Kedzie made a bad night of it. She hated her loneliness. She hated her
room. She hated her maid. She wanted to live in the Dyckman palace and
have a dozen maids and a pair of butlers to boss around, and valets,
and a crest on her paper, and invitations pouring in from people whose
pictures were in “the social world.” She wanted to snub somebody and
show certain folks what was what.
The next morning she was sure of only one thing, and that was that
Dyckman had asked her to be his wife; and be his wife she would, no
matter what it cost.
She wondered how she could get rid of Gilfoyle, whom she looked upon
now as nothing less than an abductor. He was one of those “cadets” the
papers had been full of a few years before, who lured young girls to
ruin under the guise of false marriages and then sold them as “white
slaves.”
Kedzle's wrath was at the fact that Gilfoyle was not legally an
abductor. She would have been glad merely to be ruined, and she would
have rejoiced at the possibility of a false marriage. In the movies the
second villain only pretended to be a preacher, and then confessed his
guilt. But such an easy solution was not for Kedzie. New York City
had licensed Gilfoyle's outrage; the clerk had sold her to him for two
dollars; the Municipal Building was the too, too solid witness.
She felt a spiritual solace in the fact that she had not had a religious
marriage. The sacrament was only municipal and did not count. Her
wedding had lacked the blessing of the duly constituted ministry;
therefore it was sacrilegious; therefore it was her conscientious duty
to undo the pagan knot as quickly as possible. She reverted to the good
old way of the Middle Ages. There was no curse of divorce then, and
indeed there was small need of it, since annulment could usually be
managed on one religious ground or another, or if not, people went about
their business as if it had been managed.
Kedzie felt absolved of any fault of selfishness now, and justified in
taking any steps necessary to the punishment of Gilfoyle. _Religion_
is a large, loose word, and it can be made to fit any motive; but once
assumed it seems to strengthen every resolution, to chloroform mercy and
hallow any means to the self-sanctified end. What people would shrink
from as inhuman they constantly embrace as divine.
Kedzie wondered how she could communicate with her adversary. She might
best go to Chicago and fight herself free there. There would be less
risk of Dyckman's hearing about it.
She shuddered at what she would have to tell him unless she kept the
divorce secret. He might not love her if he knew she was not the nice
new girl he thought her, but an old married woman. And what would he say
when he found that her real name was Mrs. Thomas Gilfoyle _nee_ Kedzie
Thropp?
But first Kedzie must divorce herself from the Hyperfilm Company. She
went to the studio with rage in her heart. She told Ferriday that
she would not go to California. He proposed that she break with the
Hyperfilm Company and form a corporation of her own with Dyckman as
angel.
Kedzie was wroth at this. From now on, spending Dyckman's money would
be like spending her own. Ferriday, once her accomplice in the noble
business of getting Dyckman to back her, was revealed now as a cheap
swindler trying to keep Mrs. Dyckman in trade at her husband's expense.
“I'm through with the pictures, I tell you!” she stormed. “I'm sick of
the cheap notoriety. I'm tired of being public property. I can't go out
on the street without being pointed at. It's disgusting. I don't want to
be incorporated or photographed or interviewed. I want to be let alone.
I'm tired. I've worked too hard. I need a rest.”
Ferriday hated her with great agility. He had been willing to abet her
breach of contract, provided she let him form a new company, but if she
would not that made a great difference. He reminded her:
“The Hyperfilm Company will hold you to your bond. They want your
hundred and twenty-five pounds of flesh. If you should break with them
they'd have a case against you for damages.”
“How much?” said Kedzie, feeling like Mrs. Croesus.
Ferriday whistled and murmured: “Spoken like the wife of a
multimillionaire! So you've got him at last.”
“To who,” Kedzie began, with an owl-like effect that she corrected with
some confusion,”--to whom do you refer to?”
Ferriday grinned: “You're going to marry out of the movies, and you're
going to try to horn into sassiety. Well, I warned you before that if
you became Dyckman's wife you would find his world vastly different
from the ballroom and drawing-room stuff you pull off in the
studio--strangely and mysteriously different.”
He frightened her. She was not sure of herself. She could not forget
Nimrim, Missouri, and her arrival at the edge of society _via_ the
Bronx, the candy-shop, and the professional camera.
She felt that the world had not treated her squarely. Why should she
have to carry all this luggage of her past through the gate with her?
She wondered if it would not be better to linger in the studios till she
grew more famous and could bring a little prestige along.
But Ferriday was already ousting her even from that security.
“The managers of the Hyperfilm Company will think you have done them
dirt, but I'll explain that you are not really responsible. You've seen
a million dollars, and you're razzle-dazzled. They'll want a bit of that
million, I suppose, as liquidated damages, but I'll try to keep them
down.”
Kedzie was at bay in her terror. She struck back.
“Tell 'em they won't get a cent if they try to play the hog.”
“They don't have hogs on Fifth Avenue, Anita. Don't forget that. Well,
good-by and good luck.”
This was more like an eviction than a desertion. Kedzie felt a little
softening of her heart toward the old homestead.
“I'm sure I'm much obliged for all you've done for me.”
Ferriday roared his scorn.
She went on: “I am. Honest-ly! And I hope I haven't caused you too much
inconvenience.”
Ferriday betrayed how much he was hurt by his violent efforts to conceal
it.
“Not at all. It happens that I've just found another little girl to take
your place. This one drifted in among the extras, just as you did, and
she's a dream. I'll show her to the managers, and they may be so glad
to get her they won't charge you a cent. In fact, if you say the word,
I might manage it so that they would pay you something to cancel your
contract.”
This was quite too cruel. It crushed the tears out of Kedzie's eyes, and
she had no fight left in her. She simply stammered:
“No, thank you. Don't bother. Well, good-by.”
“Good-by, Anita--good luck!”
He let her make her way out of his office alone. She had to skirt the
studio. From behind a canvas wall over which the Cooper-Hewitt tubes
rained a quivering blue glare came the words of the assistant director:
“Now choke her, Hazlitt! Harder! Register despair, Miss Hardy. Try to
scream and can't! That's good. Now, Walsh, jump in to the rescue. Slug
him. Knock his bean off. 'S enough! Fall, Hazlitt. Now gather up Miss
Hardy, Walsh. Register devotion, gratitude, adoration--now you got it.
Turn on your lamps full power, dearie! Wow! Bully! A couple of tears,
please. That's the stuff. You'll be the queen of the world. Weep a
little more. Real tears. That's it! Now clinch for the fade-out. Cut!”
Kedzie tiptoed away. She felt as Eve must have felt sneaking out of Eden
and hearing the nightingales wrangling and the leopards at play.