while fair enough of its kind, was nothing to seduce palates educated on London Dry. Yet Fanny's effervescence outvied that of the wine. Lontaine's eyes had lost altogether their tense expression, Summerlad was on his mettle in his dual rôle of host and courtier, Lucinda herself was stirred by a gayety she had too seldom known since the first years of her marriage.
By merely turning her head she could look out through an open casement to a lawn where moonlight like liquid silver slept between mysterious, dense masses of purple shadow. The breath of the night was bland and fragrant. Somewhere at a distance a sentimental orchestra was playing, possibly at the Beverly Hills Hotel. In Chicago the thermometer had shivered in the neighbourhood of zero; New York, according to telegraphic news, was digging out from under a snowfall second only to that of its legendary blizzard.
"I want to purr," Lucinda confessed, finding Summerlad's eyes upon her.
"You're beginning to fall under the spell of California."
"I told you this afternoon I was already sensitive of its enchantment. Tonight, I think, completes its work: I am enslaved."
"I must make the most of these moments, then. Presently we'll both be busy, you in especial far too busy to give me many evenings like this."
"I'm not at all afraid of being doomed to ennui through any lack of ingenuity in you."
"If I'm not mistaken, that's a dare."
"It's as you care to take it."
He accepted with a smile the smiling gage of her eyes. They understood each other perfectly.
When it was time to return to the Alexandria, Summerlad insisted on driving them home himself; and as they drew near to Hollywood swung the car sharply off the highroad, and took a by-way leading into the foothills. In a few minutes more they had left behind every hint of civilization, other than the well-metalled way they travelled, and were climbing a road that wound snakily up precipitous mountainsides, threaded unholy gulches, or struck boldly across spine-like ridges from which the ground, clothed in chaparral, fell dizzily away on either hand into black gulfs of silence. The air grew colder, Lucinda and the Lontaines grateful for the wraps which Summerlad had pressed upon them. In the course of half an hour the car halted on an isolate peak, and all the lowlands lay unfolded to their vision, from the foothills to the sea, a land like a violet pool with a myriad winking facets of blue-white light; as some vast store of diamonds might be strewn by hands of heedless prodigality upon a dark velvet field.
Pointing, Summerlad began to recite the names of places represented by lines and groups of lights: Hollywood at their feet, the Wilshire district with Los Angeles beyond, Culver City, Pasadena away to the left, Santa Monica far to the right, Venice, Del Rey, Redondo.... "The kingdoms of the world you're come to conquer, Mrs. Lee."
"I shan't say 'Get thee behind me,'" Lucinda retorted; "I've a sensible notion you're safer where I can keep an eye on you."
It was true enough that the facile infatuation which California inspires in the uninitiate already held her senses in fee; she felt as one might who had miraculously found the way to cross the far horizon and go down into the magic realms of true romance.
But she fell asleep that night to dream of coursing a will-o'-the-wisp through a land whose painted illusion failed and faded as she fled, till in the end there was no more beauty, nor happiness nor hope, but only the bare grin of the desert savage and implacable.
She started awake with her husband's name trembling on her lips.
The room the Lontaines occupied in the Alexandria adjoined Lucinda's, and while she was lazing over breakfast and trying to find her way about in newspapers whose screaming local patriotism made one feel vaguely ashamed of having been born elsewhere, Fanny tapped on the communicating door and drifted in, en négligé, with a cigarette and an airy nonchalance oddly at war with a problematic shadow that lurked in her eyes.
"My amiable first husband," she announced, "has charged me to arrange for an audience at your convenience."
"As soon as you like," Lucinda laughed—"I mean, give me time to crawl into some clothes."
"Sure you don't mind?—and the day so immature!"
"Not a bit. In fact, I've been thinking, if we're really going through with this lunatic adventure, the less time we lose the better."
"If!" Fanny caught the word up quickly. "Does that mean you want to reconsider?"
"No, dear; merely that I've been wondering, ever since I woke up, whether the night might not have brought your husband perhaps wiser counsel."
"So much depends upon what you mean by 'wiser.' But if it's a change of heart, I'm in a position to assure you nothing like that has happened to Harry."
"I only meant—between ourselves—I can't think it quite wise of him to risk much on my chances of making good as a movie star."
Fanny achieved a ladylike snort of derision. "Never worry about what Harry risks! Besides, I won't for an instant admit there's any chance of failure, so far as you're concerned, Cindy. But I will admit I'm counting on your common-sense to hold Harry down to earth."
"How do you mean, dear?"
"Oh, it isn't that I question his grasp of business conditions and fundamentals. But he's got such an active mind, he finds it hard to let well enough alone, he's everlastingly embroidering everything he takes an interest in with the most amazing arabesques. Let him run wild, and by nightfall he'll have the motion-picture industry of the United States pooled under one Napoleonic directing head, whose identity I leave you to surmise—and all on the basis of his undertaking to shape the film destinies of Linda Lee. And he'll draw diagrams and produce figures to prove what he predicts can't fail to come true, he'll even name the date of the coming millenium in the Lontaine fortunes. So somebody's got to keep a check on the accelerator, and I'm incompetent, I don't know the first thing about business, and I'm looking to you."
