Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/219

 chair with fine dignity, a certain masterly deliberation. He sat easily, and seemed to await a verdict confidently foreknown. Baird's eyes did not leave him for the stills until he had assumed a slightly Harold Parmalee pose. Then his head with the girl's bent over the pictures, he began to examine them.

Exclamations of delight came from the pair. Merton Gill listened amiably. He was not greatly thrilled by an admiration which he had long believed to be his due. Had he not always supposed that things of precisely this sort would be said about those stills when at last they came under the eyes of the right people?

Like the Montague girl, Baird was chiefly impressed with the Westerns. He looked a long time at them, especially at the one where Merton's face was emotionally averted from his old pal, Pinto, at the moment of farewell. Regarding Baird, as he stood holding this art study up to the light, Merton became aware for the first time that Baird suffered from some nervous affliction, a peculiar twitching of the lips, a trembling of the chin, which he had sometimes observed in senile persons. All at once Baird seemed quite overcome by this infirmity. He put a handkerchief to his face and uttered a muffled excuse as he hastily left the room. Outside, the noise of his heavy tread died swiftly away down the hall.

The Montague girl remained at the desk. There was a strange light in her eyes and her face was still flushed. She shot a glance of encouragement at Merton.

"Don't be nervous, old Kid; he likes 'em all right."

He reassured her lightly: "Oh, I'm not a bit nervous about him. It ain't as if he was doing something worth while, instead of mere comedies."

The girl's colour seemed to heighten. "You be sure to tell him that; talk right up to him. Be sure to say 'mere comedies.' It'll show him you know what's what. And as a matter of fact, Kid, he's trying to do something worth while, right this minute, something serious. That's why he's so interested in you."