Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/141

 a soft heart under that polished society exterior, chilled by daily contact with other society people at the Iowa or Kansas or other society picnics, yet ready to melt at the true human touch. But he had never quite succeeded in this bit of character work. Something told him that she was cold all through, a society woman without a flaw in her armour. He could not make her seem to listen patiently while he explained that only one company was now shooting on the lot, but that big things were expected to be on in another week or so. A certain skeptic hardness was in her gaze as he visioned it.

He decided, indeed, that he could never bring himself even to attempt this scene with the woman, so remote was he from seeing her eye soften and her voice warm with the assurance that a few weeks more or less need not matter. The room rent, he was confident, would have to be paid strictly in advance so long as their relations continued. She was the kind who would insist upon this formality even after he began to play, at an enormous salary, a certain outstanding part in the Hazards of Hortense. The exigencies, even the adversities, of art would never make the slightest appeal to this hardened soul. So much for that. And daily the hoard waned.

Yet his was not the only tragedy. In the waiting room, where he now spent more of his time, he listened one day to the Montague girl chat through the window with the woman she called Countess.

"Yeah, Pa was double-crossed over at the Bigart. He raised that lovely set of whiskers for Camillia of the Cumberlands and what did he get for it? just two weeks. Fact! What do you know about that? Hugo has him killed off in the second spool with a squirrel rule from ambush, and Pa thinking he would draw pay for at least another three weeks. He kicked, but Hugo says the plot demanded it. I bet, at that, he was just trying to cut down his salary list. I bet that continuity this minute shows Pa drinking his corn likker out of a jug and playing a fiddle for the dance right