"Afraid you're leaning on a broken reed, my dear."
"Don't believe it. You're so wonderfully level-headed about things, Cindy, I have implicit confidence in you. Now this morning Harry has waked up with his poor dear bean more than usually addled with gorgeous schemes, and says he wants to consult you. What he really wants is your unconditional approval of everything he has to propose. It's only fair to warn you, any other attitude will prove inacceptable in the extreme. That's what Harry calls 'talking business.' So do be wise as well as kind."
"I'll try," Lucinda promised.
Considered in the light of this semi-serious warning, all that Lontaine had to lay before her seemed almost disappointingly conservative. But perhaps he was more subtile than Fanny knew. Uncommonly grave and intent when he presented himself for the conference, in business-like fashion he went at once to the heart of things.
"I've been thinking it over all night," he assured Lucinda seriously, as she and Fanny settled to give him attention, "and it seems to me I ought to let you know more specifically what you're letting yourself in for, before I ask you to hold yourself pledged."
"That sounds suspiciously like preparation for letting me down easily."
"Please don't think that." There was a convincing glint of alarm in Lontaine's look. "Never more enthusiastic, more sure of anything than I am of your eventual success. But it's going to mean hard work for both of us, slavery for many months, and hindrances may crop up we ought to be prepared against."
"I shan't mind hard work," Lucinda replied. "In fact, I can't think of anything that I'd find more agreeable than consciousness of at least trying to do something worth while with my life. As for disappointments, I don't expect much, so I can't be very hard hit if everything doesn't turn out as happily as one might wish."
"If that spirit won't win for us, nothing will," Lontaine declared. "Now for a tentative programme.... Our first step, naturally, will be to incorporate. And since it seems to be the fashion on this side, and our corporate name will serve as a trade-mark, I venture to suggest 'Linda Lee Inc.'"
"One name is as good as another, don't you think?"
"Good. Call that settled. Then as to finances. Going on my own judgment and observation, I'm all for a small capitalization, just enough to give us working capital with a fair margin to insure against loss of time."
"I don't think I understand."
"Well, it's like this: My study of American studio conditions has satisfied me that production costs this side are normally excessive. Of course, allowance must be made for exaggeration; it seems to be a custom of the trade for the producer to multiply several times his actual outlay on a picture and broadside the result as if dollars made pictures and not brains. But I happen to know the average cost of a well-made picture today is between eighty and a hundred and twenty thousand—too much by half."
"Mr. Culp's secretary told me Alma Daley's pictures cost between a hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand each."
"If so, Ben Culp is throwing money away through ignorance or bad management or indifference. The returns are so tremendous from a really good picture, or almost any picture with a popular star, nowadays, the cinema financier can count on getting his money back and as much more in the first year of a picture's life and still have a going property, one that will bring in clear profits for a couple of years to come. So he isn't much inclined to worry about costs. Then again, in the big organizations, production costs are inflated by heavy overhead charges."
"I haven't the faintest idea what that means."
"Overhead means a proportionate charge against each production of the cost of maintaining the entire organization, including all expenses, many of which have nothing to do with the actual making of pictures. In a small organization, such as ours will be, overhead will be cut to the bone. We can make as good pictures as anybody at an average cost of not more than fifty thousand dollars; with care and ingenuity, once we get going, we'll be able to pare that down considerably. But say a picture does cost fifty thousand, its gross earnings, the first year, should be two-hundred and fifty thousand. Of that the producer gets sixty-five per cent., in round figures a hundred and sixty-five thousand. We ought to turn out not less than four pictures a year, which will mean at least four-hundred and fifty thousand clear profit to be split up between the star, the executive, and the capitalists."
"It sounds like a fairy tale."
"Itisa fairy tale—come true in real life. Nothing else could account for the present-day tribe of motion-picture millionaires. Some of them have a certain shrewdness, almost all have business cunning of a low order, I daresay a dogged Diogenes could run to earth one or two who are honest, but precious few of them are men of either education, taste, artistic instinct or appreciation."
"But how could such men——?"
"They had imagination enough to see cheap amusement for the masses in what most intelligent people, a dozen years ago, considered merely a mechanical curiosity. So they invested their small savings, these fur-cutters and petty tradesmen and barnstorming actors, in the venture that high finance scorned; and the boom, when it came, found them securely in the saddle. That's why the public gets so much perfunctory and stupid stuff thrown at it today."
"But our pictures aren't going to be in that class—are they?"
"Rather not! We're going to go at this thing in an intelligent way. We'll pick a good staff, select our stories with care, get the best men to write our scenarios, and gather round us a group of actors, like those who have made the Continental cinema what it is today, more interested in their work than in themselves, willing to take their chances of scoring in fine ensemble acting instead of insistent that every story shall be distorted, every scene directed, every picture cut to throw a so-called star into prominence. Even in America such sincere actors exist, and we'll find and bring them together and prove that cinema production can be an art as well as a money-grubbing scheme."
"Bravo! bravo!" Fanny interpolated. "Hark to the dear man! Now if only he'll perform one-half as bravely as he promises——!"
