HER first picture—from a popular novel of the hour called “The Bird of Prey”—was finished and ready for cutting, except for picking up a mass of ragged ends.
Few sets had been knocked down, for there were re-takes necessary—accidents due to Shunk or to Creevy, and charged to everybody else from door-keeper to star.
The barn-like studio was in disorder and it rang all day with a hell of dissonance—infernal hammering, trample of heavy feet, the racket of hoarse voices, scrape of props and electric cables over the wood flooring, and the high-pitched, spiteful scolding of Ratford Creevy—as though a noisy mouth could ever remedy confusion resulting from mental incapacity.
Smull came every day to take Eris to lunch—such frequent consultation being both customary and advisable, he informed her.
As a result the girl was a target for gossip and curiosity, sneered at by some, leered at by others, but generally fawned on because of suspected “pull with the main guy.” Courted, flattered, deferred to by one and all, she was inexperienced enough to believe in such universal friendliness, innocent enough to entertain no suspicion of these less-fortunates who were kind to her; of Albert Smull’s unvarying and eager cordiality.
The girl was radiantly happy, despite misgivings regarding Mr. Creevy.
And, as far as that gentleman’s incompetence was concerned, although she did not know it she was learning a courage and self-reliance that had been slower coming if she had remained under the direction of Frank Donnell.
Artistically, intellectually, Eris, from sheer necessity, had made, unconsciously, a vast advance amid obstacles and conditions that always worried and sometimes dismayed her.
As a matter of fact she had taught more to Creevy than he had ever taught anybody.
Like a good field-dog, the bird-sense and instinct being there, with a little training she had begun to instruct her instructor in qualities and in technique entirely unfamiliar yet astonishingly sound.
A mean mind accepts but resents. Creevy said to Smull, with sufficient cunning to insure further employment:
“She takes her head and wears me out. Full of pep but don’t know anything. All the same, I’d rather handle that kind. If you want me to go on with her I’ll guarantee her.”
But Smull was fretting about the overhead. He had the financier’s capacity for detail. He prowled about the studio—when he could take his eager gaze off of Eris—prying, peeping, mousing, snooping, asking misleading questions of employees, gradually informing himself.
He put Creevy on the rack over the books. He told him, always with his fixed and sanguine smile, that the footage was forty per cent. unnecessary. He compared the cost of sets to Frank Donnell’s bill; the cost of transportation to the same item in Betsy Blythe’s company. Creevy writhed, not daring to show resentment.
But he did worse; he pointed out that Betsy Blythe had a limousine listed on Frank Donnell’s account, and that he had cut that out of the perquisites of Eris and substituted a taxi.
Of course Smull knew that. He had connived at this petty economy, but only partly from meanness; for it gave him a better excuse to offer his own car. And he cared nothing about the girl’s convenience.
He said to Creevy: “You start in and clean up this picture by the end of the week. You begin to cut Monday next.”
“All right, Mr. Smull. But I better start Marc Blither on the next——”
“What next?”
“The next picture. You have the continuity and director’s script——”
“I may give it to Frank Donnell. There may not be another Odell picture,” said Smull, smiling fixedly.
Creevy said nothing.
“Usually,” added Smull, “I make up my mind at my own convenience and to please myself,—not others.”
He got up from the rickety chair, walked to the outer door of the dressing rooms, and sent word to Eris that his car was waiting to take her to luncheon.
She appeared presently without her make-up, Creevy being uncertain that he wanted her during the afternoon, but insisting that she “stick around.”
As they went down the steps to the car—a glittering affair with two men on the box—Smull took the girl familiarly by the arm.
“I want to talk over the next picture with you this evening,” he said. “I’m asking Frank Donnell to dine with me at my rooms. Will you come?”
She halted at the open door of the car and gave him a surprised and happy look.
“Frank Donnell? I’d love to come. But, Mr. Smull!—you don’t mean that Mr. Donnell is to direct me!”
