Chapter XXI

When she and Judge Walbrough--the Walbroughs sent their car for her at nine-thirty--arrived in the offices of Zenda Films, they were ushered into an inner office by the same overdressed youth who had shown Clancy in there yesterday.

The meeting that loomed ahead of her was fraught, she believed, with tremendous dramatic possibilities. Of course, none of the people who would take part in it knew that she had visited the office of Morris Beiner, yet she might be called again by the name "Florine" in the presence of some one who knew.

Zenda was already there, seated at the large table. At the far end of it were Weber and Grannis. There were no introductions. Zenda greeted the new arrivals, and merely stated:

"Judge Walbrough will act as my attorney. If you want a lawyer, Grannis, you, of course, are entitled to one."

Grannis grunted unintelligibly. Zenda drummed a moment on the table with his slender fingers. Then he spoke.

"I won't go over everything again, Grannis. I've the goods on you. I've plenty on Weber, too. Judge Walbrough is prepared to offer you, on behalf of a client, seventy-five for your stock."

Here the judge nodded acquiescently. He opened an important-seeming wallet and withdrew a check.

"I went to the bank first thing this morning, Zenda," he said. "It's certified. Three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for half the stock--five thousand shares."

"That's correct," said Zenda. "It doesn't take account of my poker losses, but"--he leaned toward Weber--"I'm not going to slug you, Ike. I'm not going to sue you. I'm not going to do anything. Not now. But, so surely as you stay in this town, so surely as you mix into the film business _anywhere_, I'm going to land you in jail." He turned to his erstwhile partner. "I haven't much to say to you, Grannis. The judge is offering you a price that's fair, considering that he's deducted about what you and Ike trimmed me of from his offer. That's O.K. I'm willing to let his client in, sort of at my expense, in order to get rid of you. Now, do you accept?"

Clancy held her breath. But Zenda and Grannis must have held some earlier conversation this morning or last night. For Grannis produced a sheaf of engraved documents. He put them on the table. Zenda reached for them and handed them to the judge. The latter examined them carefully, then nodded in acceptance.

"The certificates are properly endorsed in blank, Zenda. It's all right." He pushed across the table his certified check. Grannis took it. He rose and looked uncertainly at Zenda.

The film-director met his glance fairly.

"You're a pretty wise bird, Grannis," he said slowly. "But it isn't _really_ wise to double-cross your friend and partner."

That was all that was said. Grannis and Weber had left the room when Clancy suddenly remembered something.

"The ten thousand dollars they gave me!" she cried. "Have you returned it?"

She had given it, for safe-keeping, into Walbrough's hands last night.

Zenda laughed.

"My dear Miss Deane," he said, "I've lost scores of thousands at stud to Grannis and Weber. That ten thousand dollars is my money. That is, it _was_ my money."

Clancy stared at him. The judge chuckled.

"Considering that your evidence saved Zenda from a nasty lawsuit, that it ridded him of a crooked partner, that it gave him a chance to continue his business with a partner who will not interfere with him, both he and myself agree that you are entitled to that ten thousand dollars."

Clancy had been pale as wax. But now the color surged into her cheeks.

"For simply doing what I ought to do? No, indeed!" she cried.

Nor could their united protests move her. Zenda finally ceased. An idea struck him. He beamed upon her.

"You said, last night, that you had film ambitions. Well, Miss Deane, here's my chance to repay you."

Her eyes lighted.

"Oh, I don't want you to feel that----"

Zenda scribbled upon a card.

"Take this to the studio. Johansen will make a test of you. He'll do it right away. On Monday, you telephone----"

"And then begins the big career!" cried the judge. "Well, well, Miss Deane; I shall expect to see Zenda Films advertising the newest star all over the city. Eh, Zenda?"

Zenda smiled.

"I can always use a pretty girl with intelligence," he said. "Miss Deane is certainly pretty and just as certainly intelligent. If she screens as well as I hope----"

His unuttered promise seemed to open the gates of Fortune to Clancy. She hardly knew afterward what she said by way of thanks. She only knew that Judge Walbrough insisted that she use his limousine--stating that he himself was going to take the subway down-town--and that Zenda wrung her hand warmly, and that, a moment later, she had descended in the elevator and was in the big motor, on her way to the East-Side studio of Zenda Films, Incorporated.

In the car, she managed to collect herself. Once again she saw herself the peer of the famous women of the screen; she saw herself famous, rich. Oddly enough, she thought of David Randall. She wondered how he would feel if he knew that she was on the threshold of international fame. For she never doubted it. She knew that all she needed was opportunity.

Johansen, a thin, bald, worried-seeming Swede, eyed her keenly with deep-set blue eyes. He was in his shirt-sleeves, superintending the erection of a "set." But he ceased that work and summoned a camera-man. The Zenda command caused all to put themselves at her service. Johansen even superintended her making-up process, of which she was abysmally ignorant. Also, he rearranged her hair. Then he conducted her to the "set" which he was erecting.

There was a table in the middle of the scene. Johansen instructed her. He put a letter on the table.

"Now, Miss Deane, you enter from the left there, you're kinda blue, downhearted--see? Then you spy this letter. You pick it up. It's for you, and you recognize the handwriting. It's from your sweetie--get me? You smile. You open the letter. Then your smile fades away and you weep. Get me? Try it. Now, mind, it don't really matter if you can act or not. Zenda wouldn't care about that. He could teach a wooden image to act. It's just your registering--that's all. Ready? Camera!"

