THE STAR
I
Bunny went back to Angel City, and discovered that if he wanted to
follow Vee Tracy’s program of dodging other people’s troubles, he had
made a fatal mistake to get interested in a labor college! He went to
see Mr. Irving, and found the young instructor up to his ears in the
growing pains and disputes of the labor movement. All summer long his
job had been interviewing leaders and sympathizers, and trying to get
them together on a program. He had managed to get the college started,
with three teachers and about fifty pupils, mostly coming at night; but
it was all precarious—the difficulties seemed overwhelming.
There were a handful of progressive and clear-minded men and women in
the labor movement; and then there was the great mass of the
bureaucracy, dead from the ears up; also a little bunch of extreme
radicals, who would rather have no bread at all than half a loaf. The
old-line leaders would have nothing to do with the college if these
“reds” got in; on the other hand, if you excluded the “reds,” they would
set up a clamor, and a lot of genuine liberals would say, what was the
use of a new college that was so much like the old ones?
The labor movement had its traditions, having to do with getting shorter
hours and more pay for the workers; and the old officials were bound by
that point of view. The average union official was a workingman who had
escaped from day-labor by the help of a political machine inside the
union. Anything new meant to him the danger of losing his desk job, and
having to go back to hard work. He had learned to negotiate with the
employers and smoke their cigars, and in a large percentage of cases he
was spending more money than his salary. Here in Angel City, the unions
had a weekly paper, that lived by soliciting advertising from business
men—and what was that but a respectable form of graft? When you took
any fighting news to an editor of that sort, he would say the dread word
“Bolshevism,” and throw your copy into the trash basket.
And the same thing applied to the movement in its national aspects. The
American Federation of Labor was maintaining a bureau in Washington, for
the purpose of combatting the radicals, and this bureau was for
practical purposes the same as any patriotic society; its function was
to collect damaging news about Russia from all over the world, and feed
it to the American labor press. And of course, if any labor man was
defiant, and insisted upon telling the other side, he would incur the
bitter enmity of this machine, and they would throw him to the wolves.
There would be a scare story in the capitalist press, telling how the
Communists had got possession of the plasterers’ union, or maybe the
button workers, and the grand jury was preparing action against a nest
of conspirators. The average labor leader, no matter how honest and
sincere, shivered in his boots when such a club was swung over his head.
II
Also there was Harry Seager and his troubles. The Seager Business
College had turned out a class of young men and women, thoroughly
trained to typewrite, “All men are created free and equal,” and also,
“Give me liberty or give me death.” And now these young people were
going about in the business offices of Angel City, and discovering that
nobody wanted employees to typewrite anything of that sort! In plain
words these young people were being told that the Seager Business
College was a Bolshevik institution, and the business men of the city
had been warned not to employ its graduates. The boycott was illegal in
Angel City, and if any labor men tried to apply it, they would be
whisked into jail in a jiffy. But imagine Harry Seager asking, the
district attorney to prosecute the heads of the Merchants’ and
Manufacturers’ Association, whose campaign contributions had put the
district attorney into office!
Bunny went up to Paradise, and there was another bunch of grief. In
preparation for the coming struggle over the wage-scale, the oil
operators were weeding out the “trouble-makers,” which meant the active
union men. And now for the first time, Ross Consolidated was following
the policy of the rest. Ben Riley, one of the fellows who met in the
Rascum cabin, had been told that he was no longer needed. They had too
many men, the foreman had said, but that was a plain lie, because he had
taken on half a dozen new men since. No, Ben was a Socialist, and had
talked at meetings in Paradise, and distributed Socialist papers that
showed the monstrous wastes in the oil industry, and the world-rivalry
for oil which was to cause the next great war.
It was Ruth who told Bunny about this; very seriously, with distress in
her gentle eyes. “It’s a shame, Bunny, because Ben has got no place to
go. And here he’s got a home, and a wife and two little girls.”
Bunny was worried too; Dad had promised this kind of thing should not
happen!
“Can’t you do something about it?” pleaded Ruth.
“Well, but Ben was a pumper, and that’s in the department of operation,
and Dad only has to do with the development work. He wouldn’t butt in on
the superintendent of operation.”
“But then, ask him to give Ben a job on development.”
“I’ll ask him, Ruth, but I know what he’ll say. If he undertook to make
jobs for men that other departments want to get rid of, he’d make bad
feeling. You know what a lot of fuss he makes about good feeling inside
the organization.”
“Yes, Bunny, but then, what about Ben’s feeling, and all the men?” Ruth
persisted, with that surprising force that gentle people sometimes
display. Ruth did not understand abstract questions, she had no theories
about the “class struggle;” but when it came to a human fact, a
grievance, then she was possessed by it, and as determined as Paul.
These men who came to the cabin to argue and discuss, they were all her
friends, and if they did not get a square deal, something must be done!
So here was Bunny, in his old tormenting position, watching a fight
which he was powerless to stop, or even to mitigate! Ben Riley managed
to get work on a ranch; he had to put in twelve hours a day, but all the
same, he would come onto the tract at night and distribute his Socialist
literature—and of course with a burning sense of bitterness, shared by
his friends.
Tom Axton was back in the field, at his organizing job, and he and Paul
and Bunny had long discussions. Here in the oil workers’ union, just as
in the labor college, there was the problem of what to do about the
“reds.” You could never have any big group of workers without Socialists
and Communists and I. W. W. among them—and all busily “boring.” Paul
was endorsing the position of Axton, that the one thing in the oil
industry was to save the union; all the workers must concentrate on
that, and avoid every cause of division. To this the Socialists and the
Communists made answer, all right, they would help; but as the struggle
developed, the bosses would call in the police and the courts, and the
oil workers, like all other workers, would find they could not stay out
of politics, they would have to master the capitalist state. So far the
Socialists and Communists would agree; but then would come the question,
how was this mastering to be accomplished—and at once the two groups
would be imitating the Menzies family!
The “Industrial Workers of the World,” as they called themselves, were a
separate group, men who had been revolted by the corruption and lack of
vision in the old-line unions, and had formed a rival organization, the
“One Big Union,” that was some day to take in all the workers. They were
hated by the regular labor leaders, and the newspapers represented them
as criminals and thugs. When Bunny met one, he found a young fellow
clinging to an ideal in the spirit of the early Christian martyrs. These
“wobblies” were now being hunted like wild beasts under the “criminal
syndicalism act” of California; every one who came into a labor camp or
industrial plant was liable to be picked up by a constable or company
“bull,” and the mere possession of a red card meant fourteen years in
state’s prison. Nevertheless, here they were in Paradise; half a dozen
of them had a “jungle” or camping place out in the hills, and they would
lure workingmen out to their meetings, and you would see the glare of a
camp-fire, and hear the faint echo of the songs they sang out of their
“little red song book.” To Bunny this was romantic and mysterious; while
to Dad and Mr. Roscoe and the managers of Ross Consolidated, it was as
if the “jungle” had been located in the province of Bengal, and the
sounds brought in by the night wind had been the screams of man-eating
tigers!
III
From these and all other troubles Bunny now had a way of swift escape,
the Monastery. Nobody up there had troubles—or if they did, they didn’t
load them onto him! “Make this your country club,” Annabelle had said;
“come when you please and stay as long as you please. Our horses ought
to be ridden, and our books ought to be read, and there’s a whole
ocean—only watch out for the rip-tides!” So Bunny would run up to this
beautiful playground; and sometimes Vee Tracy was there, and when she
wasn’t she would turn up a few hours later—quite mysteriously.