“We’ll see,” he smiled.
“But—Betsy! I couldn’t do that to her!”
Or to anybody, she might have added. But the mere thought of Frank Donnell brought pleasure and gratitude.
“You’re so wonderfully kind, Mr. Smull,” she said with another radiant look as he aided her to enter the car.
As he got in after her a pallid, shabby man across the street watched her intently. He seemed interested in Smull, too, and in the shining car, and even in the license number. And he stood looking after it as long as it remained in sight.
That afternoon Eris sat idle in her dressing-room, reading, or wandered about among electric cables and lumber and sets while Mr. Creevy tried to fill in and supplement poor directorship with little fiddling re-takes.
Emil Shunk, the camera-man, slightly drunk, had turned very sulky. Most of the afternoon was wasted in futile altercation with Creevy, until the latter, exasperated, dismissed everybody.
The taxi allotted to Eris took her back to the city, tired, disgusted, and a little nervous.
The last profane scene between Creevy and Shunk, her all-day idleness, the stifling summer heat in the studio, the jolting drive back to New York through the squalor of the river-front, all these left her tired and depressed.
In her own apartment, bathed, freshened of the city’s penetrating grime, and now at her ease in a cool morning wrap, she sipped the tea that Hattie brought and then stretched out on the sofa, thankful to rest body and mind.
For a wonder, Jane Street was quiet that hot afternoon. The blessed stillness healed her ears of the blows of sound; she lay in the pleasant demi-light of lowered shades, disinclined to stir, to speak, to think.
But thinking can be stopped only by sleep. She remembered that she was to call Annan when she got home. Somehow she didn’t feel like it.
Lying there, her hands clasped under her chestnut curls, grey eyes widely remote, the idle thoughts went drifting through her mind, undirected, unchecked.
Visions of the past glimmered, went out, followed by others that floated by like phantoms—glimpses of Whitewater Farms, of her father in his spotless milking jacket, of a girl standing with ears stopped and eyes desperately shut while the great herd-bull died.
Tinted spectres of village people she had known rose, slipped away, faded, vanished;—Mazie’s three uncouth sons, Si, Willis, and Buddy—all already unreal to her, as though she merely had heard of them;—Dr. Wand, Dr. Benson, Ed. Lister, always redolent of fertilizer;—the minister, “Rev. Stiles”;—and then, unbidden, into her mind’s vague picture stepped a trim, graceful, polite young man with agreeable voice and long, clever fingers always stained with nicotine or acid—
The girl sat up abruptly; cleared her eyes of tangled curls with a sudden sweep of her slim hand as though to brush away the vision.
As she looked over her left shoulder at the mantle clock her telephone rang.
She sprang up, suddenly aware that she had but a few minutes to dress and go to meet Frank Donnell at the apartment of Albert Smull.
It was Annan on the wire.
“Hello, dearest,” she said, stifling the yawn that had been threatening since she aroused herself from her torpor.
“I thought you were to call me when you got home,” he said in a dismal voice that sounded rather hollow to her.
“Forgive me, Barry dear. I was rather fagged and I just lay down on the sofa. And I nearly had a nightmare.... Are you well, darling?”
“I’m seriously ill and——”
“What!” she exclaimed.
“Dying—to see you, Eris.”
“You mustn’t joke that way; you startle me,” she said with a quick breath of relief.
“Would you wear black for me?”
“Please don’t make a jest of it——”
“You sweet little thing,” he said, “will you dine at my place, or out, or shall I come——”
“You haven’t made an engagement, have you?”
“But I have, dear.”
“Where?” he asked impatiently. It was none of his business. But she said:
“Mr. Smull asked me to dine with him and Frank Donnell. Are you going to be lonely, dear?”
“Where are you dining?” he demanded impatiently.
She did not resent it: “In Mr. Smull’s apartment.”
