Momentarily stunned eyes saw the face of Bellamy only as a swimming blur
of flesh-colour shaded by a smile of hateful mockery. Then, not unlike
rays of the sun escaping from complete eclipse, Lucinda's wits struggled
from out a dark penumbra of dismay to make new terms with the world--or
try to, under the handicap of panicy conviction that it was all up now
with Linda Lee.
Such was her first thought.... In another minute or two, as soon as she
was able to acknowledge what she might not much longer ignore, Bellamy's
attitude of patient but persevering attention, everybody present must
learn that she had no right title to the style by which she had palmed
herself off on Hollywood; by nightfall the studios would be agog over
the news that Linda Lee was no less a personage than Mrs. Bellamy Druce.
She was curiously disturbed less because of the circumstances in which
her husband had found her out than on account of the menace he presented
to the plans she had of late begun to nurse so tenderly. All at once
Lucinda discovered how passionately her heart had become implicated in
this adventure, how deeply the ambition had struck its roots into her
being to win by native ability unaided to those starry eminences whereon
the great ones of the cinema sojourned. To hear the inevitable verdict
read upon her career before it was fairly launched, "Another
screen-struck society woman!" were an affront to decent self-esteem by
the side of which it seemed a trivial matter that Bellamy, no more her
husband but by grace of the flimsiest of civil fictions, had caught her
in the act of kissing another man.
Notwithstanding, her cheeks were hot, she experienced infinite vexation
of the knowledge; and--all her efforts to recover hindered by a silence
damnably eloquent of general sensitiveness to a piquant and intriguing
moment--she was shaken by gusts of impotent irritation in whose grasp
she could almost without a qualm have murdered Bellamy where he stood,
if only to quench that graceless grin of his, and the more readily since
he, on his part, seeing her reduced to temporary incompetence, chose to
treat her with the most exemplary and exasperating magnanimity.
Hat in hand, the other proffered in sublime effrontery, smiling his
winningest smile, Bel strode blithely into the forbidden ground of the
camera lines; while his gay salutation fell upon ears incredulous.
"How d'you do, Miss Lee. Don't say you've forgotten me so soon! Druce,
you know, Bellamy Druce----"
"Don't be ridiculous, Bel!"
"Can't blame me for wondering--can you?--the way you stare, as if I were
a ghost."
"So you are," Lucinda retorted, shocked into gasping coherence by this
impudence. "I can't imagine a greater surprise...."
"I believe you. But think of mine--I mean, of course, my astonishment."
Bel would have her hand, there was no refusing him that open sign of
friendship; for an instant Lucinda let it rest limply in his grasp,
appreciating there was nothing she could do now but take his cues as
they fell, and treat the rencontre as one of the most welcome she had
ever experienced....
"But wherever did you bob up from, Bel?"
"From the East, naturally--last night's train. The Alexandria told me
where you'd moved, the Hollywood directed me to your studio, somebody
there said you might be found out here--'working on location,' think he
called it. So took a chance--and here I am. Hope you don't mind...."
"Mind? Why should I?"
"Couldn't be sure I wasn't violating Hollywood etiquette. Never saw a
movie in the making before, you know. Most entertaining. Congratulate
you and Mr. Summerlad on the way you played your little scene just now.
Only for the camera over there, I'd have sworn you both meant it."
"Don't put too much trust in the camera, Mr. Druce," Summerlad
interposed blandly. "Rumour to the contrary notwithstanding, the blame'
thing has been known to lie."
"H'are you, Mr. Summerlad?" Bellamy met his impudence with irresistible
audacity. "So we meet again. Sure we would some day. Well: pleasanter
circumstances than last time, what?"
"Conditions are what one makes them, out here in California. I hope
you'll find the climate healthier than Chicago's."
"Trust me for that," Bellamy retorted in entire good-humour. "But, I
say"--he glanced in feigned apprehension toward the camera--"not
obstructing traffic, am I?"
"No fear, or Jacques would've bawled you out long ago."