She was several years older than he, and in knowledge of the world older
than he would be at a hundred. Nevertheless, she was a good playmate. It
was her business to be young in both body and spirit—it was the way she
earned her living, and she practiced the game all the time. She had to
live hard, like an athlete in training, a pugilist before a battle. Who
could tell what strange freak might next occur to the author of a novel,
or to a “continuity man,” or a director dissatisfied with the progress
of a melodrama? She would find herself tied upon a wild horse, or to a
log in a saw-mill, or dragged by a rope at the end of a speed-boat, or
climbing a church steeple on the outside. In ages past, in lands
barbarian and civilized, the hardships of the ascetic life have been
imposed upon women for many strange reasons; but was there ever one more
freakish than this—that she might appear before the eyes of millions in
the aspect of a terror-stricken virgin tearing herself from the hands of
lustful ravishers!
Anyway, here she was, a playmate for a young idealist running away from
other people’s troubles. They would take Annabelle’s unused horses, and
ride them bareback over the hills to the beach, and gallop them into the
surf and swim them there, to the great perplexity of the seals; or they
would turn the horses loose, and run foot-races, and turn hand-springs
and cart-wheels—Vee would go, a whirlwind of flying white limbs and
flying black hair, all the way into the water, and the waves would be no
wilder than her laughter. Then they would sit, basking in the sun, and
she would tell him stories about Hollywood—and assuredly the waves were
no wilder than these. Anything might happen in Hollywood, and in fact
had happened—and Vee knew the people it had happened to.
Bunny would go away, and find himself haunted by a figure in a scanty
one-piece bathing suit a figure youthful, sinewy but graceful, vivid,
swift. It was evident that she liked him, and Bunny would wake up from
his dreams and realize he liked her. He would think about her when he
ought to be studying; and his thinking summed itself up in one question,
“Why not?” Echo, in the form of Dad and Mr. Roscoe and Annabelle Ames
and their friends, appeared to be answering, “Why not?” The one person
who would have answered otherwise was Henrietta Ashleigh, and Henrietta,
alas, was now hardly even a memory. Bunny was not visiting the blue
lagoon, nor saying prayers out of the little black and gold books.
Bunny would call Vee Tracy on the telephone, at the studio or at her
bungalow, and she was always ready for a lark. They would go to one of
the restaurants where the screen folk dined, and then to one of the
theatres where the same folk were pictured, and she would tell him about
the private lives of these people—stories even stranger than the ones
made up for them. Very soon the screen world was putting one and one
together in its gossip. Vee Tracy had picked up a millionaire, an oil
prince—oh, millions and millions! And it was romantic, too, he was said
to be a Bolshevik! The glances and tones of voice that Bunny encountered
gave new echoes of the haunting question—“Why not?”
IV
Sitting on the beach, half dug into the sand, and staring out over the
blue water, Vee told him something about her life. “I’m no spring
chicken, Bunny, don’t imagine it. When I came into this game, I had my
own way to make, and I paid the price, like every other girl. You’ll
hear them lie about it, but don’t be fooled; there are no women
producers, and no saints among the men.”
Bunny thought it over. “Can’t they be satisfied with finding a good
actress?”
“She can be a good actress in the day-time, and a good mistress at
night; the man can have both, and he takes them.”
“It sounds rather ghastly,” said the other.
“I’ll tell you how it is, there’s such fierce competition in this game,
if you’re going to get ahead, nothing else matters, nothing else is
real. I know it was that way with me; I hung round the doors of the
studios—I was only fifteen—and I starved and yearned, till I’d have
slept with the devil to get inside.”
She sat, staring before her, and Bunny, watching her out of the corner
of his eye, saw that her face was grim.
“There’s this to remember too,” she added; “a girl meets a man that has
a wad of money, and can take her out in a big car, and buy her a good
meal, and a lot of pretty clothes, and set her up in a bungalow, and
he’s a mighty big man to her, it’s easy to think he’s something
wonderful. It’s all right for moralists to sniff, that don’t know
anything about it; but the plain truth is, the man that came with the
cash and offered me my first real start in a picture—he was just about
the same as a god to me, and it was only decent to give him what he
wanted. I had to live with him a few months, before I knew he was a
fat-headed fool.”
There was a silence. “I suppose,” said Vee, “you’re wondering why I tell
you this. I’m safe now, I’ve got some money in the bank, and I might set
up for a lady—put on swank and forget the ugly past. If I’d told you I
was an innocent virgin, how would you have known? But I said to myself,
‘By God, if having money means anything to me, it means I don’t have to
lie any more.’”
Said Bunny: “I know a man that says that. It made a great impression on
me. I’d never known anybody like it before.”
“Well, it makes you into a kind of savage. I’ve got an awful reputation
in the picture world—has anybody told you?”
“Not very much,” he answered.
She looked at him sharply. “What have they told you? All about Robbie
Warden, I suppose?”
“Hardly all,” he smiled. “I heard you’d been in love with him, and that
you’d sort of been in mourning ever since.”
“I made a fool of myself twice over a man; Robbie was the last time, and
believe me, it’s going to stay the last. He put up the money for the
best picture I ever made, and he was handsome as a god, and he begged me
to marry him, and I really meant to do it; but all the time he was
fooling with two or three other women, and one of them shot him, so that
was the end of my bright young dream. No, I’m not in mourning, I’m in
rejoicing because I missed a lot of trouble. But if I’m a bit cynical
about love, and a bit unrefined in my language, you can figure it out.”
And Vee shook the mountain of sand off her bare legs and stood up.
“Here’s how I keep off the fat,” she said, and put her hands down on the
sand where it was wet and firm, and stood the rest of herself upon them,
her slender white limbs going straight up, and her face, upside down,
laughing at Bunny; in that position she walked by slow handsteps down to
the water, and then threw herself over in the other half of a
handspring, and lighted on her feet and dashed into the breakers. “Come
on in! The water’s fine!”
V
Bunny thought over this conversation, and learned from it his usual
lesson of humility. Vee had had to fight for her success; whereas he had
never had to fight for anything. If he wanted a moving picture career,
Dad would arrange it for him, the studio doors would fly open. And the
same with any other sort of career he could think of. How could he
afford to pass judgment on anybody?
Also, while he listened to Vee Tracy, he had the memory of Eunice Hoyt
to keep him humble. No, people didn’t know what was right about sex; or
at any rate, if they did, they didn’t make it clear. It was disagreeable
to have to think about so many other men; but then, too, it helped to
clear the atmosphere. She wouldn’t expect to marry him right off; there
were marriages among the screen people, but apparently not until they
had made sure they were happy. Also, it enabled Bunny to be certain that
Vee would not be shocked by the knowledge that she was haunting his
dreams.
They were at the Monastery, and had been dancing, and went out upon one
of the loggias, or platforms, or terraces, or whatever you call the
outside of a cathedral. There was a moon shining down—the same that had
shone on Bunny and Eunice, and on Bunny and Nina Goodrich. There was
organ music inside, and the scent of flowers outside, and Bunny was
thinking to himself, “What am I going to do about this?” It couldn’t go
on, that was certain; he had got so that he was trembling all over. And
yet, somehow, he seemed to be tongue-tied. So far, all the girls had had
to propose to him, and it was quite absurd. What the dickens was the
matter with him?
