Since the night Mrs. Gallant had gone weeping to her room after John told her that Consuello played in motion pictures, the girl had never been mentioned by either of them. John refrained from speaking of her because he decided that until he found some way to overcome the prejudice his mother held it would only cause unpleasantness. There had never been a night following that when Mrs. Gallant had displayed her disapproval of Consuello that John had not racked his brain to decide how he could eradicate his mother's intolerant attitude and bring her to know and appreciate Consuello for the girl she was.

At times he was annoyed by his mother's bigotry which gave her, in Consuello's case, an unreasonableness that amounted almost to fanaticism and embittered the natural sweetness of her character and disposition. His suspicion that her condemnation of photoplays and everyone connected with them was being fostered by someone else had been substantiated by an incident which occurred shortly after the night she had turned her back on Consuello.

That Mrs. Sprockett, "from across the street"—as John always thought of her—had interrupted one of the evening chats he always had with his mother. His impulsive dislike of Mrs. Sprockett caused him to leave her alone on the porch with his mother while he retired to the living room to read. The window to the porch was open.

"Isn't it terrible?" he heard Mrs. Sprockett say. "They tell me that she had been married three times and smokes cigarettes right in front of everyone. Women like her are a disgrace to a nation and we mothers should do something, I tell you."

From further snatches of the conversation John learned that Mrs. Sprockett was referring to a motion picture actress who had been given a decree of divorce that day.

"I told my Alma at dinner, tonight, that she had better not let me catch her sneaking off to the picture show," Mrs. Sprockett continued. Alma, John knew, was the oldest of Mrs. Sprockett's daughters. "What are things coming to when girls wear their skirts above their knees and bob their hair and think nothing of taking up with the first man they meet? When you and I were girls, Mrs. Gallant, we would have been locked up if we had attempted such performances.

"I tell you we owe it to our children to crush these creatures that set such wicked examples. And Mr. Sprockett agrees with me in every word I say."

As far as John knew, Mrs. Sprockett's husband had never, never disagreed with her—for good and sufficient reasons. He had recalled how Mrs. Sprockett's husband trailed her from house to house in the neighborhood evenings while the Sprockett baby wailed for attention.

He drew Consuello's note from his pocket while he and his mother were in the living room after dinner and read it again. He debated in his mind what he should do and finally handed it to his mother without a word. Mrs. Gallant adjusted her spectacles and read the note through slowly. John studied her face and he imagined he saw her lips tremble slightly.

She evaded meeting his eyes as she handed the note back to him. He waited for her to speak, but she was silent and he realized with a sinking feeling that her attitude toward Consuello had not changed. He determined, however, to dispose of the matter quickly.

"Well, mother," he said. "How shall I answer her?"

"It was very kind of her to include me but under the circumstances, John, I——"

"Very well, mother."

"But, my boy——"

"Yes."

"Don't let me stop you from going and please don't let it harden your heart against me."

"Mother, are you sure you're not making a sad mistake in letting your heart harden against her?" he could not resist saying.

Her lips trembled and her handkerchief went to her eyes. Leaving his chair he crossed to where she was sitting and put his arm around her.

"There, mother, we must not let anything come between us," he said, tenderly. "It's all right, mother; it's all right!"

The next day, Saturday, he telephoned to Consuello early in the morning, soon after he reached the office, in order to catch her before she left for the studio.

"I was just about to call you," she said. "Did you get my note?"

"Yes."

"I'm so sorry, but it will be impossible for me to get home, tomorrow. My director insists that we go out on location in the morning. You understand, don't you?"

"Certainly," he replied. He had decided to tell her that his mother was ill and unable to accept her invitation. His relief was beyond words when he discovered that it would be unnecessary for him to fabricate an excuse for Mrs. Gallant, although he realized it was only postponing the time when he should be compelled to prevent Consuello learning of his mother's harsh judgment of her.