"'Sright," Jacques averred, coming forward to be introduced. "All
through for today, folks," he called back. "Le's go!"
Breaking into small knots and straggling off to the waiting motor-cars,
the company prepared for its journey home, while cameras and properties
were packed up and the horses herded away toward their overnight
quarters in Azusa.
Slender, fair, insouciant, looking a precocious little girl in her
extravagantly brief skirts, but with all the wisdom of Eve a-glimmer in
her wide eyes, Fanny sauntered up and permitted Bellamy to be presented.
"My chaperon," Lucinda explained with the false vivacity of overtaut
nerves--"the straight-laced conservator of les convenances."
"I hope very truly," Bel asserted, bowing over Fanny's hand--"you never
need one less charming or more complaisant."
Fanny giggled, enjoying the contretemps hugely and determined it
shouldn't lose savour for want of ambiguous seasoning.
"As for complaisance, the camera covers a multitude of indiscretions.
That aside"--her glance coupled Lucinda and Summerlad in delicately
malicious innuendo--"taking one consideration with another, a chaperon's
lot is not a vapid one."
"I'm sure of that," Bellamy agreed with a straight face. "Not only that,
but if you've any time at all to spare for your job, Mrs. Lontaine, the
percentage of impaired eyesight among native sons must be high."
"Appreciation is such a beautiful thing!" Fanny purred. "Dear man! I do
hope you'll be lingering in our midst a long, long time."
"No such luck for me. A few days at most. I only ran out to go over some
matters with my man of business out here."
"The square-headed body with the blue gimlet eyes?" Fanny enquired,
openly appraising the person who had accompanied Bellamy to this
meeting, but who remained in the car with stony gaze riveted on nothing
in particular--"who looks like a private detective in a five-reel
re-hash of the eternal triangle?"
"The same."
"You have so many interests in California, you need a man on the spot to
look after them?"
"Not many but, such as they are, of prime importance to me," Bellamy
corrected with meaning.
"How romantic!" Fanny sighed, with a look so provocative that Bellamy's
mouth twitched involuntarily and he hoped fervently that Lucinda wasn't
looking.
He needn't have worried. Lucinda was too thoroughly occupied with her
own reactions to the several more agitating aspects of this predicament
to have any thoughts to spare for frivolous by-issues.
Not only that, but in pace with the growth of her interest in Summerlad,
the sense of detachment from all actual relationship to Bellamy had come
to be so absolute it could never have occurred to her to be anything but
entertained by the notion of a reciprocal interest springing up between
Fanny Lontaine and her husband. Fanny knew her way about, in the by-ways
of flirtation was as sure of foot as any chamois on its native crags. As
for Bellamy, in Lucinda's sight he was no longer property of hers, he
was free to follow the list of his whim, free as the wind, as free as
herself....
But the bare conception of anything of the sort was far from her mind
just then, too many graver considerations were making imperative
demands. To begin with, she was at one and the same time grateful to
Bellamy for being so decent about her assumed identity and in a raging
temper with him for having dared to follow her across the Continent, in
sequel to the even more intolerable insolence of setting detectives to
spy upon her. No more than in Fanny's mind was there question in
Lucinda's as to the real calling of that "man of business" whom Bellamy
had left in his car. But she earnestly wanted to know how long and how
closely that one had been her shadow, and what he had reported
concerning the interests professional and social which had been engaging
her.
More than this, Lucinda was at a loss to think how to deal with Bel, now
he was here. Patently on his good behaviour, taking care of himself, not
drinking too much; more like the man she had married for love so long
ago; showing so vast an improvement over the Bellamy of later years
that his unpretending presence alone somehow was enough to diminish the
stature of every man present and place even Summerlad on the
defensive--Lynn Summerlad, the crowned exquisite of the
screen!--obviously the Bel of today was not to be reckoned with as
readily as one had reckoned with the drink-stupid, conscience-racked Bel
of yesterday.
