"Oh, Mr. Henshaw, one moment please!"
He glanced up in some annoyance, pausing with his hand to the door that led on to his proper realm.
"Oh, it"s you, Miss Montague! Well, what is it? I"m very, very busy."
"Well, it"s something I wanted to ask you." She quickly crossed the room to stand by him, tenderly flecking a bit of dust from his coat sleeve as she began, "Say, listen, Mr. Henshaw: Do you think beauty is a curse to a poor girl?"
Mr. Henshaw scowled down into the eyes so confidingly lifted to his.
"That"s something you won"t ever have to worry about," he snapped, and was gone, his brows again drawn in perplexity over his work.
"You"re not angry with poor little me, are you, Mr. Henshaw?"
The girl called this after him and listened, but no reply came from back of the part.i.tion.
Mrs. Montague, from the bench, rebuked her daughter.
"Say, what do you think that kidding stuff will get you? Don"t you want to work for him any more?"
The girl turned pleading eyes upon her mother.
"I think he might have answered a simple question," said she.
This was all distasteful to Merton Gill. The girl might, indeed, have deserved an answer to her simple question, but why need she ask it of so busy a man? He felt that Mr. Henshaw"s rebuke was well merited, for her own beauty was surely not excessive.
Her father, from the bench, likewise admonished her.
"You are sadly p.r.o.ne to a spirit of banter," he declared, "though I admit that the so-called art of the motion picture is not to be regarded too seriously. It was not like that in my day. Then an actor had to be an artist; there was no position for the little he-doll whippersnapper who draws the big money to-day and is ignorant of even the rudiments of the actor"s profession."
He allowed his glance to rest perceptibly upon Merton Gill, who felt uncomfortable.
"We were with Looey James five years," confided Mrs. Montague to her neighbours. "A hall show, of course--hadn"t heard of movies then--doing Virginius and Julius Caesar and such cla.s.sics, and then starting out with The Two Orphans for a short season. We were a knock-out, I"ll say that. I"ll never forget the night we opened the new opera house at Akron. They had to put the orchestra under the stage."
"And the so-called art of the moving picture robs us of our little meed of applause," broke in her husband. "I shall never forget a remark of the late Lawrence Barrett to me after a performance of Richelieu in which he had fairly outdone himself. "Montague, my lad," said he "we may work for the money, but we play for the applause." But now our finest bits must go in silence, or perhaps be interrupted by a so-called director who arrogates to himself the right to instill into us the rudiments of a profession in which we had grounded ourselves ere yet he was out of leading strings. Too often, naturally, the results are discouraging."
The unabashed girl was meantime having sprightly talk with the casting director, whom she had hailed through the window as Countess. Merton, somewhat startled, wondered if the little woman could indeed be of the n.o.bility.
"h.e.l.lo, Countess! Say, listen, can you give the camera a little peek at me to-day, or at pa or ma? "No, nothing to-day, dear."" She had imitated the little woman"s voice in her accustomed reply. "Well, I didn"t think there would be. I just thought I"d ask. You ain"t mad, are you? I could have gone on in a harem tank scene over at the Bigart place, but they wanted me to dress the same as a fish, and a young girl"s got to draw the line somewhere. Besides, I don"t like that Hugo over there so much.
He hates to part with anything like money, and he"ll gyp you if he can.
Say, I"ll bet he couldn"t play an honest game of solitaire. How"d you like my hair this way? Like it, eh? That"s good. And me having the only freckles left in all Hollywood. Ain"t I the little prairie flower, growing wilder every hour?
"Say, on the level, pa needs work. These days when he"s idle he mostly sticks home and tries out new ways to make prime old Kentucky sour mash in eight hours. If he don"t quit he is going to find himself seeing some moving pictures that no one else can. And he"s all worried up about his hair going off on top, and trying new hair restorers. You know his latest? Well, he goes over to the Selig place one day and watches horse meat fed to the lions and says to himself that horses have plenty of hair, and it must be the fat under the skin that makes it grow, so he begs for a hunk of horse from just under the mane and he"s rubbing that on. You can"t tell what he"ll bring home next. The old boy still believes you can raise hair from the dead. Do you want some new stills of me? I got a new one yesterday that shows my other expression. Well, so long, Countess."