"I was so anxious that we should have a perfect day together, your mother, yourself, father and mother and I. But we can arrange it for some other time, can't we?"

"I'm sure we can." He felt justified somehow in taking this optimistic view.

"And I wanted to ask you, would you care to come out with us on location, tomorrow? We have several scenes to do and I'm sure you will find it interesting."

"It would be wonderful."

"If you can be at the studio at nine?"

"I'll be there."

"And you'll explain how it is to your mother and tell her how sorry I am, won't you?"

"She'll understand." He felt he was not trifling as much with truth in that answer.

Carrying out a conclusion he reached during the day, John did not tell his mother of his conversation over the telephone with Consuello. He told her only that he would be away most of Sunday, permitting her to deduce that he had accepted Consuello's invitation and had made some explanation of her absence.

A dozen automobiles were in line along the driveway of the Peerless studio when John arrived promptly at nine o'clock, the following morning. Consuello had evidently told the guard at the gate that she was expecting him. It was only necessary for him to mention his name.

"Miss Carrillo asks that you be directed to her dressing room," the gateman said.

With one exception the automobiles were already occupied. John recognized the cameramen with their equipment piled in one of the cars. In another he discerned his guide, "John J. Silence," and in another he caught a glimpse of the sad-eyed bass 'cello player, his huge instrument beside him.

As he left the driveway to cross to the dressing room building he saw Consuello coming toward him. She wore the dainty white "old fashioned" dress, as John had named it in his mind, that she had when they first met at the Barton Randolph lawn fete. She was Consuello and yet because of her facial "make-up," she was the girl he had seen before the camera on the occasion of his first visit to the studio.

"They're waiting for me," she explained as John met her. "You'll ride with us."

She led him to the first automobile in the line. In the front seat, beside the driver, was the man with the horn-rim glasses whom John recognized as her director. They took seats in the tonneau and he shook hands with the director whom Consuello introduced as "Mr. Bonwit." Heading the caravan of machines their car started out of the driveway.

"I wanted Reggie—Mr. Gibson—to come with us," she explained, "but he had other engagements, something to do with his work, and could not get away. He promised to join us later. I am anxious to hear what he has been doing and what you think of it. I know all about his raid on those places in Spring street."

His part in the raid with the suspicion it directed against Gibson as an ally of "Gink" Cummings returned to him. Principally because of the faith Consuello had in Gibson he had been unable to convince himself that the commissioner was in league with Cummings, despite the arguments advanced by Brennan and the attitude taken by the publisher of his newspaper, a view that did not reject the possibility that Gibson was a masquerader.

"He told me that what you said about newspaper men wondering why he did not attack 'Gink' Cummings caused him to decide to make the raid," she went on. "You may not believe it, but he respects your judgment and has a great deal of admiration for you and the man who works with you, Brennan, isn't it?"

Passing the outskirts of the city the machines took them through a district being built up with pretty little bungalows of varied colors and architecture.

"I often wonder," she said, "whether the people who live in these houses ever realize what Mr. Gibson is trying to do for them. They seem so apart from the hurry and scurry of life; they see so little of the evil he is trying to save them from. They read of him, perhaps, and commend him in their minds for what he is doing and let it go at that. I don't suppose they ever feel they owe him a personal debt of gratitude."

"It is a common fault to hold aloof and think little of danger until it strikes home to you," John said. "And yet I envy them for what they do not know, for what they do not see, for their self-content."

Leaving the city behind, the automobile swung on to a boulevard leading toward the hills. She explained to him the purpose of their trip.

"It is what we call a 'retake,'" she said. "The scenes we will do today were done several weeks ago, but the photography did not satisfy Mr. Bonwit. We will do them over again, resurrecting the sweetheart you saw me mourning so sadly for back on the interior set. They are the scenes in which he asks me to marry him and in which I plight my troth, as the title writer insists upon describing it."

"Perhaps that's why Mr. Gibson isn't with us," suggested John.

