But that distrust of Barry Nolan's competency which troubled Lucinda's mind almost from the very outset of their association had yet to crystallize on the Saturday when Summerlad was expected home; and her disposition toward the director was rendered only the more amiable when, toward noon, he informed her that he wouldn't need her again till Monday morning.

Nevertheless it threatened to prove a long afternoon to an impatient woman, and Lucinda, wanting company to help her while it away, promptly petitioned for Fanny's release as well.

Fanny, however, was busily employed, as she had been ever since early morning, waiting for Nolan to put her through a scheduled five-minute scene which would round out her full day's work. But Nolan graciously promised to set her free in another hour, and then—to get rid of Lucinda's presence, which instinct was already beginning to warn him was silently skeptical of his claims—artfully suggested that she might like to review the rushes of yesterday's camera-work.

Assuming that she would find the projection-room empty, Lucinda made her way to it without bothering to remove her make-up, but on opening the door saw a fan-like beam of turbid light wavering athwart its darkness, and would have withdrawn, had not Zinn's thick and genial accents hailed her from the rear of the long, black-walled, tunnel-like chamber.

"Come right on in, Miss Lee. We'll be through in a minute. Just running some of the fillum come through from Joe Jacques yesterday. Maybe you'd like to see it. 'Sgreat stuff that boy Summerlad's putting over this time."

Murmuring thanks, Lucinda groped her way—bending low, that her head might not block the light—to one of the arm-chairs beneath the slotted wall which shut off the projection-machines in their fire-proof housing.

When her vision had accommodated itself to the gloom, she made out several figures in other chairs, sitting quietly behind ruddy noses of cigars and cigarettes. At a table to one side the glow of a closely shaded lamp disclosed an apparently amputated hand hanging with pencil poised above a pad, ready to note down anything the traffic of the screen might suggest to Zinn. The latter was conversing in undertones with somebody in the adjoining chair, and the rumble of their voices was punctuated now and again by a chuckle which affected Lucinda with a shiver of uncertain recollection. But she couldn't be sure, in that mirk she could by no means make out the features of Zinn's companion or even the shape of his head, and the surmise seemed too absurd....

She was none the less perturbed to a degree that hindered just appreciation of the admirable work of Lynn Summerlad, whose shadow, clad in the rude garments of a lumberjack, was performing feats of skill and daring against a background of logging-camp scenery; and thanks to her misgivings, as much as to the custom of taking and retaking again and again even scenes of minor importance, had grown well weary of watching Lynn bound frantically from log to log of a churning river to rescue Alice Drake from what seemed to be desperately real danger in the break-up of a log jam, when abruptly the shining rectangle of the screen turned blank, the beam of clouded light was blotted out, and a dim bulb set in the black ceiling was lighted to guide the spectators to the door.

Then, with a fluttering heart, Lucinda identified her husband in Zinn's companion; and anger welling in her bosom affected her with momentary suffocation, so that she was put to it to reply when Zinn, leering hideously, presented Bellamy.

"Shake hands with Mr. Druce, Miss Lee: new tenant of mine, going to work here same as you, just signed a lease for space to make his first production."

"What!"

At that monosyllable of dismayed protest, Lucinda saw Zinn's little eyes of a pig grow wide with surprise; which emotion, however, might have been due quite as much to what Bellamy was saying.

"But I am fortunate, Mr. Zinn, in already having the honour of Miss Lee's acquaintance." Bellamy took possession of her hand. "How do you do, Linda? So happy to see you again—looking more radiant than ever, too!"

"Is that so? You two know each other! Whyn't you tell me?"

"Wasn't sure it was this Miss Lee I knew until I saw her."

"Well, well! Ain't that nice! You ought to get along together fine, both working in the same studio and everything."

Lucinda found her voice all at once, but hardly her self-possession. "It isn't—it can't be true! Bel: it isn't true you're——!"

"Afraid it is, Linda." Bel's smile was lightly mocking. "The picture business has got me in its toils at last. Only needed that trip out here to decide me. Now I'm in it up to my ears. Something to do, you know."

"But not—not as an actor?"

"Bless your heart, no! All kinds of a nincompoop but that. No: I'm coming in on the producing side, forming a little company and starting in a modest way, as you see, on leased premises, with the most economical overhead I can figure. If I make good—well, I understand Mr. Zinn is willing to sell his studio, and I'll be wanting one all my very own."

"Any time you want to talk business, Mr. Druce, you know the way to my office. Don't stand on ceremony, and don't let nobody kid you I'm into a conference and can't be disturbed by anybody who wants to buy me out of this Bedlam: just walk right in, slap the cheque-book down on my desk, and unlimber the old fountain-pen; you'll find me willing to listen to reason. Well: got to get along, folks. They're going to run some of Miss Lee's rushes now. Maybe you'd like to look at them, if she don't mind."