In a faltering voice he suggested, “Let’s dance.” Vee stood up, and he
stood up; they had danced out onto this loggia, or terrace or platform,
and now they would dance back, and he would be, literally, just where he
had been before. No, that wouldn’t do! He had a sudden fit of
desperation; and instead of the particular kind of embrace which has to
do with dancing, he put his arms about her in a way that made it
impossible for her to dance. This was a crude procedure, no credit to a
junior classman and leader of fashion in a high-toned university. Bunny
knew it, and was in a panic. She would not understand—she would be
angry, and send him away!
But no, she was not angry; and somehow, she was able to understand.
There is an old saying, that fingers were made before forks, and in the
same way it is true that embraces were made a long time before words.
Bunny became aware that his clasp was being returned—and by a pair of
capable arms, that were able to hold a girl upside down in the air and
carry her into the surf! It was all right! “Oh, Vee!” he whispered.
“Then you do care for me!” Her lips met his, and they stood there in the
moonlight, locked together, while the organ music rose to a shout.
“Vee, I was so scared!” And she laughed. “You silly boy!” But suddenly
she drew back her head.
“Bunny, I want to talk to you. There’s something I must say. Let me go,
and sit down, please—no, in that chair over there! I want us to talk
quietly.”
There was fear in her voice, and he did what she asked. “What is it,
Vee?”
“I want us to be sensible, and know what we’re doing. It seems to me
hardly anybody I know can be happy in love, and I swore to God I never
would get into it again.”
“You’ll have to get a new God!” Bunny had managed to recover the use of
his tongue.
“I want us to promise to be happy! Any time we can’t be happy, let’s
quit, and not have any fuss! Let’s be sensible, and not go crazy with
jealousy, and torment each other.”
“You’ll be a plenty for me,” declared Bunny. “I surely won’t make you
jealous!”
“You don’t know what you’ll do! Nobody ever knows! It’s the devil’s own
business—oh, you’ve no idea what I’ve seen, Bunny! You’re nothing but a
babe in arms.”
“You’ll be good to me, Vee, and raise me up!”
“How do you know what I’ll do? How do you know anything about me? You
want me, without really knowing what I am or what I’ll do! I could have
told you a million lies, and how would you have known? The next woman
that comes along will tell you a million and one, and how will you know
about her?”
“That’s too easy, Vee—you’ll tell me!”
He sank down on his knees before her, and took one of her hands,
intending to comfort her; but she pushed it away. “No, I don’t want you
to do that. I want you to think about what I’m saying. I want us to
decide in cold blood.”
“You make my blood cold,” he laughed, “telling about the vamps of
Hollywood!”
“Bunny, a man and a woman ought to tell each other the truth—all the
time. They ought to trust each other that much, no matter how much it
hurts. Isn’t that so?”
“You bet it’s so.”
“If that means they give each other up, all right—but they’ve no
business holding each other by lies. Will you make that bargain, Bunny?”
“I will.”
“And I want you to know, I don’t want any of your money.”
“I haven’t got any money, Vee—it’s all Dad’s. That is the first painful
truth.”
“Well, I don’t want it. I’ve got my own, and I’ll take care of myself.
I’ve got a job, and you’ll have yours, and we’ll let each other alone,
and meet when it makes both of us happy.”
“That’s too easy for a man, Vee!”
“It’ll be a game, and those are the rules, and if we break the rules,
it’s cheating.”
Bunny could assure her that he had never cheated in a game, and would
not cheat in this one. So he overcame her fears, and she was in his arms
again, and they were exchanging those ravishing kisses, of which for a
time it seems impossible ever to have enough. Presently she whispered,
“Some one will come out here, Bunny. Let me go in, and I’ll dance a bit,
and then make my excuses and get away, and you come up to my room.”
VI
Had anybody seen them in the moonlight? Or had Vee whispered the secret
to Annabelle? Or was it just the light of happiness radiating from the
eyes of the young couple? Anyhow, it was evident next day that the truth
was out, and there was an atmosphere of festivity about the Monastery.
Nobody went so far as to sprinkle rice on the pair, or to throw old
shoes at them, or tie white ribbons to their cars; but there were
friendly smiles, and sly jests, enough to keep the play spirit alive.
Annabelle, of course, was enraptured; she had planned this from the
beginning, she had picked this young oil prince for her friend from the
day that Verne had told her about him. And Verne—well, you can imagine
that when he started to make jokes on such a subject, nobody was left in
doubt as to what had happened!
Strangely enough, when Bunny got home, he found this spirit of orange
blossoms and white ribbons in some mysterious way communicated to Dad.
Could it be that Verne, the old rascal, had taken the trouble to
telephone the news? Here was Dad, shining with satisfaction, and Bunny
could read his every thought. Dad had met Vee Tracy, and liked her fine.
A motion picture star—by golly, that was something to brag about! That
was the right sort of career for a young oil prince—quite in the
aristocratic tradition! Bunny would have something else in his mind now
but this fool Bolshevik business!
Presently here was Dad trying to drop hints—with about as much tact as
you would expect from a full grown rhinoceros! Had Vee Tracy been up at
the Monastery this time? Say, that was a live wire, that girl! Verne
said she got as high as four thousand a week; and that was no press
agent money either. She had more brains than all the male dolls put
together; she had money salted away, owned lots all over Hollywood.
She’d come to Verne to ask his advice about Ross Consolidated, and he
had told her to go the limit, and by golly, she had brought him a
cashier’s check for fifty thousand dollars, and had got a block of the
stock at the opening price, and now it was worth three times that, and
Vee said that Verne had saved her from six rapings! Then the old
rhinoceros went on and explained what Vee had meant—that she wouldn’t
have to act in six pictures!
And then there was Bertie, who got the news at once because it happened
that Charlie Norman’s bootlegger was in love with Annabelle Ames’
sister. Right away Bertie was curious to meet Vee Tracy, and ordered
Bunny to bring her to lunch. Vee was uneasy about this—declaring that
sisters always poisoned men against sweethearts. But Bunny laughed and
said he had plenty of antitoxins against Bertie. So they met, and
everything went off beautifully; Vee was humble, and anxious to please,
and Bertie was the great lady, supremely gracious. That was according to
the proprieties, for Vee was only an actress, while Bertie was in real
“society,” her doings appearing in a sanctified part of the newspaper,
where the screen people seldom broke in. After the luncheon, Bertie told
her brother that Vee was all right, and maybe she would teach him a
little sense; which, from a sister, was the limit of cordiality.
So there they were, everything hunkydory. Bunny’s sleep was no longer
disturbed by dreams; the dream had become a reality, and it was his.
When they visited the Monastery, they were placed in connecting rooms;
and when he went to visit Vee at her bungalow, the discreet elderly lady
who kept house for her would quietly disappear. As for the moving
picture colony, it said nothing more—having already said everything
there was to say.
Bunny would call Vee on the telephone, and if it was a Saturday or
holiday, they would make a date; but if it was a week-day, Vee would
say, “No, Bunny, you ought to stay home and study.”
He would answer, “Oh, bosh, Vee, I’m a whole week ahead of my classes.”
“But Bunny, if I make you neglect your work, your father will get down
on me!”
“Dad’s more in love with you than I am! He thinks you’re the brightest
star in the movie zodiac.”
“We just mustn’t overdo it, Bunny! Your conscience will get to troubling
you, and you’ll blame it on me.”
“Dog-gone-it, Vee, you boss me worse than if we were Annabelle and
Roscoe.”
“Well, let me tell you, if I manage to keep my oil prince as long as
Annabelle has kept hers, I’ll count myself a lucky woman!”