Lontaine flushed a little but paid no other heed. "To get back to the question of capitalization.... Arbitrarily setting fifty thousand as a fair production cost, we'll want at least a hundred and fifty thousand to begin with."
"But surely we won't need a hundred thousand margin for safety?"
"Not for safety—for economy. When we finish our first picture it will be a matter of six months at least before it can be exhibited, before, that is, it will begin to repay its cost. Meantime, we can't afford either to disband our company or hold it together in idleness. We ought to start our second picture the day after we finish the first. Thus we will waste no gestures. And allowing three months to each, we should have our second and third ready by the time the first is released. Do you follow me, Mrs. Druce?"
"I think you're quite right. You said yesterday you had some people ready to furnish the necessary capital?"
"In half an hour I can find half a dozen who'd jump at the chance," Lontaine replied without a quiver. "They don't know you, of course, Mrs. Druce, I mean they don't know Linda Lee and what she's capable of, and naturally they would be inclined to boggle at such a proposition coming from anybody but me. But they do know me, they have faith in my ideals and my practical knowledge of the business, and nothing would please them better than to see their money at work in my hands. The question is: Do we want to take them in? Is it necessary? Is it good business?"
Lucinda shook her head. "I'm sure I don't know," she said, smiling. "Please be patient with my stupidity in money matters."
"I mean to say: With profits of approximately half a million a year in sight, do we want to see the third share that would ordinarily go to capital diverted to the pockets of people who have no interest in our business except as a source of revenue?"
"Can we avoid that?"
"Simply enough, if you care to take the risk. I'll be frank with you and confess I'm not financially in a position to invest in the business myself. But if you should decide to back yourself, use your own money to finance Linda Lee Inc. you would ultimately receive two-thirds of the profits instead of the one you'd be entitled to as the star. And no outsider would have anything to say about the way we conduct our own business."
"I don't think I care about that," Lucinda observed thoughtfully. "But it does appeal to me, the idea that if I use my own money nobody but myself can suffer if we're making a mistake."
"Then—you will find the capital yourself, Mrs. Druce?"
"I think I can manage it without too much trouble."
Lontaine sighed quietly and relaxed. The contented glow of last night crept back into his eyes. He produced his cigarette-case, and began to smoke in luxurious puffs.
"Need there be any trouble?"
"I'm only wondering what Harford Willis will say." Lucinda laughed quietly. She could imagine the horror that would overspread the carven countenance of the gentleman of the old school when he learned that she meant to add the unpardonable solecism of play-acting to the heinous but after all fashionable estate of divorcée. "An old friend of my father's who looks after my estate," she explained to Lontaine's echo of the name. "He thinks I've disgraced myself as it is. When I tell him what more I mean to do, I'm sure he'll think I'm damned beyond redemption—socially, at all events."
"Need he know?"
"I'm afraid so. I don't believe I've got a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on deposit altogether. You see, most of my income is reinvested promptly as it comes in, leaving only enough to meet my usual, everyday expenses."
"Surely you can fob him off with some excuse, Mrs. Druce." Lontaine was frowning at the carpet. "Of course, you understand, I'm only thinking of your peace of mind."
"I'll think it over. But whether he likes it or not, we'll go ahead as we've planned. And as for money to get started with, I'm sure I can put something over fifty thousand at your command."
"Famous!" Lontaine's brow cleared instantly. "I may call on you for a cheque in a day or two, for preliminary expenses, a retainer for our lawyers, incorporation fees, and the like, you know."
"That brings up a question that bothers me," Lucinda confessed. "You see, my cheques will be signed Lucinda Druce, and I don't like to risk my incognita as Linda Lee. I don't want Bellamy to find out where I am—and I don't want anybody else to know but the three of us—and Mr. Summerlad, I'd almost forgotten he knew—unless I really do succeed."
"Nothing to fret about," Lontaine declared. "Simply make your cheques payable to me. I'll open an account with a local bank in my name first, and transfer it to the account of Linda Lee Inc. as soon as we incorporate."
Lucinda at about this time began to know imitations of a psychic phenomenon working within herself for which she could find no better name than that of multiple personality. She was well aware that she didn't mean by this precisely what the term would have connoted to the mind of a psychoanalyst, but it was as near as she was able to come to a description of the disconcerting performances of the several Lucindas who seemed to tenant her by turns and be forever warring for the right to rule her daily actions and form her final destiny.
Figuring her soul in the likeness of a ship at sea, her sensations much resembled those which might conceivably inform a passenger watching half a dozen captains who were continually elbowing one another aside and taking command and steering each a quite new course of individual preference; with the inevitable result that a chart of any one day's run must have closely counterfeited the trackings of a fly that had crawled out of an ink-pot upon a fair white sheet of paper.
Most puzzling circumstance of all, the one true captain seemed to be standing apart throughout and observing the antics of these upstart understudies with considerable interest, not a little wonder, and some alarm.
Certain it was that she had ceased to be the single-minded and straightforward young woman she had been accustomed to think herself, a creature moulded in an uncompromising cliché of caste and moving through life upon lines definitely laid down, thinking only the thoughts, uttering only the formulæ, describing only the motions, experiencing only the sentiments and sensations considered suitable to one of her condition.