"It may be," she laughed. "He saw the original scenes played and pretended to be madly jealous of the leading man."

The "location" on which the cameras were trained for the scenes enacted by Consuello was idealistic as an outdoor setting. Shasta daisies, primroses and stalks of purple and white larkspur, in riotous profusion, gave splotches of bright color that stood out vividly against the bosky green. Stately, restful trees gave bounteous shade. A brook, tumbling down the hillside, gurgled over clean, white stones and sand.

There was a lengthy conference between the photographers and Bonwit, the director, relative to the light effects. Oblongs of white cloth tacked on a wood framework, which John learned were used to reflect and deflect the sun's rays, were shifted from one spot to another and back again until the camera men were completely satisfied.

The sad-eyed bass viol player with his companions, the violinist and the 'cellist, occupied folding chairs several yards to the right of the cameras, where they were protected from the sun in the shade of a tree. "John J. Silence," whom John discovered was an assistant director, made countless trips to and from the automobiles for things that everyone seemed to have forgotten and left in the machines.

John had never seen such precaution exercised. It was fully an hour before Consuello and her sweetheart in the photoplay began rehearsing. He was a young fellow, with smooth black hair that John considered almost as perfect as that of Gibson, which had irritated him when he first met the police commissioner. And, as John had also thought of Gibson, the actor playing opposite Consuello was too immaculate.

First, Consuello and the actor came slowly toward the cameras, hand in hand, a typical pair of straying lovers, so affected by each other's presence that they spoke only with their eyes, sidelong glances of ardent devotion. Then they stood still, facing each other, their profiles toward the cameras, he holding her hands down to her sides, telling her of his love for her while she hung her head. As he finished she lifted her face, smiled, and he clasped her to his breast, looking up as if he was thanking his Creator for giving her to him.

They held that pose for what John thought was an unnecessarily long time, and that was all of the first scene. John was happy to note, for a reason he neglected to define, even to himself, that Consuello seemed relieved as she drew back from the actor's arms. They rehearsed it a dozen times before Bonwit and the cameramen decided it could be done no better and then the cameras clicked.

Next there was a pretty little scene, without much action, in which Consuello and her "sweetheart" were seated beside each other with a background of flowers. John deduced that obstacles had evidently risen to the marriage, as the "conversation" was serious and inclined to be tearful. During this scene the three-piece orchestra, by this time coatless and collarless, played the most plaintively sad piece, John thought, that he had ever heard. The bass viol player's face was almost funereal as he gazed abstractedly up into the branches of the tree above him. The scene ended with the actor looking soulfully into the eyes of his betrothed.

When scene number two had been photographed, "John J. Silence" amazed John by suddenly shouting "Eats!" and dashing toward the automobiles. A large wicker hamper was lifted from one of the cars and carried to a clear space near the cameras. Consuello seated herself in a canvas chair near John, who sat cross-legged at her feet. They were apart from the others, who formed a group under another tree. From the hamper "John J. Silence" brought them two small baskets, covered with snow-white napkins, containing sandwiches, a piece of pie, a slice of cake, ripe olives, salted almonds and paper cups, which, at Consuello's suggestion, John filled with water from the stream.

"I don't blame him," remarked John as they settled down to enjoy the basket luncheon.

"Who?"

"Gibson," he said.

"For what?"

"For hating that make-believe sweetheart of yours," he answered.

"But he is only—only as you said—make-believe," she said. "He has the sweetest little wife and two of the darlingest children you ever saw. He probably is thinking of them while he's holding me in his arms and pledging undying love. Whenever he has to shed tears he thinks of the time the baby had pneumonia and nearly died."

"Make-believe," he repeated. "My friend Brennan—whom Gibson spoke to you of—says that life is all make-believe; that we all play at make-believe—some of us rightfully, but most of us wrongfully."

Subconsciously he thought of Brennan's indictment of Gibson as a fraud and a dishonest "make-believe," a consummate actor in the role of a villain in real life.