VII
Gregor Nikolaieff was back from his trip to Alaska, with more troubles
for the conscience of a young idealist. Gregor was gaunt and
hollow-eyed, like Paul returned from Siberia. Poor unsuspecting foreign
youth—he had shipped on what the sailors call “the hell fleet of the
Pacific,” and had found himself trapped in a desolate bay, walled in by
mountains on one side and ocean on the other, housed in barracks whose
floors were wet by the tides, sleeping in vermin-ridden bunks, and
eating food like that fed to the inmates of county jails. No way of
escape, save on ships that would not take you! While Bunny had been
romping in the Pacific with Vee and the seals, Gregor had been near to
drowning himself in the same ocean.
Also Rachel Menzies had come home, with more troubles; there was a
strike of the clothing workers! Quite unforeseen and
spontaneous—hundreds of workers, driven beyond endurance by petty
oppressions, had walked out in the middle of a job; the movement had
spread all over this Angel City, paradise of the “open shop.” The
workers were crowding into the union offices and signing up, and a
regular mass-struggle was under way. But Papa Menzies, one of the
intellectuals among the strikers, a man of force and insight—Papa
Menzies was sitting at home, with his frantic Hebrew wife clinging to
his coat-tails and wailing that if he went out and took part in the
strike, the police would get him and ship him off to Poland to be shot,
and never to see his family again!
As a result of this strike, Rachel was not going to be able to come to
college. Bunny, elegant young gentleman of leisure, who had never known
what it was to need money in his life, could not understand this, and
had to be told in plain words that Rachel’s family had been making
sacrifices to get her an education, and all these plans were knocked
out. Then of course Bunny wanted to get Dad to help; what was the use of
having a rich father, if you couldn’t serve your friends in a pinch? But
Rachel answered no, they had always been independent, and she would not
think of such a thing; she would have to skip a term in the university.
“But then you won’t be in my class!” exclaimed Bunny—realizing suddenly
how much he needed an antitoxin for the dullness of Southern Pacific
culture!
“It’s very kind of you, Mr. Ross,” she answered, sedately. “But perhaps
you will come to the meetings of the Socialist local.”
“But see here, really, I can get the money without the least trouble;
and you don’t have to consider it a gift, you can pay it back when you
want to. Won’t it be easier to earn money if you have a college degree?”
Rachel admitted that; she had meant to get a position as a social
worker—she had come to this university because there were special
courses which would make such a career possible. Bunny pleaded, why not
take Dad’s money, with no strings to it whatever, and pay him back ten
or twenty dollars a month out of her future salary. But Rachel was
stubborn—some strange impulse born of her “class-consciousness.” He
felt so keenly about it that without saying anything to her, he got into
his car and drove to the home of the Menzies family. He had the address
in his notebook, and it did not occur to him that she or her family
might be embarrassed to have him see the way they lived—in a wretched
slum district, crowded into a little three-room house on the back of a
lot, without a shred of a green thing in sight. It was a rented place,
Papa Menzies having put his money into Socialism, instead of into real
estate and shrubbery. Bunny found him in a crowded front room, with
furniture and books, and a job of sewing, and the remains of a meal of
bread and herring, and the proofs of an article which he was getting
ready for a strike bulletin, and a fat old Jewish lady rushing about in
a panic, trying to put things away from the sight of this alarmingly
fashionable visitor.
None of that bothered the old man; he was used to confusion, and all
wrapped up in the strike. He told Bunny about it, and read his article,
a bitter statement of the grievances of the clothing workers. And then
Bunny got down to the question of Rachel and her education, insisting
that Chaim Menzies should persuade his daughter not to give up her
career. Mrs. Menzies sat, staring with her large dark eyes, trying to
understand; and suddenly she broke into a torrent of excited Yiddish, of
which it was just as well that Bunny could not make out a word. For
Mamma Menzies placed no trust in this handsome young goy, and put the
worst possible construction upon his visit; he was trying to lure their
daughter into sin, and maybe he had already done so—who could tell what
sort of life she was living, with all these atheist and Socialist ideas
in her head, and going to a college run by a lot of Krists!
Papa Menzies bade her sternly to hold her tongue, which according to the
Hebrew law she was supposed to do; but apparently she took her Hebrew
law with as many allowances as the Krists took theirs. In the middle of
her torrents of Yiddish, Chaim thanked Bunny for his kindness, and
explained that what was worrying Rachel was the hard time the family
would have during the strike. If Bunny would help the family, then it
would be easy for Rachel to help herself. So they shook hands, and Bunny
went home to report to Dad that he had acquired the responsibility of
supporting half a dozen Jewish clothing workers!
VIII
Bunny was back at Southern Pacific. It was the line of least resistance;
a nice, clean occupation, honorific and easy on the nerves. One who was
good-looking and wealthy, and knew how to charm the professors, could
get by with almost no work at all, and have abundant time to read
Bolshevik propaganda, and watch strikes happen; also to sport about town
with a moving picture star, to drive and dine and dance with her, and
escort her to week-end parties of the Hollywood élite.
He might even have found time to visit the studio and watch her at work
on her new picture; but she would not let him do this. She was too much
in love with him, she could not concentrate with him looking on.
Moreover, she said, her work was horrid, all pictures were horrid; Bunny
wouldn’t like what she was doing. It was just a way she earned her
living, and she had to do what other people told her; it was without any
relation to life, and Bunny, who was serious and educated, would think
it childish, or worse. She liked him to be serious, he was a dear and
all that, and one of the few men who really could tell her something
about the world; he must go on being like that, and not pay any
attention to her pictures.
It struck Bunny as a little mysterious; she protested too much. And
before long he discovered the reason—in some of the gossip about the
screen world which filled pages upon pages of the newspapers. Vee Tracy
was working on a picture about Russia! She was to be a beautiful
princess of the old regime, caught in the storm of the revolution,
falling into the hands of the Bolsheviks, and making one of her famous
“get-aways” with the aid of a handsome young American secret service
man! Vee had been working on this picture for the past six months; and
right in the middle of it, she had gone and got herself a “parlor
Bolshevik” for a lover, and now was afraid to let him know what she was
doing!
Poor Bunny, he was making such earnest and devoted efforts to ride on
two horses at once! And the horses kept getting farther and farther
apart, until he was all but split in the middle! Here was this strike of
the clothing workers, breaking in upon the peace of America’s premier
“open shop” city. It was the climax of a series of disorders—first a
walk-out of the street railwaymen, and then of the carpenters; it was
evident that the program of the reds, “boring from within,” was having a
terrifying success, and the thing had to be stopped, once for all. The
city council passed an anti-picketing ordinance, which forbade anyone to
even make an ugly face in front of a place where there was a strike.
Since not all the clothing workers had faces of natural beauty, there
was much infringement of this law, and very soon the papers were full of
accounts of riots, valiantly put down by the police. A part of Bunny’s
curriculum at the university consisted of having Rachel Menzies describe
to him and the rest of the “red bunch” how girls who were doing nothing
but walking up and down the street in pairs, were being seized by the
police and having their arms twisted out of joint.
Then one morning Rachel did not show up in class; next day came a note
for Bunny telling him that Jacob Menzies had been clubbed almost
insensible on the picket-line. Jacob was the “right wing” brother, the
pale, stoop-shouldered one who had been earning his education by
pressing students’ pants; and Bunny had so far departed from the safe
rule of dodging other people’s troubles that he felt it his duty to
drive over to the Menzies’ home, and have his feelings harrowed by the
sight of Jacob Menzies in bed, pale as the sheets, and with a Hindoo
turban wound about his head. There was Mamma Menzies, with tears
streaming down her cheeks, wailing over and over one Yiddish word that
Bunny could understand—“Oi! Oi! Oi!” Chaim Menzies, the father, was
nowhere to be seen, because he had torn his coat-tails loose from his
wife’s fingers, and was over at strike headquarters, doing his duty.