One act of mutiny had made an end to that one's reign and left an empty throne to be contested by this odd crew of usurpers, who were so many and so various, and in general so vaguely defined, that they defied cataloguing; though a few there were who by virtue of pronounced idiosyncrasy came to be recognized familiars.
There was one clear of vision, unillusioned even unto cynicism, but honourable, straight-spoken and fair-dealing, at once proud and unpretending, who was mostly in evidence in her hours of social life with the Lontaines, as distinguished from the time she spent with them in the way of business. This was Mrs. Bellamy Druce of her equivocal phase, who had ceased to be a wife and had yet to become unwedded: a woman worldly-wise and a trifle weary, but warm of heart, tolerant, and companionable.
Then there was Linda Lee, the rather excited and ambitious young thing who was all the while flying hither and yon in motor-cars, making curious acquaintances by the score, simulating an intelligent interest in affairs, legal matters, comparative merits of different studio accommodations, cost of equipment, salaries of employees, all those questions upon which Lontaine did her the honour of consulting her, knowing full well that she was fully satisfied as to his competence and incredulous of her own, and would faithfully endorse any course he might take or recommend. The first function of Miss Lee's office in the scheme was apparently that of drawing cheques. She led a busy life.... It was also anything but an uninteresting one, though Miss Lee often wondered what it was all about and how she had come to be in it and sometimes felt that she was no better than a poor impostor and doomed in due course to be disgracefully shown up.
Another was a rare, shy visitant, never viewed by mortal eyes, who held dominion only in the dead hours of these nights when Lucinda lay wakeful and lonely, feeling lost without that which for so long had seemed an essential part of life, Bel's love and the dearness of him. A pathetic spirit, prone to tears and sighs and bitter self-reproachings. But when morning came, this one had always retreated to the outermost marches of memory, where she lingered, looking back a little wistfully, a timid wraith with pleading eyes, tenuous and evanescent as the souvenir of some caress long perished.
Again one was aware of a Lucinda who, abhorring the vacuum of empty hours, committed the maddest extravagance and fairly ran amok in shops, buying right and left with a recklessness that soon made her unawares the axis of a gale of whispers; in this manner dissipating a minor fortune before her first month in Los Angeles had run out.
Lamentably there was a Lucinda who did not scruple to resort to the shabbiest shifts to compass her ends; who, for example, without one qualm of conscience wrote to Harford Willis that, having been influenced to delay proceeding to Reno, she had fallen under the spell of Southern California, thought seriously of making it her future home, and would be glad if he would turn her certain investments into ready cash against the contingency of her deciding to purchase some princely property.
Last of all the major company of these lately apprehended Lucindas was the woman emotionally malcontent, newly fallen out of love but none the less still in love with love, who with eyes now amused, now indulgent, now shocked or startled, saw herself slowly and reluctantly but surely weakening to the wooing of Lynn Summerlad.
In a way the thing seemed fated. She knew nobody else, aside from the Lontaines. She was meeting people daily, of course, but not on terms to warrant any but the most commonplace civilities: men of affairs who reasonably reckoned her a pretty nonentity and concentrated on Lontaine as the person with money to spend; now and again some minor celebrity of the cinema colony, who, if male, would find some means to let her know she wouldn't be too ill treated should she succumb, or if female, would both envy and resent her inimitable chic, and at the same time put her in a place as a mere amateur who mustn't expect too much.
When she came to look back at those days, Lucinda saw herself as one always on the go with the Lontaines and Summerlad in his spectacular motor-car: pelting headlong for some objective leagues away, Riverside for luncheon at the Mission Inn, San Diego for a week-end, Santa Barbara for the drive along the magnificent Coastal Highway, or any other of two-score remote play-grounds; going out of an evening to one of the local restaurants, Victor Hugo's for its good food and urbane service, Marcelle's for dancing and its dumbfoundering scheme of decorations, Sunset Inn for the lark of it and the people one saw, the Ship for its wild traditions, or to some lost place in the labyrinth of strange streets below South Main, to which Summerlad alone knew the way, where one might get food purely exotic in character, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese; or (and this was part of the programme of nearly every night) braving the bill-of-fare at one or another of the city theatres or their arrogant rivals, the sumptuous cinemas.
In the course of that first month Lucinda sat through more photoplays than she had ever seen before, interested even when, as all too often, they were overweeningly ambitious of intention and sorry in execution; determined to read their riddle and learn what Summerlad and Lontaine were talking about when they argued in the jargon of the studios.... But it was really the audiences that thronged these thundering temples of the silent drama that fascinated her, audiences of a texture inexplicably strange to Eastern eyes, like the street crowds from which they were drawn, so dense and constant that one was tempted to believe the people of Los Angeles never went home except to sleep.
Such torrents of motor vehicles brawled through the city channels, the only wonder was that anybody ever walked. Yet it was seldom Lucinda's fortune to view the sidewalks in the heart of town when they were not aswarm with moving masses of the most heterogeneous composition, shuffling, staring, oddly taciturn.