Disturbed by the sound of a voice addressing her in a tone pitched to
pass unheard by Bellamy, she lifted perplexed eyes to Summerlad's face.
"You're dining with me tonight. Don't forget."
"I don't know ..." Lucinda doubted. "Ought I?"
"Why on earth not? Surely you won't let _him_ influence you?"
"I don't know what's best. It might be better to see him tonight and get
it over with."
"Don't be foolish. Besides, I'm telling you, not asking you. I'll call
for you as soon as I can get home, change, and run back to the
Hollywood."
She liked and resented this dictation, and showed both emotions in a
semi-petulant smile which she intended as a preface to a retort that was
never uttered. For Bellamy interrupted, and immediately she was glad of
Summerlad's insistence and forgave him.
"Anxious to see you, Linda, of course, and have a talk, some time when
you're not professionally engaged. Tonight be agreeable?"
"Sorry, Bel, but I'm booked for tonight."
"Tomorrow, then?"
"But tomorrow night Cindy has a date with us," Fanny objected.
"I'm out of luck. Never mind: I know Linda won't keep me in suspense
forever."
"No: you may call on me the next night, Bel."
"That will be Friday. At the Hollywood, of course? Many thanks. And now
I mustn't keep you, it's a long ride back and you must be quite tired
out with your long day's work, the emotional strain and everything."
Bellamy was punctiliously gallant about helping Lucinda and Fanny into
their car, then returned to his own, wagging a cavalier farewell to
Summerlad as the latter sped away with Jacques in the orange-and-black
juggernaut.
When they had been some time under way Fanny broke in upon Lucinda's
meditations with an ecstatic murmur: "Priceless!"
Lucinda came to with a frown. "I'm glad you think so," she said shortly.
"Don't be upstage. You know it's priceless. Why didn't you tell me your
Bel was such a lamb?"
"He's not my Bel any more, and I don't consider him a lamb."
"Then I presume you've no objection to my vamping him?"
"None whatever, if it amuses you, dear. But why waste your powder on
such small game? Any pretty piece can vamp Bel. I'm not sure she need
even be pretty."
"Only for your sake, darling. I don't fancy the brute, thanks."
"For my sake?"
"Don't you see through his little game? He's out here to persuade you
he's a changed man, a reformed character, and beg you to take him back
on probation."
"Then he's far stupider than I imagined."
"Whereas if he falls for my girlish wiles, I'll have shown him up in all
his deceitfulness."
"Don't put yourself out on my account." Lucinda curled a lip. "I
wouldn't take Bel back no matter how absolute his reformation."
Fanny wanted to ask more questions but, heeding the counsel of
discretion, contented herself with a little private sigh. Going on her
tone, Lucinda quite meant what she had just said. Good news for Harry,
whose plans would be seriously embarrassed if there were any real
reason to fear the defection of Lucinda through reconciliation with her
husband. For of course, if she took Druce on again, it would mean an end
to the still young history of Linda Lee: Druce never would consent to
let his wife continue in the picture business.
"All the same, if you don't mind, I think I'll practise on Bellamy."
"Oh, I don't mind. But Harry might."
"Oh, Harry!" Fanny had a laugh of light scorn. "For all Harry
cares----!"
But Lucinda was inattentive; she had lapsed swiftly into an abstraction
which had little or nothing to do with the unseasonable reappearance of
Bellamy or the prospect of a wearing time with him before he could be
finally discouraged. Whatever proposals Bel might wish to make, the
answer to them all stood immutably decreed by Lucinda's heart.
It was not with matters of such certainty that she was concerned, but
with the problematical issue of the Summerlad affair, an issue whose
imminence was to be measured now by hours. Nothing that had happened
since had served to erase the impression of that first kiss, nothing
conceivable could seem half so momentous. The presence of the camera had
meant nothing, they had kissed in earnest; mute, her lips had confessed
too much. It remained only to be determined whether or not Summerlad had
understood their message. If he had, Lucinda well knew, she was a lost
woman.
She was possessed with a species of rapturous alarm....