The next afternoon, coming out from his classes, Bunny saw on a
newsstand the familiar green color of the “Evening Booster,” and his eye
was caught—as it was meant to be caught—by flaring headlines:
POLICE RAID RED CENTER
So Bunny purchased a paper—as it was meant that he should do—and read
how that morning a squad from police headquarters had invaded the rooms
of the clothing workers’ union, and taken off nearly a truck-load of
documents which were expected to prove that the disturbance in the
city’s industry was being directed and financed by the red
revolutionists of Moscow. The officials of the union were under arrest,
one of those apprehended being Chaim Menzies, “self-confessed
socialistic agitator.”
IX
So there was another job for Bunny. He didn’t know quite how to set
about it, and Dad was on the way to Paradise, and could not be
consulted. Bunny went to see Dad’s lawyer, Mr. Dolliver, a keen-witted,
soft-spoken gentleman who had no sympathy with reds, but, like all
lawyers, was prepared for any weird trouble his wealthy clients might
bring along. He called up police headquarters and ascertained that the
self-confessed socialistic agitator was to be arraigned the following
day; bail would be set at that time, and it would be up to Bunny to have
the cash on hand, or real estate to twice the amount. Bunny said he
wanted to see the prisoner, and Mr. Dolliver said he knew the chief of
police, and might be able to arrange it.
He wrote a note, and Bunny went over to the dingy old building which had
been erected to serve a city of fifty thousand, and was now serving one
of a million. The chief proved to be a burly person in civilian
clothing, smelling strongly of civilian whiskey; he requested Bunny to
sit down, and summoned a couple of detectives, and began an obvious
effort to find out all that Bunny knew about Chaim Menzies, and Bunny’s
ideas, and Chaim’s ideas. And Bunny, who was growing up fast in an ugly
world, gave a carefully phrased exposition of the difference between the
right and left wings of the Socialist movement. Finding that he could
not be trapped into indiscretions, and knowing that he was a
millionaire’s son, and could not be thrown into a cell, the chief gave
him up, and told one of the detectives to take him in to see the
prisoner.
So Bunny got a glimpse of his city’s jail. The old building was cracked,
and had been condemned as a menace to life by half a dozen successive
commissions; nevertheless, here it was, a monument to the greed of real
estate speculators, who cared nothing about a city’s good name, provided
only its tax-rate were low. The mouldy old place stank, and if you
looked carefully, you might see vermin crawling on the walls. The
prisoners were confined in a number of “tanks,” which were steel-barred
cages holding thirty or forty men each, with no ray of daylight, and not
enough artificial light to enable anyone to read. This city, so oddly
named “Angel,” appeared anxious to cultivate all possible vices in its
victims, for it provided them no reading matter, and no exercise or
recreation, but permitted them to have cards, dice and cigarettes—and
the jailers secretly smuggled in whiskey and cocaine to such as had
money for bribes.
In one of these tanks sat Papa Menzies—on the floor, since there was no
other place to sit. He appeared quite contented, having gathered round
him the entire congregation of the cell, to hear about the struggle of
the clothing workers, and how it was up to the toilers of the world to
organize and abolish the capitalist system. When Bunny appeared, the old
man jumped up and grabbed him by the hand; and Bunny said quickly, “Mr.
Menzies, you should know that this gentleman with me is a detective.”
Papa Menzies grinned. “Sure, I got notting to hide. I been a member of
de Socialist party for tventy years. I believe in de ballot box—dey
vill find notting to de contrary, unless dey make it. I have been
telling dese boys vat Socialism is, and I vill tell dis gentleman, if he
vants to listen. I have been helping de cloding vorkers stand togedder
for decent conditions, and I am going on vid it de day I git out again.”
So that was that!
And in the evening Bunny phoned to his father and told him the
situation. Bunny had been accustomed to sign his father’s name to checks
of any size, and had been careful not to abuse the privilege; but now he
was proposing to draw fifteen thousand dollars, because they would
probably fix the bail very high, in the hope of keeping the old man in
jail until the strike had been broken. There was no risk involved, Bunny
declared, for Menzies was the soul of honor, and would not run away.
Dad made a wry face over the telephone—but what could he do? His dearly
beloved son was ablaze with indignation, and insisted that he knew all
about it, there was no possibility whatever that this old clothing
worker might be a secret agent of the Soviet government, deliberately
planted in Angel City to destroy American institutions. How Bunny could
know such things Dad couldn’t imagine, but he had never known his boy to
be so wrought up, and finally he said all right, but to have Mr.
Dolliver send somebody to court with the money, so that Bunny would not
get his name into the newspapers again.
X
The matter was handled as Dad ordered; the lawyer’s clerk went to court,
and came back and reported that the prisoners had appeared, but Chaim
Menzies had not been among them. His case had been taken over by the
Federal authorities, because it had been discovered that he was born in
Russian Poland, and it was proposed to cancel his naturalization papers
and deport him. Chaim had been transferred to the county jail, another
condemned structure, fully as dingy and filthy as the city jail. There
was no longer anything you could do about it, because in these
deportation cases the courts were refusing to intervene, holding them to
be administrative matters. The Democratic attorney-general had failed in
his effort to get the nomination for president by his campaign against
the reds, but the machinery he had set going was still grinding out
misery for guilty and innocent alike.
So here was some real trouble for Bunny! Over at the Menzies home was
Rachel, white-faced and pacing the floor, and Mamma Menzies wailing and
tearing her clothing. It was impossible even to get word to poor
Chaim—he was “incommunicado”; indeed, he might already have been put
onto a train for the east. After that there would be no chance for him
whatever—he would be dumped onto a steamer for Dantzig, and there
turned over to the Polish “white terror.”
Bunny insisted that something must be tried, and so Mr. Dolliver called
in a couple of still more expensive lawyers—at Dad’s expense—and they
debated habeas corpuses and injunctions and other mystical formulas, and
made out a lot of papers and tried this court and that, all in vain.
Meantime, in response to frantic commands from his son, Dad broke the
speed laws from Paradise; and when he arrived, there were Bunny and his
Jewish girl-friend waiting on his front-porch. They dragged him into his
den and made him listen to a disquisition on the difference between the
right and left wings of the Socialist movement, with a complete
description of the activities of a literature agent of the Socialist
party. In the middle of it Rachel burst into tears, and sank down upon
the sofa; and Dad, who was really no more able to stand a woman weeping
than was Bunny, went over and patted her on the shoulder, and said,
“There, there, little girl, never mind! I’ll get him out, even if I have
to send a man to New York!”
So Dad stepped out and sped away in his car. That was about
lunch-time—and a little before three o’clock of that same day, who
should emerge from a taxi-cab in front of the Menzies tenement but Chaim
himself, dirty and unshaven, but smiling and serene, and ready to
continue his labors for his “cloding vorkers”! He hadn’t the least idea
how it had happened; the keepers of the county jail had volunteered no
information as they turned him loose, and Chaim had not stopped for
questions. He never did know, and neither did his daughter, for what Dad
told Bunny was strictly confidential, a bit of oil men’s secret lore.
“What did I do? I called in an old friend of ours, Ben Skutt.”
“Ben Skutt!” Bunny had not thought of their “lease-hound” for years.