The great body of these seemed to be sober-sided souls in steady circumstances; a bourgeoisie smug and semi-shabby, ignorant of its past, heedless of its future, largely unconcerned with its present; self-dedicated to existences as uninteresting and useful as a cow's. Summerlad cursed it with a local aphorism to the sense that Los Angeles was governed by small-town people from the Middle West who had come to California each with one lung and one dollar and a grim determination to hang onto both to the bitter end.
Infiltrating this primary element was one alien to it but comprehending also figures that might have served for a pageant of North American history, figures many of them like old wood-cuts brought to life; red Indians, Down East Yankees, Mexicans, gaunt hillsmen from Kentucky and Tennessee, towering Texans, ranchmen from the plains, and folk in whose eyes shone the brooding abstraction of the desert; in the main ill-clothed and uncouth of gesture, hiding behind apathetic masks a certain awe and sense of awkwardness.
And then, like spume wind-torn from the crests of sullen seas, glittering with rainbow iridescence, a froth of creatures money-drunk and amusement-mad, drones lured to California by its fabled Winter climate, and an earth-born army audaciously experimenting with wings bestowed by the careless bounty of the cinema.
Against this picture of a ceaseless crush in the centre of the city, Lucinda set in contrast so sharp that it never lost its power to stir her wonder, a picture on every hand repeated off the main arteries of traffic in the radiating residential suburbs: an interminable street of broad-eaved white bungalows hugging the ground, each isolate in its unfenced plot of green, to each its vines, its flower beds, its stripling orange trees, and each and every one silent and in all seeming lifeless, cowering in the day-long glare of that vast and empty vault of blue, like a city of doll-houses which the children had outgrown....
The incorporators of Linda Lee Inc. were not, however, long left dependent on motor-cars that plied for hire and the orange-and-black outrage on wheels which was everywhere known as "Lynn Summerlad's bus."
One of Lontaine's first acts as president of the fledgling organization was to pay out ten thousand dollars of its capital for a startling blue-and-silver car, the whim of an absent-minded motion-picture star whose sudden flitting from threats of arrest on charges of bigamy had left the car on the hands of its builders, to be picked up at what Lontaine called a bargain price. Lucinda was disposed to hold the cost immaterial, but demurred about accepting it for her personal use; and the consideration urged by Summerlad, that the more eye-arresting the colour scheme the better the advertisement for Linda Lee, failed to move her. So Lontaine felt constrained to use it himself; and Fanny demurely professed resignation, pointing out that in such a conveyance no husband would ever dare pursue any but paths of conspicuous rectitude.
For herself Lucinda eventually selected a modest landaulet of dark maroon; but it saw little service, save on shopping trips, till she began to use it for daily transportation to and from the studio.
Weeks slipped stealthily away, the rainy season waned, a Spring ensued like an Eastern Summer, with lusty vegetation, lengthening days of dry heat, and nights deliciously cooled by airs that swept through every sunless hour from the highlands to the sea; while delays on delays accumulated and still the day when "shooting" should begin lingered remotely down tomorrow's dim horizon.
Lontaine had leased studio space in the Zinn plant, which Summerlad recommended as the most modern and completely equipped on the Coast. For this the company was paying a weekly rental of fifteen hundred dollars. An expensive executive and technical staff, lacking only a director, was kicking heels of enforced idleness on full pay. A story had been selected, an old novel by a moderately popular author to which Zinn had in 1914 purchased all motion-picture rights outright for five hundred dollars and which he was now willing to part with for ten thousand as a special courtesy because he had taken such a mad fancy to Lontaine. A scenario writer, warranted by Zinn "the best in the business," had received five thousand for casting the story into continuity form, the labour of one whole week, and retired rejoicing to his hundred-and-fifty a week job in the Zinn scenario department. A reading of his bastard brain-child had persuaded Lucinda that continuity writing must be the mystery its adepts alleged; in fact, she couldn't understand the greater part of it, and what she did understand somewhat preyed upon her mind. But Lontaine seemed satisfied, Summerlad solaced her misgivings with the assurance that P. Potter Monahan simply couldn't write a poor continuity, and both agreed that Barry Nolan would know what to do to make it right when he got down to work on it.
Incidentally, he did: Nolan read it half-through, thoughtfully shied the manuscript out of a window, and dictated a continuity all his own, of which nobody but himself could make head or tail, and which at times in the course of its production seemed to puzzle even its perpetrator. But this Nolan was a resourceful lad and never hesitated to revise himself when at a loss: "That's out," he would inform his assistant; "we'll cover up the break with a subtitle. C'mon, let's shoot the close-ups;" or it might be: "Got another angle on that now. Instead of that scene where she casts him out of her life forever, I'm going to stick in some business Leslie Carter used to do in the last act ofZaza. We'll get round to that later. What's next?"
But these revelations of an unique technique, justly celebrated as such, were reserved for the indefinite future. Notwithstanding that he was under contract to Linda Lee Inc. to begin work as soon as he had finished the production he was then making, Lucinda was to be hounded through her professional début by another megaphone than Barry Nolan's.