The creature turned to her parents.
"Let"s be on our way, old dears. This place is dead, but the Countess says they"ll soon be shooting some tenement-house stuff up at the Consolidated. Maybe there"ll be something in it for someone. We might as well have a look-in."
Merton felt relieved when the Montague family went out, the girl in the lead. He approved of the fine old father, but the daughter lacked dignity in speech and manner. You couldn"t tell what she might say next.
The Montagues were often there, sometimes in full, sometimes represented by but one of their number. Once Mrs. Montague was told to be on Stage Six the next morning at 8:30 to attend a swell reception.
"Wear the gray georgette, dearie," said the casting director, "and your big pearls and the lorgnon."
"Not forgetting the gold cigarette case and the chinchilla neck piece,"
said Mrs. Montague. "The spare parts will all be there, Countess, and thanks for the word."
The elder Montague on the occasion of his calls often found time to regale those present with anecdotes of Lawrence Barrett.
"A fine artist in his day, sir; none finer ever appeared in a hall show."
And always about his once superb frock coat clung the scent of forbidden beverages. On one such day he appeared with an untidy sprouting of beard, accompanied by the talkative daughter.
"Pa"s landed a part," she explained through the little window. "It"s one of those we-uns mountaineer plays with revenooers and feuds; one of those plays where the city chap don"t treat our Nell right--you know.
And they won"t stand for the crepe hair, so pop has got to raise a brush and he"s mad. But it ought to give him a month or so, and after that he may be able to peddle the brush again; you can never tell in this business, can you, Countess?"
"It"s most annoying," the old gentleman explained to the bench occupants. "In the true art of the speaking stage an artificial beard was considered above reproach. Nowadays one must descend to mere physical means if one is to be thought worthy."
CHAPTER V. A BREACH IN THE CITY WALLS
During these weeks of waiting outside the gate the little woman beyond the window had continued to be friendly but not encouraging to the aspirant for screen honours late of Simsbury, Illinois. For three weeks had he waited faithfully, always within call, struggling and sacrificing to give the public something better and finer, and not once had he so much as crossed the line that led to his goal.
Then on a Monday morning he found the waiting-room empty and his friend beyond the window suffering the pangs of headache. "It gets me something fierce right through here," she confided to him, placing her finger-tips to her temples.
"Ever use Eezo Pain Wafers?" he demanded in quick sympathy. She looked at him hopefully.
"Never heard of "em."
"Let me get you some."
"You dear thing, fly to it!"
He was gone while she reached for her purse, hurrying along the eucalyptus-lined street of choice home sites to the nearest drug store.
He was fearing someone else might bring the little woman another remedy; even that her headache might go before he returned with his. But he found her still suffering.
"Here they are." He was breathless. "You take a couple now and a couple more in half an hour if the ache hasn"t stopped." "Bless your heart!
Come around inside." He was through the door and in the dimly lit little office behind that secretive part.i.tion. "And here"s something else," he continued. "It"s a menthol pencil and you take this cap off--see?--and rub your forehead with it. It"ll be a help." She swallowed two of the magic wafers with the aid of water from the cooler, and applied the menthol.
"You"re a dear," she said, patting his sleeve. "I feel better already.
Sometimes these things come on me and stay all day." She was still applying the menthol to throbbing temples. "Say, don"t you get tired hanging around outside there? How"d you like to go in and look around the lot? Would you like that?"
Would he! "Thanks!" He managed it without choking, "If I wouldn"t be in the way."
"You won"t. Go on--amuse yourself." The telephone rang. Still applying the menthol she held the receiver to her ear. "No, nothing to-day, dear.
Say, Marie, did you ever take Eezo Pain Wafers for a headache? Keep "em in mind--they"re great. Yes, I"ll let you know if anything breaks.
Goo"-by, dear."