“Yes, Ben is high up in this defense business now, and he did it for
me.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Tell him? I told him one grand.”
“One what?”
“That’s bootlegger’s slang. I gave him five hundred dollars, and said,
‘Ben, go and see the man that’s got that old kike in jail and tell him
to turn him loose, and then come back to me and I’ll give you another
five hundred!’”
“My God!” said Bunny.
And Dad took a couple of puffs at his big cigar. “Now you see why we oil
men have to be in politics!”
XI
Besides completing Bunny’s political education, this incident was
important to him in another way; it was the cause of Vee Tracy’s taking
over the management of his life. Ross senior got the moving picture lady
on the telephone that very evening, and he said, “Look here, Vee, you’re
laying down on your job!”
“How do you mean, Mr. Ross?”
“My name is Dad,” said the voice, “and what I mean is that you’re not
taking care of my son like I wanted you to do. He’s been a-gettin’ into
trouble with these Bolshevikis again, and it’s all because you don’t see
enough of him.”
“But Mr.—Dad—I’ve been trying to make him study—I thought that was
what you wanted.”
“Well, you forget about him studyin’, that’s all bunk, it ain’t a-goin’
to do him no good, and besides, he don’t do it; he jist goes off to
Socialist meetin’s, and he’d better be with you.”
“Oh, Dad!” There was a little catch in Vee’s voice. “There’s nothing I’d
like better! I’m just crazy about that boy!”
“Well, you take him under your wing and keep him there, and if you can
get him loose from these reds, I’ll remember you in my will.”
So after that Bunny found that he could have a date with his beloved at
any hour of the day or night. She never told him the reason—no, her
idea of truth-telling did not go that far! She let him think it was
because of his overwhelming charms, and his male egotism was satisfied
with the explanation. She would make feeble pretenses at resistance.
“Oh, Bunny, Dad will think I’m wasting your time, he’ll call me a vamp!”
And Bunny would answer, “You goose, he knows that if I’m not with you, I
may be off at some Socialist meeting.”
They were so happy, so happy! The rapture of fresh young souls and fresh
young bodies, eager, quivering in every nerve! Their love suffused their
whole beings; everything became touched with magic—the sound of their
voices, the gestures of their hands, even the clothing they wore, the
cars they drove, the houses they lived in. They flew together—the
telephone girls were overworked keeping them in touch. Bunny became what
in the slang of the time was known as a “one-arm driver”; also he
studied the arts of cajoling professors and cutting lectures. His
conscience was easy, for had he not done his duty by the Socialist
movement, with that “one grand” of Dad’s? Besides, the strike was over,
and the clothing workers had won a few concessions; the leaders had been
released, and the promised “Moscow revelations” forgotten by the
newspapers, and therefore by everybody else.
Vee would still not let Bunny come to the studio where she was working.
For the next picture, perhaps, but not this one; he and his Bolsheviks
wouldn’t like it, and he must put off seeing it as long as possible. But
all the rest of her time was his—every precious instant! The elderly
housekeeper received a five-dollar bill now and then, and was deaf, dumb
and blind. Vee’s room in the bungalow was upstairs, the only
second-story room, open on all four sides, and with ivy wreathing its
windows; inside it was all white, a bower of loveliness. Here they
belonged to each other; and tears of ecstasy would come into Vee’s eyes.
“Oh, Bunny, Bunny! I swore I’d never do this; and here I am, worse in
love than I ever dreamed! Bunny, if you desert me, I shall die!” He
would smother her fears in kisses; it was a case for the application of
another old saying, that actions speak louder than words!
There was no cloud in the sky of their happiness; except just one little
cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand! Bunny did not see it at all; and the
woman saw it for an instant or so, and then looked the other way. Oh,
surely the rose will bloom forever!
XII
The hands of destiny, turning upon the face of the movie clock, had
brought Vee’s hour of glory again. The great picture was ready, and once
more she was on all the billboards of the city: “Schmolsky-Superba
presents Viola Tracy in the twelve-reel Superspecial, ‘The Devil’s
Deputy, Million Dollar Heart Drama of the Russian Revolution.’” The
scene which ornamented the billboards disclosed Vee, as usual with her
lingerie torn, crouching in the arms of the ineffably handsome young
American secret service agent, and the agent presenting a revolver to a
mass of tangled black whiskers, behind which hideous foreign faces
lurked.
Also there was publicity in the newspapers, columns and columns about
the picture, the authors of the book, the continuity man and the
director and the writer of the titles and the artists and the decorators
and the costumers and the musicians; but most of all about the star. Was
it to be expected that the publicity man should drop no hint to the
reporters about the fascinating young oil prince who had now become Miss
Tracy’s most intimate friend? It had been expected by Bunny, and maybe
by Dad, but assuredly not by anyone else. The reporters laid siege to
the young prince, and sweet, sentimental sob-sister ladies sought to
lure him into revealing how it felt to be the very, very dearest dear
friend of such a brilliantly scintillating star of the movie heavens.
One day it was rumored they were engaged to marry, and the next day they
were not; and if they said nothing, the reporters knew what they ought
to have said. And when Bunny would not give his picture, they snapped
him on the street, and when he turned his face away, they gave it a
jolly caption: “Oil Prince Is Shy!”
“The Devil’s Deputy” was to have its “world premiere” at Gloobry’s
Million Dollar Melanesian Theatre; and these “world premieres” are, as
you may know, the great social events of Southern California.
Searchlights search the clouds and bombs boom in the sky; red fire makes
an imitation Hades in the streets, and kleig lights make day in the
arcade which the million dollar Melanesians hold upright upon their
naked shoulders. The crowds pack the streets, and swarms of burglars
invade the city, because all the police department is required to make a
pathway for the movie stars as they move in their appointed courses,
from their shining ten thousand dollar limousines, across the sidewalk
and through the arcade and under the million dollar portals. The kleigs
glare upon them, and a dozen moving picture cameras grind, and
flashlights boom, and the crowd surges and quivers and murmurs with
ecstasy.
Never in all human history has there been such glory; never have the
eyes of mortals beheld such royal pageantry! Trappers and hunters have
perished in the icy wastes of the arctic to bring the ermines and sables
in which these queens are robed; divers have been torn by sharks to
bring up their pearls from the depths of tropic seas, and miners have
been crushed in the deep earth to dig their blazing diamonds; chemists
have blown themselves up in search for their cosmetics and dyes, and
seamstresses have grown blind embroidering the elaborate designs which
twinkle upon their silken ankles. All this concentrated in one brief
glory-march—do you wonder that heads are high and glances regal? Or
that the crowd surges, and rushes wildly, and women faint, and
ambulances come clanging?
Inside the theatre, over the head of one of the million dollar
Melanesians, is a huge megaphone; and as the great ones descend from
their cars, a giant’s voice acquaints the audience with their progress.
“Mr. Abraham Schmolsky is coming through the arcade. Mr. Schmolsky is
accompanied by Mrs. Schmolsky. Mrs. Schmolsky wears a blue satin opera
cloak trimmed with chinchilla, made by Voisin, just brought by Mrs.
Schmolsky from Paris. Mrs. Schmolsky wears her famous tiara of diamonds.
Mr. and Mrs. Schmolsky are now entering the theatre. Mr. and Mrs.
Schmolsky have stopped to talk with Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Gloobry.”