In the engagement of that one resided the only reason for the delays. While negotiations for his services (at twice as much pay as he had ever received before) were in progress, Nolan confidently expected to be free in a fortnight. The day he signed the contract he admitted that he might possibly keep them waiting a trifle longer. It was two months later when he at length notified Lontaine that he was running up to San Francisco for a few days' rest and relaxation but would positively be "on the lot" and ready to go to work, in another week.
In the meantime Lucinda had moved to the Hollywood Hotel, the Lontaines to a furnished bungalow nearby, where they vainly pressed her to join them. She thought it wiser to decline.
"I'm far too fond of both of you to risk living with you," she explained. "It's no good deliberately placing ourselves in a position to get fed to the teeth with one another. Besides, I've got to get accustomed to shifting for myself, and it's high time I was learning to breathe in a proper motion-picture atmosphere."
This the Hollywood provided to admiration. Summerlad assured Lucinda, and on her own observation she could well believe, that at one stage or another of their careers almost every motion-picture player of consequence in the country must have registered at this hotel. Many continued to reside there, though no reason existed why they should not observe the custom of other happy holders of long-term contracts and move into homes of their own. Aside from such fixtures—and a non-professional element composed mainly of middle-aged folk with set incomes who had contracted the habit of spending their Winters and not much else in California—the hotel boasted a restless movement of birds of passage: stars of the legitimate stage brought on from New York to play in a single picture, lesser lights coming West at their own risk to solicit a "try-out;" playwrights and novelists with reputations in two continents declining to profit by the experience of innumerable predecessors, fatuously assuming that imagination, intelligence and honest workmanship had a dog's chance in the studios; directors enjoying their favorite pastime of hopping from Coast to Coast with everything paid; overlords of the cinema visiting the West Coast to look after their own or their rivals' fences and filch actors and directors from one another. These came and went by every trans-continental train. Remained the incurable addicts with yet another element, hardly less habitué but humbler, maintaining precarious residence in the hotel on meagre means, on remittances from home or God knew how (and, knowing, wept) hanging on desperately to hope of happier tomorrows, when they, too, would have their own cars call to take them to their daily toil, instead of trudging or trolleying from studio to studio in pursuit of the elusive day's work as an extra: a class largely feminine and insistently youthful.
With most of these Lucinda became acquainted by sight, with many she grew accustomed to exchange smiles and the time of day. They were a friendly lot, indomitably cheerful and brisk. If sheer joy of living didn't keep their eyes bright, belladonna did; their hand-painted smiles were unfailing; their slender, silken legs twinkled in vivacious by-play on veranda steps and in the public rooms; by every sign they were ever on the wing and jolly glad. Lucinda liked them all involuntarily, and wished them well; and when she came to know some of them better her heart ached for them.
This was inevitable. The most glacial reserve must have melted to the warmth of such gayly casual overtures. It was good business to know Miss Linda Lee, and they made it their business without undue delay. She had not been twenty-four hours a sister-guest before all these young things knew an astonishing lot about her that wasn't so, and a deal that was.
Lucinda was a raw tenderfoot who was going to finance her own company, a prominent stage favorite trying her luck under an assumed name, a Baltimore society beauty with the motion-picture bee in her bonnet, nobody at all except the dear friend of this or that nationally known man, who was paying to put her into pictures to get rid of her. It didn't matter who or what she was, more than what was irrefutably established: that she was Linda Lee, she had simply sloughs of coin, she was to star in her own productions, Barry Nolan had been engaged to direct her, Lynn Summerlad had gone nutty about her; all of which summed up to this, that Lucinda was in a position to utter words of power whose fruit might be days and days of work at ten or fifteen per—who knew?—perhaps the miracle of a steady job!
They made up to her saucily or shyly, according to the style they believed became them best, with assurance or with humility, with ostensible indifference, and some in open desperation. But on one point they were all agreed: they wanted work. Lucinda spoke about two or three of them to Lontaine, who laughed and advised her to recommend them to Barry Nolan's assistant, when that far day dawned on which the question of casting subordinate rôles would be in order. She spoke to Lynn Summerlad, and was rewarded with a worried frown, the first sign of care she had ever detected in him, together with some well-chosen thoughts on the dangers of contracting haphazard hotel acquaintanceships. Lucinda explained that she hadn't sought them, they had been practically forced upon her; she could see no merit in being rude and "upstage." Summerlad retorted darkly that one never could tell; the motion-picture colony harboured any number of queer birds; it wouldn't do for her of all women to pick up with a wrong one.
"First thing you know, they'll be trying to borrow money from you."
Lucinda was silent for want of a conscience that would sanction an indignant rejoinder.
"I was afraid of this when you moved into the hotel. But then I told myself not to be a fool, you weren't the sort to encourage total strangers."
With malice, Lucinda enquired absurdly: "Are you reproaching me with relaxing from the conventions of my former milieu, Mr. Summerlad?"
"You know very well what I mean, Linda."
"You think, perhaps, I'm growing to be a shade too free and easy?"
"If you must know, I do."
"But this is, after all, Hollywood."
"No excuse for doing as the Hollywoodenheads do."
"Then, I take it, you think it might be more discreet of me to stop going about with you alone."