"I hope very truly she won't," Bellamy said, smiling into Lucinda's eyes.

Lucinda uttered a faint-hearted negative: no, she wouldn't mind. No other way out till they were alone.... But her heart was hot with resentment of the way that Bel was forever forcing situations upon her in which she must accept him on his own terms.

Immediately the door had closed behind Zinn, however, Bel's manner changed, his show of assurance gave place to diffidence or its fair semblance.

"I'm sorry, Linda—I really don't mean to be a pest——"

"Then why are you here? Why won't you keep out of my way?"

"Give me half a chance, I think I can make you understand——"

"You had that chance weeks ago, and deliberately refused it. Do you imagine I will give you another opportunity to affront me as you did?"

"But surely you got my note——"

"What note?"

"The note I sent to the Hollywood, explaining I was called East on two hours' notice, but would return as soon as I could; begging you to consider our interview merely postponed——"

"If you sent any such note, I could hardly have failed to receive it."

"But Linda! I did send it, an hour before I left, by special delivery—'pon my word I did!"

"Possibly," Lucinda suggested with laboured scorn, "you misaddressed it, forgetting which of your numerous feminine acquaintances you were writing to."

"I addressed it," Bel insisted stoutly, "to Mrs. Bellamy Druce."

"If so, that explains it. They know me at the hotel only as Linda Lee."

"How was I to know that?"

"Your sources of information concerning me seem to be fairly busy and accurate."

"I'm sorry if you've been annoyed"—Lucinda cut in a short laugh of derision—"no, really I am! But I had to——"

"Wait!" Lucinda had become aware of a head framed in the little window of the projection-booth and regarding them with a smile of friendly interest. "Not now—later."

"All ready, Miss Lee," said the operator, unabashed—"if you are, I mean."

"Yes, thank you, quite ready." As she settled back into her chair and Bellamy placed himself by her side she added in a guarded tone: "As soon as I've looked these scenes over, we can go to my dressing-room...."

The ceiling light winked out, stuttering rays thrashed through the dark to paint in black and white those winsome gestures which Lucinda had described before the camera. But her interest in her pictured self for once had lapsed, vanity itself was for the time being wholly in abeyance, she watched without seeing the play of light and shadow, and when it faded from the screen could not have said what she had seen.

Weird, to sit there in the dark with the man beside her who had once filled all her heart that was now filled with longing for another....

When the screen once more shone blank and the ceiling light flashed on, Bel was smiling cheerfully.

"No wonder you fell for the screen so hard, Linda: you're exquisite, and no mistake. If you stick at it, never fear; it won't be long before you'll be wiping the eyes of the best of them."

"Thank you," she said stiffly—"but I don't think I want that. I only want a life I can live and hold my self-respect."

"And you come to Hollywood to find it?"

She flushed darkly and with an angry movement got up. "Please come."

Her maid was waiting in the dressing-room, but Lucinda sent the woman to explain to Mrs. Lontaine that they might be a few minutes delayed, and told her not to come back till sent for. Alone with Bellamy, she showed him a face on fire with challenge.

"You said you wanted to explain, Bel; you won't get another chance."

He nodded soberly. "Quite realize that. But this once will do, can say all I want to in three minutes. Then you're free to call it quits for good, if you like."

That posed her rudely. Did he mean—could it be possible he meant he had become reconciled to the rift in their relations? Had the arrow she had loosed into the dark, that night when Bel had broken his appointment with her, flown straight to the mark? Was Bel really "cured?" He had that look; there was deference without abasement in his bearing, if regret now and then tinged his tone it conveyed no hint of repining. By every sign he was doing very well without her.

"Can you doubt that's what I'll 'like,' Bel? Or what must I do, more than I've already done, to prove I ask nothing better than to call it quits for good with you?"

"Oh, you've done all that was needed, thanks. I'm convinced—have been for some weeks, if you want to know—in fact, from the moment when I found out you'd lost your head over a movie actor."

"Indeed?" Lucinda mastered an impulse to bite her lip. "And have you anything to say about that?"

"Not a blessed thing. That's your affair."

"Pity you didn't know in time to spare you the trip."

"I'm not sure, Linda. Knowing you as I did, I don't think I'd have believed anything I didn't see with my own eyes——"

"Anything so greatly to my discredit, of course!"

"Easy, Linda! I didn't say that. You know best what you want—that's something nobody else can ever tell one. I'm not criticizing, I'm merely explaining."

"And very good of you, I'm sure."

But Lucinda had not been able to utter the taunt without a tremor.