And so on and on, thrill after thrill—until at last, exactly at the
sacred hour of eight-thirty, the supreme, the superthrill of the
evening:
“Miss Viola Tracy is descending from her car. Miss Tracy is accompanied
by her friend, Mr. J. Arnold Ross, junior, discoverer and heir-apparent
of the Ross Junior oil field, of Paradise, California. Miss Tracy and
Mr. Ross are coming through the arcade. Miss Tracy wears a cloak of
gorgeous ermine furs; her slippers are of white satin, trimmed with
pearls. She wears a collar of pearls and a pearl head-dress, presented
to her by Mr. J. Arnold Ross, senior. Miss Tracy and Mr. Ross junior are
in the lobby, shaking hands with Mr. and Mrs. Schmolsky and Mr. and Mrs.
Gloobry”—and so on, until Miss Tracy and Mr. Ross junior are in their
seats, and history is at liberty to begin.
XIII
So Bunny saw the Russian picture. His beloved was the beautiful bride of
a grand duke; the gestures, the kisses, the raptures of love, which had
been rehearsed upon himself, were now lavished upon a magnificent,
sharp-whiskered personage in a military uniform with many stars and
orders. This personage was haughty but high-minded, and his grand
duchess was the soul of charity; and oh, such lovely gentle peasants as
she had to exercise her charity upon! How sweetly they curtsied, how
charmingly they danced, and gathered to cheer and throw flowers after
the grand ducal carriage! It was a beautiful, almost idyllic world—one
was tempted really to doubt whether any world so perfect ever had
existed on earth.
There was only one thing wrong with it, and that was a secret band of
villains with twisted, degenerate faces, some of them with wild hair and
big spectacles, others with ferocious black whiskers and knives in their
boots. They met to concoct anarchist manifestoes, intended to seduce the
sweet innocent peasants; and to make dynamite bombs to blow up
noble-minded grand dukes. They drank in booze-dens, and grabbed women by
the arms and man-handled them, right out before one another. There was
no wickedness these creatures did not do, and their leader, with the
face of a rat and the arms of a gorilla, made evident to the dullest
mind why the picture was called “The Devil’s Deputy.”
Then came the young secret service man, clean-cut, smooth-shaven, quick
on the trigger. His job was to get messages from the American embassy to
the American fleet, and later on to save the treasure of the embassy
from the Bolsheviks. For of course you know what happened in Russia—how
this band of villains with twisted faces rose up and overthrew the
government, and killed the haughty but just grand duke with cruel
tortures. It was, of course, the grand duchess that the Devil’s Deputy
especially wanted; and first he chased her about the castle, and
battered in the doors, and the young secret service hero dashed with her
from room to room. Blood ran down his face from a bullet wound, but he
carried her out of a window of the castle, and away they flew on
horseback, over hills and dales covered with the familiar Russian
eucalyptus trees.
And then presently they were trapped in St. Petersburg, and the Devil’s
Deputy laid his foul hands on Vee, and tore her lingerie to shreds, as
the billboards had promised you he would. But here came the hero with
his automatic, and he held the mob at bay, while Vee behind her back
made signals to a friend of the hero who was preparing one of the
villains’ own bombs to throw at them—could you imagine more poetic
justice than that? Vee and her savior fled, this time in a motor-car,
over roads of the well-known Russian concrete, through the well-known
mountains of the suburbs of St. Petersburg, and came to the River Neva,
with its eucalyptus groves concealing a speed-boat. There was another
mad chase, which ended in the capture of the agonized pair, and more
tearing of Vee’s lingerie by the Devil’s Deputy.
But—don’t be worried—at the most critical instant came the American
Navy, that whole glorious flotilla which we kept in the River Neva
during the war. Old Glory floated in the breeze, and the band played
“The Stars and Stripes Forever,” and the million dollar audience burst
into enraptured cheering. A launch from a battleship came dashing up,
the Devil’s Deputy leaped into the water with one of his own bombs in
his mouth, and Viola Tracy and the secret service man stood clasped in
an attitude which was familiar to Bunny, and hardly less so to the
million dollar audience.
All the time this story was unfolding, Bunny was privileged to sit and
hold the heroine’s hand. Once she leaned to him and whispered, “Is it so
very bad?” His answer was, “It is up to standard. It will sell.” It was
the formula she had used with Annabelle Ames; and Bunny felt a tight
pressure of his hand. It was clever of him, as well as kind!
XIV
The screen was dark, and the cheering died away, and the lights came up,
and the moving picture world crowded about Vee Tracy, and Mr. Schmolsky,
the producer, and Tommy Paley, the director, and all the rest of the
personages whose services had been faithfully catalogued on the film.
There was hand-shaking and chatter; and meantime the crowds stood about,
gaping at the celebrities—it was hard to get the theatre empty after a
“world premiere.” The throngs in the lobby, and outside in the arcade,
were still held back by the police—many had stood for three hours, in
order to see their favorites emerge.
Vee and her lover went out among the last, greeting this one, greeting
that one, the observed of all observers. Bunny saw many he knew, and
among them one face he had not expected—Rachel Menzies! She saw him,
and he saw that she saw him; and straightway it became a point of honor
with a young idealist, he must not fail to treat her as well as anybody
else. Rachel, a poor working-girl, and class-conscious, pitiful in a
dingy, worn coat and a faded, out-of-fashion hat—Rachel must not think
that he would slight her in this expensive company! He went straight to
her. “How do you do, Miss Menzies? I didn’t know you were a movie fan.”
“I’m not,” she answered. “But I wanted to see what they would do to the
Russian revolution.”
“There wasn’t much in it for us,” said Bunny; and she answered, grimly,
“No, there was not.”
He would have liked to talk with her, but not in this place. “Can I help
you out?” he asked; and turned as if to seek a way through the crowd.
But at that moment came Vee! With all the throngs of the great ones
about her, with all the praise they poured upon her, there was one thing
she really cared about, and that was Bunny—she did not want to be
separated from him! And straightway, of course, the honor of a young
idealist was still more deeply involved. He must not be unwilling to
introduce his dingy working-girl friend to the gorgeous lady of the
ermines and pearls! “Meet Miss Viola Tracy,” he said. “Vee, this is Miss
Rachel Menzies, a class-mate of mine at the university.”
Equally, it was a point of honor with Vee to be cordial. “Oh, how do you
do, Miss Menzies?” And she held out her hand. Rachel did not move to
take the hand, but stood very stiff and straight, and answered, “How do
you do, Miss Tracy.” To Bunny, who knew her, the voice sounded strange
and dead; but of course Vee had no means of knowing what her voice ought
to be, and the withheld hand might easily be shyness at meeting the most
important person in all Hollywood that night. Vee was still cordial as
she inquired, “And how did you like the picture?”
Bunny heard that question—more dangerous than any bomb ever made by a
Devil’s Deputy! He groped in his bewildered mind for something to
say—“Miss Menzies is a Socialist, like me”—anything of that playful
sort; but before he could get his tongue to move, Rachel had answered,
swift and deadly, “I think it’s the most poisonous thing I ever saw on
the screen.”
There was no mistaking that for shyness, or anything else. And Viola
Tracy stared at this amazing creature. “Oh, indeed, Miss!”
“Yes, and people who helped to make it will someday have on their
conscience the blood of millions of young men.”
Bunny broke in, “You see, Vee—”
But she put out her hand to stop him. “Wait! I want to know what you
mean!”
“I mean that this picture is part of the propaganda to get us into a war
with Russia, and a woman that lends herself to such work is a disgrace
to her sex.”
Vee glared, and fury leaped into her face. “You bitch!” she cried, and
her hand shot out, and smack! she landed a blow across Rachel’s cheek.