Since the same roof no longer sheltered them, the Lontaines had ceased invariably to include Lucinda in their plans and gaddings, as when social courtesies were extended them by people whom Lontaine met in the way of business and to whom Lucinda was not known at all. So she was enjoying some little time to herself, when Summerlad's attentions permitted; and when they didn't, felt free to follow her inclination and dispense with chaperonage on occasion, irrespective of the looks of the thing. (If anything could be held to have any particular "looks" where principles of laissez-faire and assiduous attention to one's own concerns were so generally vogue.) Linda Lee, furthermore, could do as she pleased when her pleasure must have been taboo to Mrs. Bellamy Druce.
"O Lord!" Summerlad groaned. "I might've known better than to start an argument with a woman."
"I don't relish being reproached by you for lack of decorum."
"Decorum! I'm only anxious you shan't get in with the wrong sort, be victimized or worse."
"Touching thoughtfulness on my behalf.... But Lynn: what do you mean by 'worse'?"
"Not sure I know, myself. I don't want anything to happen to worry you."
"What could?"
"Oh, I don't know. If I did, I could take measures to prevent its happening. But not so long as you insist on living here. A hotel's no place for a woman alone. People all the time coming and going.... Who knows who and what they are? You might be recognized."
"So that's what's on your mind?"
"I don't like to think of any outside influences working on you just now."
"Just now?"
"Distracting your attention from really important matters, like me and what you're going to do about me. I'm so desperately in love with you, Linda."
Lucinda said nothing for a little. She had been expecting this for days. Now that it came it found her, of course, unprepared. Nothing to complain of in that; a declaration of love always finds a woman unprepared, no matter how long she may have been preparing for it. The primitive instinct of flight from the male is deathless, though it manifest only as in that one brief moment of panic that Lucinda knew.
She was glad of the darkness of that section of the hotel veranda where they had been sitting for a quarter of an hour after returning from dîner à deux in the city. It had seemed early to part, as people interested in each other reckon the age of an evening together—not much after ten—and since no one was visible on the veranda, Lucinda had suggested that Summerlad stop and chat a while. Now she wished she hadn't.
Not that it made much difference. This had been bound to come before long. One knew the signs in a man who had held his peace about as long as he could. Five weeks since that night when, in the Beverly Hills bungalow, she had concluded that Summerlad's interest in her was neither impersonal nor of a transitory nature....
An amazingly long time for him to wait, had she but known, a tribute to the sincerity of the passion she had inspired, to the respect in which he held her whose training had not been such as to encourage much respect for women in general. Almost anybody in Hollywood would have told her that Lynn Summerlad was "a fast worker." That no one had done so was probably due in most part to an impression that to carry such information were work of supererogation....
The worst of it was, she was glad.
How strange (and what proof of her heart's unique intricacy!) that she should be affected by such paradoxical displeasure in the pleasure it gave her to hear Lynn profess a passion of which she had been so long and well aware; as if it grated upon some slumbering sense of what was fitting; as if any reason today existed why Lynn shouldn't be in love with her and, for the matter of that, she with him (only, of course, she wasn't) or why he need hesitate to speak and she be loath to listen....
"Well, Linda?"
She put away her pensiveness, smiling softly in the darkness that enfolded them, smiling to see Summerlad bending forward in his chair, whose arm just failed to touch the arm of hers, anxiously searching her face for a clue to her mind, but with the anxiety of impatience more than the anxiety of doubt. He wanted to have her in his arms. A pleasant place to be, perhaps; but she wasn't ready yet, she was not yet sure....
"Well, my friend!" she said in amused indulgence—"so it seems you love me."
"How long have you known it?"
"Quite as long as you have loved me."
"And you——?"
"I don't know yet."
He ventured too confidently: "I don't want to hurry you——"
"You couldn't, Lynn. And—you won't be wise if you count on me."
"You don't mind my loving you, Linda?"
"No. I think it makes me happy."
"Then I'm going to count on you—unless you want me to think you're merely amusing yourself."
"But you don't think that. So be patient."
"I'm not at all sure patience and love are even related."
"Then I'm afraid the only kind of love you know is not the kind that lasts."
"If so, I'm glad I've known none that lasted; that leaves me free to be truly in love with you."
"That's rather clever of you, Lynn, almost too clever."
"I've got to be clever, I guess, to make you love me."
"Lynn, I'm afraid you're artful. Yes—and much too experienced! You'd better go now before you talk me into something that isn't real and.... If you do love me, you aren't wanting anything else."
"You'd really like to get rid of me?"
"For tonight, yes. I need to be alone to think—about you."
"Fair enough—if that's a promise."
"It's a promise."
Lucinda stood up, a maneuvre that lifted Summerlad unwillingly out of his chair. He took her hand and sketched an intention of using it to draw her to him. But she laughed quietly, shaking her head.
"Good night, my dear."
"I've never tried to kiss you, Linda...."
"And won't, I know, till I want you to."
"Confound you! That's what I get for giving you an opening to put me on my honour."
"It's more than you'd have got—or deserved—if you hadn't."
His lips barely failed to find her hand; Lucinda had drawn away in the nick of time.