“Do you think that’s the thing to do?” he asked sharply.
“Darling! Isn’t it?”
“Are you accustomed to dine with married men in apartments which they maintain outside their homes?”
His anger and insolence merely astonished her:
“Barry dear,” she said, “it is merely a business matter. He asked me to meet Frank there and discuss my next picture. I can’t understand why you seem offended——”
“Do you think it’s agreeable for me to expect an evening with you, and suddenly discover that you have arranged to pass it with Albert Smull?”
“I’m sorry.... I can’t very well help it——”
“It’s perfectly rotten of you!” he retorted in a blaze of boyish temper.
“Barry dear?”
“What?”
“You mustn’t talk that way to me.”
“Then don’t deserve it——”
“Barry!”
“Yes.” There was a pause. He waited. Then her voice, rather low and quiet:
“To control my own temper it is necessary for me to keep reminding myself that you love me.... Perhaps you wouldn’t speak that way if you didn’t.... Perhaps men are that way.... I’m sorry I’m not dining with you.... I’m sorry because I’m in love with you.... And always will be.... Good-night, dear.”
“Yes, dear.”
“I’m ashamed—penitent—miserable. I’m rottenly jealous——”
“Darling! You have no cause——”
“No. But—I can’t bear to think of you alone with other men. I know it’s all right. I know also that jealousy is a low-down, common, disgusting, contemptible emotion——”
“Barry! I want you to be properly jealous of my safety and well-being. I adore it in you, you funny, delightful boy! I’m not experienced with men, but I’m beginning to understand you. Darling! You may even swear at me if you want to—if you do it’s because you’re in love with me.”
The girl, laughing, heard the boy sigh: “It’s doing queer things to me,” he said, “—this love business. All I can think of is you; and when you’re away I just dope myself with work.... I don’t mean to be selfish——”
“I want you to be. Be a perfect pig if you like, darling. Bully me, threaten, monopolise me—oh, my dear, my dear, give me my allotted time to work, learn, and make good; and then I promise—I promise you all that is within me to give—mind and soul, Barry—utter devotion, gratitude unmeasured, all, all of me—darling!——”
She was late,—nearly three-quarters of an hour late, when she arrived at Albert Smull’s apartment on Park Avenue.
A man servant directed her to a rear room fitted amazingly like the boudoirs she had read about.
It was a charming place hung with a sort of silvery rose-silk; and on an ivory-tinted dresser everything that femininity could require, brand new and sealed.
But Eris spent only a moment at the mirror, and, the next, she was shaking hands with Albert Smull in a delightful lounging room, slightly aromatic with a melange of flowers and tobacco.
“I’m sorry to be late,” she said with smiling concern, “but I’m so relieved to find that Mr. Donnell hasn’t yet arrived.”
“We won’t wait dinner for him anyway,” said Smull with his near and eager smile. “He’ll have to take his chances, Eris.... I say, you’re stunning in that gown!”
“Oh, do you like it?” she said politely.
He repeated emphatically his admiration; seemed inclined to touch the black fabric; expatiate on fashion, suitability, harmony of snowy skin, red hair, and the smartness of dead black—“Only the young dare wear it, and usually they’re too stupid to until they’re too old to.”
A grave-faced servant brought three cocktails.
“Come, now, Eris, it’s time you learned,” he insisted. “Be a good fellow and you won’t be sorry. I’ve got to drink Frank’s cocktail anyway. You’ll have it on your conscience if I have to drink yours too!”
To be rid of his insistence she touched her lips to her glass, set it back on the tray, and wiped her lips when he wasn’t looking.
Smull’s ruddy visage was ruddier after the third cocktail. The grave servant opened two folding glass doors; Smull gave his arm to Eris.
Everything in the dining-room was suffused in a glow merciful to age and exquisitely transfiguring mortal youth into angelic immortality.
The sheer beauty of the flowers, of the silver and glass; the white walls, the antique splendour of mirror and painting entranced the girl.
