Her maid was waiting in the dressing-room, but Lucinda sent the woman to
explain to Mrs. Lontaine that they might be a few minutes delayed, and
told her not to come back till sent for. Alone with Bellamy, she showed
him a face on fire with challenge.
"You said you wanted to explain, Bel; you won't get another chance."
He nodded soberly. "Quite realize that. But this once will do, can say
all I want to in three minutes. Then you're free to call it quits for
good, if you like."
That posed her rudely. Did he mean--could it be possible he meant he had
become reconciled to the rift in their relations? Had the arrow she had
loosed into the dark, that night when Bel had broken his appointment
with her, flown straight to the mark? Was Bel really "cured?" He had
that look; there was deference without abasement in his bearing, if
regret now and then tinged his tone it conveyed no hint of repining. By
every sign he was doing very well without her.
"Can you doubt that's what I'll 'like,' Bel? Or what must I do, more
than I've already done, to prove I ask nothing better than to call it
quits for good with you?"
"Oh, you've done all that was needed, thanks. I'm convinced--have been
for some weeks, if you want to know--in fact, from the moment when I
found out you'd lost your head over a movie actor."
"Indeed?" Lucinda mastered an impulse to bite her lip. "And have you
anything to say about that?"
"Not a blessed thing. That's your affair."
"Pity you didn't know in time to spare you the trip."
"I'm not sure, Linda. Knowing you as I did, I don't think I'd have
believed anything I didn't see with my own eyes----"
"Anything so greatly to my discredit, of course!"
"Easy, Linda! I didn't say that. You know best what you want--that's
something nobody else can ever tell one. I'm not criticizing, I'm merely
explaining."
"And very good of you, I'm sure."
But Lucinda had not been able to utter the taunt without a tremor.
Bellamy gave his head a stubborn shake and stepped nearer. "Please don't
be angry because of anything stupid I may say. You see, you
misunderstand me: I came out here that first time dead-set to win you
back at any cost, still madly in love with you, absolutely unable to
conceive of a life that didn't pivot on you, Linda. I was prepared to
give you any pledges you could possibly ask----"
"Did you flatter yourself any pledge you could give would mean anything
to me, when you'd broken your word so often?"
"I hoped I could make you understand what a blow your leaving me had
been, how it had brought me to my senses at last, jolted me up on the
water-wagon, where I've been ever since--I haven't had a suspicion of a
drink, Linda, since that night you ran away--and made me see what an
unspeakable rotter I'd been, fooling around with women as I had. That's
another thing I cut out like a shot. I haven't looked sideways at
another woman since...."
"Not even after discovering I'd fallen in love with another man?"
"Not even after that. Somehow casual women don't mean anything to me any
more--I mean, casual flirtations. They're too damn stupid--silly waste
of time. I guess I had to be squiffy as I used to be most of the time,
not to be bored by them. Oh! I'm not saying I shan't ever fall in love
again, just as you have; but when I do, it will be the real thing,
Linda--not the simple cussedness that makes a child play with a gun
because he knows it's loaded."
"This is all very interesting, I'm sure. But after all, it doesn't
explain--now, does it?"
"It explains why I followed you out here the first trip, why I had to
see you in another man's arms, kissing him, and then hear all the
small-town gossip about you two before I'd believe...."
"There is gossip, then?"
"What do you think? According to all reports, you've been going it,
rather, you and this chap Summerlad--'stepping out together,' as they
say in Hollywood."
Lucinda affected a shrug of indifference: Bel mustn't guess she cared
what people said.
"But I am still waiting to hear why you've come out this time; what it
means when you hire quarters here in the studio where I am working
daily, and pretend you're going into the producing business. You may be
able to make Zinn believe that tale; at least, he won't ask embarrassing
questions so long as you put money in his pocket; but you can hardly
expect me--!"
"You're wrong there, Linda. I'm just as much in earnest about becoming a
producer of good motion-pictures as you are about becoming a star. I got
a little look into the game that fascinated me, in those two days while
I was killing time, waiting for the night you'd set for our talk. You
ought to be able to understand: you were fascinated yourself at first
sight."
"But you--! Bellamy Druce dabbling in the motion-picture business!"
"Well, what price Mrs. Bellamy Druce in the same galley?"
"No, Bel: frankly, I don't believe you. You're here with some wild idea
you can influence me to do what you wish--whatever that is, since you
say you've given up wanting me to come back to you."
"Oh, as to that--absolutely!"
"Then why must you set up your shop here, where we can't help running
into each other half a dozen times a day?"
"Because there isn't another inch of stage to be hired in all Los
Angeles today. I've had a man looking round for me ever since my first
visit, he's tried every place. The only thing I could do to avoid
renting from Zinn was to build, and that meant a longer wait than I
wanted. Ask anybody who knows the local studio situation, if you doubt
what I say."
"So you didn't come out this time with any idea of seeing me at all,
Bel?"
"Of course, I did. I had to see you. Things couldn't rest as they were,
especially after you'd taken up with this Summerlad. I'm assuming you're
serious in that quarter, of course."
"And what has that to do--?"
"Just this: I don't like it. As I say, if you want to run around with a
movie actor, that's your affair; but so long as you remain my wife, it's
my affair, too. Don't forget it's my name you're trailing through the
muck of this sink-hole of scandal."
She flamed at him--"_Bel!_"--but he wouldn't heed.
"You don't suppose you're going to get away with the Linda Lee thing
much longer, do you? If all these people don't know it's an assumed name
now, they jolly soon will. How do you suppose I found out you were up to
this game? No: not through detectives, but simply by calling on your
friend, Ben Culp, the man who first put this picture bee in your bonnet.
Nelly Guest gave me that cue, and I thought Culp might know something
helpful. Well: he did, when I called he had on his desk a trade paper
that carried a report of the incorporation of Linda Lee Inc. Did you
imagine anybody would need more than that name, coupled with Lontaine's
as president of the company? Culp himself was the first to tumble to
it.... And that's what I'm here to ask you. If you're going through, if
you're bent on leading the life you have been leading ever since you
fell in with these people, be good enough to keep my wife's name out of
it! Get your divorce and get it soon. That's all I have to ask of you."
Lucinda replied with a slow inclination of her head.
"What you want is my dearest wish," she said. "Depend on it, Bel, I
shan't waste a day, I'll take the first train I can catch for Reno,
after finishing this picture."
"That's simply splendid of you!" Bellamy declared heartily. "Anything I
can do to help along, of course--just let me know."
"I'll be glad if you'll go now," Lucinda told him. "I think I've had
about all I can stand for one day."
"Then good bye, my dear--a thousand thanks!"