Bellamy gave his head a stubborn shake and stepped nearer. "Please don't be angry because of anything stupid I may say. You see, you misunderstand me: I came out here that first time dead-set to win you back at any cost, still madly in love with you, absolutely unable to conceive of a life that didn't pivot on you, Linda. I was prepared to give you any pledges you could possibly ask——"

"Did you flatter yourself any pledge you could give would mean anything to me, when you'd broken your word so often?"

"I hoped I could make you understand what a blow your leaving me had been, how it had brought me to my senses at last, jolted me up on the water-wagon, where I've been ever since—I haven't had a suspicion of a drink, Linda, since that night you ran away—and made me see what an unspeakable rotter I'd been, fooling around with women as I had. That's another thing I cut out like a shot. I haven't looked sideways at another woman since...."

"Not even after discovering I'd fallen in love with another man?"

"Not even after that. Somehow casual women don't mean anything to me any more—I mean, casual flirtations. They're too damn stupid—silly waste of time. I guess I had to be squiffy as I used to be most of the time, not to be bored by them. Oh! I'm not saying I shan't ever fall in love again, just as you have; but when I do, it will be the real thing, Linda—not the simple cussedness that makes a child play with a gun because he knows it's loaded."

"This is all very interesting, I'm sure. But after all, it doesn't explain—now, does it?"

"It explains why I followed you out here the first trip, why I had to see you in another man's arms, kissing him, and then hear all the small-town gossip about you two before I'd believe...."

"There is gossip, then?"

"What do you think? According to all reports, you've been going it, rather, you and this chap Summerlad—'stepping out together,' as they say in Hollywood."

Lucinda affected a shrug of indifference: Bel mustn't guess she cared what people said.

"But I am still waiting to hear why you've come out this time; what it means when you hire quarters here in the studio where I am working daily, and pretend you're going into the producing business. You may be able to make Zinn believe that tale; at least, he won't ask embarrassing questions so long as you put money in his pocket; but you can hardly expect me—!"

"You're wrong there, Linda. I'm just as much in earnest about becoming a producer of good motion-pictures as you are about becoming a star. I got a little look into the game that fascinated me, in those two days while I was killing time, waiting for the night you'd set for our talk. You ought to be able to understand: you were fascinated yourself at first sight."

"But you—! Bellamy Druce dabbling in the motion-picture business!"

"Well, what price Mrs. Bellamy Druce in the same galley?"

"No, Bel: frankly, I don't believe you. You're here with some wild idea you can influence me to do what you wish—whatever that is, since you say you've given up wanting me to come back to you."

"Oh, as to that—absolutely!"

"Then why must you set up your shop here, where we can't help running into each other half a dozen times a day?"

"Because there isn't another inch of stage to be hired in all Los Angeles today. I've had a man looking round for me ever since my first visit, he's tried every place. The only thing I could do to avoid renting from Zinn was to build, and that meant a longer wait than I wanted. Ask anybody who knows the local studio situation, if you doubt what I say."

"So you didn't come out this time with any idea of seeing me at all, Bel?"

"Of course, I did. I had to see you. Things couldn't rest as they were, especially after you'd taken up with this Summerlad. I'm assuming you're serious in that quarter, of course."

"And what has that to do—?"

"Just this: I don't like it. As I say, if you want to run around with a movie actor, that's your affair; but so long as you remain my wife, it's my affair, too. Don't forget it's my name you're trailing through the muck of this sink-hole of scandal."

She flamed at him—"Bel!"—but he wouldn't heed.

"You don't suppose you're going to get away with the Linda Lee thing much longer, do you? If all these people don't know it's an assumed name now, they jolly soon will. How do you suppose I found out you were up to this game? No: not through detectives, but simply by calling on your friend, Ben Culp, the man who first put this picture bee in your bonnet. Nelly Guest gave me that cue, and I thought Culp might know something helpful. Well: he did, when I called he had on his desk a trade paper that carried a report of the incorporation of Linda Lee Inc. Did you imagine anybody would need more than that name, coupled with Lontaine's as president of the company? Culp himself was the first to tumble to it.... And that's what I'm here to ask you. If you're going through, if you're bent on leading the life you have been leading ever since you fell in with these people, be good enough to keep my wife's name out of it! Get your divorce and get it soon. That's all I have to ask of you."

Lucinda replied with a slow inclination of her head.

"What you want is my dearest wish," she said. "Depend on it, Bel, I shan't waste a day, I'll take the first train I can catch for Reno, after finishing this picture."

"That's simply splendid of you!" Bellamy declared heartily. "Anything I can do to help along, of course—just let me know."

"I'll be glad if you'll go now," Lucinda told him. "I think I've had about all I can stand for one day."

"Then good bye, my dear—a thousand thanks!"