"I'm often inclined to believe it," she said slowly. "Perhaps that's why life is sometimes a huge joke and sometimes nothing but sadness and disillusionment. We play our little game of make-believe and strut around proudly, making ourselves, as well as others, think that we amount to something and then comes death, like a curtain; the footlights go out and where are we? Who thinks of us then?"

"Only the few who have loved us with all our faults and vain deceit and make-believe," he replied.

A series of "close-ups," were photographed after lunch. Consuello went into the actor's embrace again to permit a "close-up" of his fervent expression of love and thankfulness as he looked upward to the sky. John didn't mind the repetition of this scene. He thought of the actor's wife and two babies, especially the one who was his father's "tear provoker." There was another in which Consuello, her head inclined, admired the fresh crisp beauty of a bouquet of daisies. She lifted her face to gaze with a faraway look past the cameras, apparently registering longing for her absent sweetheart. John followed her gaze and discovered it was fixed on the woebegone countenance of the bass viol player, whose melancholy seemed to be increased by his dim realization that he was the object on which she concentrated in her abstract mood.

In a third "close-up" the actor registered the deepness of his love by thrusting his chin forward and staring unblinkingly over John's head. It was an effective piece of facial expression, John thought, as the actor's eyes were as soft as a fawn's. Photographs of Richard Barthelmess and John Barrymore in similar poses came back into John's mind.

John and Consuello were beside each other again on the return trip to the studio.

"I expect Reggie will be there waiting for us," she said. "We have a dinner engagement and I will have to dress at the studio. I'm sorry that he and you and I cannot have dinner together, we have so much to talk about."

"You have been kind enough," he said. "I have enjoyed myself thoroughly and I would be intruding if I occupied any more of your time."

"Intruding?" she repeated, with a rising inflection of her voice. "Why, it was kind of you to be with me."

"But you must remember—" he began.

"Remember?"

"Yes, remember there is someone else who should be considered."

"Oh, Reggie's glad that he has a substitute for trips like this and I've told you that he respects your judgment," she said.

Gibson was in his two-seated car at the entrance to the studio when they arrived. They left their machines at the gateway to meet him.

"Again?" he asked as they met. "You two certainly find each other interesting."

He smiled as he spoke, but a queer feeling went through John as he realized that Consuello had failed to tell Gibson that she had invited him to be with her.

"I'm acquainting Mr. Gallant with the process of picture making," Consuello said. However she received Gibson's salutatory remark she gave no hint of her feeling in the tone of her voice.

"When are you going to show her through a newspaper office, Gallant?" Gibson was still smiling. Consuello replied before John could speak.

"Whenever you and I can find time, I'm sure," she said. "You'll excuse me for a moment; I must hurry along so I won't keep you waiting long, Reggie. And Mr. Gallant, I'll arrange for a car to take you home."

She hurried away, skipping toward the dressing room building. Unconscious of each other, Gibson and Gallant watched her until she disappeared from their sight. When they turned toward each other simultaneously, John had a peculiarly embarrassed feeling, as if he had been caught doing something which he had no right to do.

Gibson's smile was confusing.

"A wonderful, wonderful girl," he said, drawing a finely embossed cigarette case.

"Yes," said John, instinctively apprehensive of making a more enthusiastic concurrence.

"A whole-hearted, dear, unsuspecting girl," said Gibson, without offering the cigarette case to John.

"Yes."

"A girl who makes a friend of everyone she meets."

Wasn't that "everyone" emphasized a trifle?

"A girl a man would do almost anything for." He was still smiling.

"Yes."

"By the way, Gallant, has she told you we are engaged to be married?"

John hesitated and chose to keep the confidence she had placed in him.

"No," he said. "You ARE to be congratulated." He had a secret satisfaction in stressing the "are."

Gibson lighted his cigarette.

"I just thought I'd tell you," he said and John thought—or was it his imagination?—that Gibson's set smile flattened a little at the corners.