Faultlessly chosen, perfectly served, the dinner progressed gaily, and without the visible embarrassment of Eris who, however, was conscious of a vague uneasiness, and who wondered why Frank Donnell did not arrive.
There was champagne. She touched the glass with her lips, but all his gay cajolery and persuasion could not induce her to do more.
She glanced at his face from time to time, noticing the deepening colour with curiosity but without uneasiness; always politely returning the fixed smile that never left those two little blackish brown eyes set a trifle too close together.
Politely, too, she awaited Smull’s introduction of the subject matter to be discussed—the reason, in fact, and the excuse for her presence at this man’s table.
But Smull talked of other matters,—trivial matters,—such as her personal beauty; the personal success she might make over sentimental men if she chose; the certain surprise and jealousy of other women—but what women, and of what sort he did not specify or make very clear.
“You ought to get on,” he said, almost grinning.
“I’m trying to,” she laughed.
“Oh, sure. I mean——” But what he meant seemed to expire on his heavy lips as though lack of vocabulary, or perhaps of assurance, left him dumb for the moment.
She wondered why Frank didn’t arrive. Coffee was now to be served in the lounge, which was part library, part living-room.
Eris understood she was to rise: Smull joined her with his familiar arm taking possession of hers. His large, hot hand made her a little uncomfortable and she was glad to free her bare arm and retire with her coffee to a solitary arm-chair.
The grave-faced servant seemed to know what to bring to Mr. Smull in addition to the frozen mint offered to Eris—and smilingly declined.
After the grave one had retired with the empty coffee cups and had closed the folding glass doors, Eris looked enquiringly at Mr. Smull, awaiting the broaching of what most closely concerned her.
But Smull, half draining his frosted glass, assumed a familiarity almost boisterous.
“See here, Eris, you’re not going to get on unless you’re a good fellow. You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t learn to keep up your end.”
“If you mean cocktails and champagne,” she said, laughing, “I can’t help not liking them, can I?”
“Certainly you can. Once you get the first glass down you’ll begin to like it. Come on, Eris! Show your pep. I’ll have Harvey bring you some champagne——”
“I’m wondering,” she said, “why Frank Donnell doesn’t come. Have you any idea, Mr.——”
She looked up as she spoke, and fell silent. Smull’s fixed smile had become a fixed grin. Out of a red, puffy face two darkish little eyes rested on her with disconcerting intentness.
“Look here, Eris, we don’t need Frank Donnell. It’s up to me, after all. Isn’t it?”
Her lips unclosed, a trifle stiffly: “Why yes, I suppose so——”
“Well then!”
She met his grin with a forced smile.
“Well?” she enquired, “have you chosen to discuss matters with me alone?”
“You bet. That’s right, Eris. That’s what. You get my first curve for a homer, little girl.”
He hunched his chair nearer to hers: “Look here, Eris; you can have pretty nearly what you want out of me. You want your own company for keeps? O. K.! You want to pick your director and your camera-man? That’s O. K. You want Frank Donnell? Sure!——”
“But Betsy——”
“Don’t worry. I pay his salary. I pay hers, too. If you want Frank——”
“No, I don’t. I wouldn’t do such a thing——”
“Puff! She’d do it to you. Didn’t she put you out of her company!”
“She was right. It was perfectly understood by me——”
“Say, sweetness, don’t you let anybody put that over. Betsy couldn’t stand your competition and she canned you. Now you can get back.”
“Thank you, Mr. Smull, but I couldn’t.... Not that I—I care for Mr. Creevy very much——”
“Bing! He’s out! Who do you want?” He hunched his chair closer: “And say, sweetness, are you getting enough per?”
“What?”
“Are you satisfied with your contract?”
“Yes.”
“You mean you don’t want a raise?”
She said, rather bewildered: “I have signed for three years——”
“Blaa! What’s a contract! You can have them both. Stick ’em in the fire. Is that right?”