For one horrible moment Bunny stood numb; he saw the red start to
Rachel’s face, and the tears start to her eyes; then he sprang between
them, and caught Vee’s hand to stop another blow. “No, Vee, no!” A burly
policeman completed the job of blocking the way between the two
antagonists, and Rachel faded back into the crowd—something it was easy
enough to do, since everybody was pushing to the front. In the confusion
Bunny became aware of one hideous thing—a young man jabbing at them and
demanding, “What is it? What is the matter? What happened, Miss Tracy?
What was the trouble, officer?” Bunny whispered into Vee’s ear, “Quick!
It’s a reporter!” He grasped her arm, and they fled through the crowd.
XV
Sitting in their car, with Bunny driving, Vee whispered, “Who is that
woman?”
“Her family are Jewish clothing workers. Her father’s the man who got
arrested—don’t you remember I told you?”
“Oh! That girl!”
“Yes. You see, you stepped on her class-consciousness.”
Vee’s teeth were clenched. “Oh, the odious creature!”
“But Vee! Don’t forget you asked her what she thought.”
“Oh, so insolent! Outrageous!”
“But dear, you take the liberty of saying what you think. Don’t you
grant her the same right?”
“Bunny! You are going to defend her!” And before he could reply, she
cried, in a voice of fury, “I hate those people, I hate them! They’re
nasty, they’re low, they’re jealous—they haven’t an idea but to take
away things from people who’ve slaved to earn them.”
There was a long silence. Bunny drove; and when Vee spoke again, it was
to ask, “Where are you going?”
“Don’t forget the Schmolsky’s supper-party.”
“No, I won’t go to any supper-party, it would choke me. Take me
home—right away.”
He obeyed; and when she was in the bungalow, she fled to her room. He
followed, and found the ermine cloak on the floor, and Vee in a heap on
the bed, without regard to the costliest of embroidered silk gowns. She
was convulsed with sobbing, and he made out the words, “It’s going to
ruin us!”
Suddenly she sat up, blinded by her tears, and stretched out her arms.
“Oh, Bunny, Bunny, don’t let’s have our love killed! Don’t let’s quarrel
like all the others! Bunny, I don’t care about those people, they can
say anything they please to me, I’ll never mind again! I’ll apologize to
that girl, I’ll let her walk on me, I’ll do anything you say! But oh,
please don’t let’s stop loving each other!”
It was the first time he had ever seen Vee break down; and of course it
always produces a great impression upon the protective male. He took her
in his arms, tears and all, without regard to the costliest of
broadcloth evening suits. Their love flamed up, and their troubles were
melted in the fire, and they swore that nothing, nothing should ever,
ever tear them apart.
Long afterwards, as they lay in each other’s arms, Vee whispered,
“Bunny, that girl is in love with you!”
“Oh, absurd, Vee!”
“Why do you say so?”
“She’s never given the least sign of such a thing.”
“How would you know a sign?”
“But dear—”
“Of course she’s in love with you! How could anybody fail to be in love
with you, Bunny?”
It was not worth while to try to argue. It appeared to be a peculiarity
of women, they were always sure that all other women were in love with
their man. When he had told Vee about Henrietta Ashleigh, she had been
sure that Henrietta was desperately enamored, and that only her pride of
caste had kept her from trying to hold him. Likewise, when he told her
about Ruth, she was sure this poor country lass was pining her heart
out. That was the reason she was so indifferent to the charms of oil
workers, and not because she was wrapped up in Paul. Sisters didn’t make
so much fuss over brothers—no, that was rubbish! Bunny remembered that
Bertie said this same thing; and strangely enough, Eunice Hoyt had said
it also—it had been one reason why she hated to have him go up to
Paradise. Bunny decided that it was better not to tell women about one
another; and especially not to introduce them, if it could possibly be
avoided!
Morning came, and the newspapers were outside the door of their room.
Sitting up in bed in silken garments they devoured—no, not the
elaborate accounts of the world premiere with details of the gowns worn
by the women—that would come later. First, their eyes leaped to the
headline:
STAR SLAPS RIVAL IN LOBBY
There it was! The reporter, having been unable to get the real story,
had made the inevitable romantic assumption. Another triangle of the
screen world! He had written a highly playful article about the
world-famous star, emerging in the hour of her glory upon the arm of the
young oil prince—about whom so many interesting rumors were being
circulated. Seeing him leave her side and join some other woman, the
star had rushed over in a fit of jealous fury and smacked the other
woman in the face. There was an interview with Officer Tony Reber of the
Angel City police department, who had stepped between the infuriated
combatants. The star had called her rival an awful name, which the
officer’s modesty would not permit him to repeat. “But I’ll say this,”
he told the world, “She certainly packs an awful punch, that lady. If I
was to hit anybody as hard as that I would sure get canned.”
XVI
Bunny met the other combatant on the campus that same day, and her face
was pale and her dark eyes sombre. “Mr. Ross,” she began, quickly, “I
want to tell you I’m ashamed for what I said.”
“You don’t have to be ashamed,” he replied. “It was true.”
“I know, but I had no right to say it to a friend of yours, and after
all you have done for me. It was just that I was so wrought up over that
picture.”
“I understand,” Bunny said. “Miss Tracy wishes me to tell you she is
truly sorry for what she did.”
“I know, you’d make her sorry. But I don’t care about that—we Jews have
been struck many times, and we workers also, and there’ll be more of it
before the class war is over. The real harm is one she can never atone
for—that hideous picture that’s going out to poison the people’s
minds—millions upon millions of them. For that she can never
apologize.”
It was an aspect of the matter that had somehow fallen into the
background of Bunny’s consciousness during all the excitement. “I’ve
nothing good to say about the picture,” he replied, “but I think you
must make allowances for Miss Tracy. She doesn’t know as much about
Russia as you and I.”
“You mean she doesn’t know there were hideous cruelties in old
Russia—that the Tsardom was another word for terror?”
“Yes, but then—”
“She doesn’t know that the men she portrays as criminals have most of
them been in the dungeons of the Tsar for the sake of their faith?”
“She may not know that, Miss Menzies. It’s hard to realize how ignorant
people can be, when they read nothing but American newspapers and
magazines.”
“Well, Mr. Ross, you know that I’m not a Bolshevik; but we have to
defend the workers of Russia from world reaction. That picture is a part
of the white terror, and the people that made it knew exactly what they
were doing—just as much as when they beat my brother over the head and
started to deport my father.”
“Yes,” said Bunny, “but you must understand, an actress does not write
the story, and she’s not always consulted about the parts she plays.”
“Ah, Mr. Ross!” Rachel’s face wore a pitying smile. “She would tell you
that, and you’re so anxious to believe the best about people! Well, I’m
going to tell you what I think, and maybe you won’t ever speak to me
again. A woman who makes a picture like that is nothing but a
prostitute, and the fact that she’s highly paid makes her all the more
loathsome.”
“Oh, Miss Menzies!”
“I know, it sounds cruel. But that’s a murder picture, and that woman
knew it perfectly well. They paid her money and jewels and fur cloaks
and silk lingerie, and her face on the billboards and in all the
newspapers; and she took the price—as she’s done many times before. I
don’t know one thing about her private life, Mr. Ross, but I’ll wager
that if you investigate, you’ll find she’s sold herself, body as well as
mind, all the way from the bottom up to the pedestal she’s on now!”
And so Bunny decided that he had better postpone for a while the plan he
had had in mind, of having Vee Tracy and Rachel Menzies meet and
understand each other!