"Don't go before you've answered my question, Lynn."
"Question?"
"What I'm to do about these unlucky young women?"
"Hoped you'd forgotten them."
"I can't."
"You've got too soft a heart, I'm afraid, Linda. I don't see why you always let it rule your head—except about me."
"Perhaps it's a good sign, though."
"I'm sure I don't know how to advise you. Obviously you can't turn Linda Lee Inc. into a refuge for misguided females."
"There's one girl in especial I'm worried about, Lynn. She seems so ill and wretched. And even so, she's pretty. I'm sure a little happiness would make her radiant. Why can't we find or make a chance for her somewhere?"
"Once you start that sort of thing, the whole pack will be on your back, they won't give you a minute's peace. But if you insist.... What's her type?"
"Olive brune; about my height; and the loveliest, most tragic eyes...."
"Any experience?"
"Yes. She told me she'd been working in the East, but her health broke down and the doctors advised California. She'd been out here before, I gathered, but not in pictures. At least—I'm not sure—that's what I understood. She only got in last night, and they put her at my table in the dining-room, so we met at luncheon today."
"Lost no time boning you for a job——"
"She didn't suggest anything of the sort. I don't believe she's heard yet about my having my own company. All she said was, she hoped she wouldn't have too much trouble finding work, she needed it so desperately."
"Well, since you make a point of it, I'll see what I can do—speak to Zinn about her. What's her name?"
"Miss Marquis—Nelly Marquis, I think she said."
Summerlad had just then opened his cigarette case. After a thoughtful pause he shut it with a snap, neglecting to help himself to a cigarette, and replaced it in his pocket. Then becoming sensible of the query in Lucinda's attitude, he asked in a dull voice: "What name did you say?"
"Nelly Marquis. Why? Do you know her?"
"I know a good deal about her. Rather a bad lot, I'm afraid. Look here, Linda: I wish you'd drop her."
"Don't be stupid, Lynn."
"I'm not. I mean it. I can't very well tell you what I know, but I do wish you'd take my word for it and cut this woman out. She's really not the sort you can afford to get mixed up with."
"You're sure, Lynn? You really want me to understand she is—what you're trying to avoid saying?"
"Yes—and worse. I'm in earnest, Linda. I think you might trust me. After all, I ought to know my way about Hollywood, I've lived in it long enough."
"Of course I trust you, Lynn. I'm sorry though. I felt so sorry for her, she didn't seem one of the usual sort."
"She isn't." Summerlad gave a curt, meaning laugh. "But you said you wanted to get rid of me, and I think I'd better go before the old curiosity gets in its fine work and you ask me questions I wouldn't want to answer."
He possessed himself of Lucinda's hands again and kissed them ardently, while she looked on with lenient eyes, more than half in love already. Why, then, must she persist in hanging fire with him? Was it merely crude, primordial instinct prompting her to withstand the male till his will prevailed? Or was there something wanting in the man, some lack divined by a sense in her subtle, anonymous, and inarticulate?
Infinitely perplexed, Lucinda lingered on where Summerlad had left her, near the far end of the veranda, where it rounded the rotund corner of the hotel. Here there was always shade by day, thanks to a screen of subtropical foliage, by night a deeper gloom than elsewhere on the veranda, and at all times a better show of privacy.
The engine roared as Summerlad's car swung down the drive, then changed its tune to a thick drone as it took the boulevard, heading away for Beverly Hills. Still Lucinda rested as she was, absently observing the play of street lights on leaves whose stir was all but imperceptible in the softly flowing air.
Impossible to understand herself, to read her own heart, make up her mind....
A thin trickle of sound violated the mid-evening hush, a broken and gusty beating of stifled sobs that for a time she heard without attention, then of a sudden identified.
Windows of guest-rooms looked out on the veranda, but Lucinda had made sure these were closed and lightless before permitting Summerlad's wooing to become ardent. The semi-round room on the corner, however, had French windows let in at an angle which she could not see. After a moment she moved quietly to investigate, and discovered that one of these was open, that the sobbing had its source in a shapeless heap upon the floor in the darkness beyond.
Entering and kneeling, Lucinda touched gently the shoulder of the stricken woman. "Please!" she begged. "Can I do anything?"
In a convulsive tremor the woman choked off her sobs and lifted her face to stare vacantly. Enough light seeped in from the street to reveal the features of Nelly Marquis.
Her voice broke huskily on the hush: "Who are you?"
"Miss Lee—Linda Lee. Can't I do something——?"
With startling fury the girl struck aside Lucinda's hands and at the same time flung herself back and away.
"No!" she cried thickly. "No, no, no! Not you! Go away—please go!"
"I only wanted to help you, if I could," Lucinda explained, getting to her feet. "If you're unhappy—I'm so sorry——"
The movement must have been misinterpreted, for the girl sprang up like a threatened animal.
"I don't want your help!" she stormed throatily. "I don't want anything to do with you—only to be left alone!" She flung herself at Lucinda as if to thrust her out by force. "Go! go! go!" she screamed. Then the window slammed.
"Poor thing!" Lucinda told herself—"she must have heard...."