“But——”
“Listen, my dear. You ought to get what Blythe’s getting the first year. After that we’ll see. What do you say?”
“It is too kind of you——”
“Let me worry over that. Are we set? You have what you want—anything you want. You fix it up and I’ll O. K. it. Is that right, sweetheart?”
The girl looked at him in a dazed way. He left his seat, came over, seated himself on the arm of her chair. As she rose, instinctively, his arm brushed her bare shoulder.
And now he also stood up, his hot, red features, and the grin and the little darkish eyes very close to her face.
“See here, Eris,” he said thickly, “I’m crazy about you.”
A slight chill possessed her, but she was calm enough. She said: “I’d rather not understand you, Mr. Smull.”
The grin never altered: “Why not?” he demanded.
“For one thing, if you honestly cared for me you wouldn’t have brought me here alone to say so.... For another——” she looked at him curiously; “—you are married, aren’t you?”
“Is that going to matter when a man’s crazy about you——”
“—Crazy enough,” he went on, ignoring her comment, “—crazy enough to tell you to hand yourself whatever you fancy? Do you get me right? You can have whatever——”
“I don’t want anything,” she said wearily, moving toward the door.
He made the mistake of laying hands on her—hot, red, puffy hands; and she struck him across his fixed grin with all her strength.
Breathless, motionless, they fell back, still confronted. A streak of bright blood divided his chin, running down from his mouth, dripping faster and faster to the rug.
He got out his handkerchief, staunched the flow, spoke while the handkerchief grew sopping red:
“That’s all right, sweetness. Sorry I was premature. You take your time about it—take all the time you need. Then give me my answer.”
“I’ll give it to you now,” she said unsteadily.
“I don’t want it now, Eris——” She smiled: “You’ve already had part of it. The rest is this: I’m engaged—or practically so—to a man I’m going to marry some day.... And, as to what you’ve said and done this evening, I’m not very much shocked. They said you were that kind. You look it.... I’m not angry, either. The whole affair is so petty. And you don’t seem to know any better. I think,” she added, “that I’m more bored than annoyed. Good-night, Mr. Smull.”
“Eris!”
“What?”
“If I were divorced would you marry me?”
“No,” she said contemptuously. “And that’s that!”
To the man at the hall door she said: “Please call a taxi for Miss Odell,” and passed on to the silver-rose boudoir where she took her scarf and reticule from a chair and tossed Smull’s orchids onto the dresser.
“Oh, dear,” she thought to herself, “—such cheap, such petty wickedness! If I’m out of a job it will complete the burlesque.”
At the hall door the servant had vanished and Smull stood waiting.
“I’m sorry, Eris,” he said.
“I’m sorry, too. You won’t want me for another picture, I suppose.”
“Would you stay?”
“I have to, don’t I? There’s my contract, you know.”
“Good God, Eris, I didn’t realise I loved you seriously. I’m half-crazed by this; I—I don’t know what to do——”
“Then let me suggest that you talk it over with your wife,” she said. “That ought to be a household remedy for you, Mr. Smull.”
She passed him, stepped to the lift, rang, turned and laughed at him with all the insolence of virgin intolerance.
“You little slut,” he said in a distinct voice that quivered, “I don’t get you but you’ve played me for a sucker. You’re out! Do you get that? Now run to your Kike attorney with your contract!—God damn your soul!”
As she stepped into the lift she thought: “—Burlesque and all.” But the strain was telling and she was close to tears as she went out into Park Avenue and got wearily into her taxi-cab.
“Oh, dear,” she said in a low voice. “Oh, dear.” But reaction was tiring her to the edge of drowsiness. She yawned, wiped the unshed tears from her eyes with her wisp of a handkerchief, yawned again, and lay back in the cab closing the grey virgin eyes that had looked into hell and found the spectacle a cheap burlesque.