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 neglige, 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."
"It _is_ a 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 divorcee. "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."