In Zenith, when she had played in the high-school shows, Clancy had been self-conscious, she knew. And here, with only a bored assistant director and an equally bored camera-man to observe her, she was even more self-conscious. So she was agreeably surprised when Johansen complimented her after the scene had been taken.

"You done fine!" he said. "Now let's try another. This time, you come in from the right, happy-like. You see the letter and get blue. You read it and get happy. Got it? Shoot!"

She went through the little scene, this time with less self-consciousness. Johansen smiled kindly upon her.

"I think you got something," he told her. "Can't tell, of course, yet. The screen is funny. Prettiest girl in the world may be a lemon on the screen. Same goes both ways. But we'll hope."

But he couldn't dash her sense of success. She rode on air to Sally Henderson's office. Her employer was not there, Clancy had telephoned before meeting Walbrough, asking permission to be late, and also apologizing for not having returned to the office the afternoon before.

"Miss Henderson's gone out of town for the week-end," young Guernsey, the too foppishly-dressed office-manager, told her. "She left this for you."

"This" was an envelope which Clancy quickly opened. It contained, not her discharge, which she had vaguely expected--why should her employer write to her otherwise?--but twenty-five dollars, half a week's salary. And Clancy was down to her last dollar!

"We close at one on Saturdays," Guernsey informed her. He himself was beating the closing-time by three-quarters of an hour, but Clancy waited until one o'clock. Then she left. She called upon Miss Conover, but the plump, merry little dressmaker had nothing ready to try on her newest customer.

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Zenda had caused a test to be made of her--and Clancy Deane would be upon the screen.

She wondered just what sort of parts Zenda would give her. Of course, she'd have to begin with little "bits," as Fanchon had called them. But soon--oh, very soon!--she'd work up to great rôles. She wanted emotional parts; she felt that she could bring to the screen something new in the way of interpretation. All the Clancys of the world, whether it is acting or writing or singing that they wish to do, feel the same.

She took in a matinée in the afternoon. She supped, in lonely splendor, at the Trevor. And, equipped with a novel, she went to bed early. But she could not concentrate. Her mind wandered; and it didn't wander to the mystery of Morris Beiner's death, or to the possibility that some one in Vandervent's office would definitely decide that she _was_ Florine Ladue, nearly so often as it wandered to the Zenda studios.

She had fooled Philip Vandervent yesterday. Grannis and Weber had passed, so she believed, out of her life. Why should she worry? She had done no wrong. Resolutely, she refused to fret. Instead, she went off to sleep, prepared for roseate dreams. She had them, but the awakening was not so roseate.

Mrs. Gerand, who, by request, roused all her lodgers on week-days, permitted them to slumber as late as they chose on Sundays. The lodging-house, usually from seven o'clock until nine a noisy place, filled with the bustle of departing men and women, was silent as the tomb on Sunday morning. And Clancy slept until eleven o'clock, to be awakened by the landlady.

"I hate to do it, Miss Deane," she apologized, "but when letters come by special messenger, they're important as telegrams, I think. So I brought this up."

Clancy, sitting up in bed, took the note from Mrs. Gerand's hand. After the landlady had gone, she opened it. And then she put her head upon the pillow and wept. For Zenda had written:

DEAR MISS DEANE:

I am at the studio, where I had them run off your test of
yesterday morning. You see, I didn't waste any time. And I'm sorry
to tell you that you won't do for the screen. One cannot explain
it. Your skin, your features, your hair--everything about you is
beautiful. And you have brains. But the camera is a tricky and
unreasonable thing. All of that beauty and charm which is yours
fails to register upon the screen. I cannot tell you how sorry I
am, and I shall be only too glad to let you see the test yourself,
so that you will not possibly doubt my good faith. If, in any
other way, I can be of service to you, please command.

Yours faithfully,
ZENDA.

All her illusions were shattered. She didn't wish to see the test. She believed Zenda.

Slowly her sobs ceased. She had no lack of courage. Also, she was young, and youth turns from defeat to future victory in a moment's time.

Carefully, as she bathed, she removed the traces of tears. Dressed, she breakfasted at the Trevor. Then, feeling more lonely than she had ever felt in her life, she went out upon Fifth Avenue. Groups of people were entering a church a block away. She was not a particularly devout young person, but she had been a regular churchgoer at Zenith. She walked up the avenue and into the church. She expected no consolation there; a girl or boy of twenty who can acquire consolation from religion is not exactly normal. Age turns to religion; youth away from it. But she did manage to forget herself in the solemn service, the mellow music.

Emerging, she envied the groups that paused to chat with each other. In Zenith, she knew everybody, would have also stopped to exchange comment and gossip. But here--she had failed in her great ambition. The rest was makeshift, a stop-gap until--until what? She didn't know. Vaguely she wondered where Randall was. Probably hundreds of miles beyond Chicago now.

And then, as she crossed the square, her heart leaped. For she saw him reluctantly descending the steps of her lodging house. She quickened her pace. He saw her. His reluctant tread also quickened. Unmindful of the drifts, Randall plowed across the street and joined her. She wondered why he had not started on his Western trip.

And then Clancy's heart, which had been beating joyously with a gladness that she did not quite understand, seemed to drop to some region inches below where it belonged. For, coming round the corner of Thompson Street--no, not coming, but stopping as he perceived her--was Spofford, the dyed-mustached detective of Vandervent's office. And with him was a shorter slighter person. Fear aided recognition. He was the elevator-man of the Heberworth Building, who had taken her up to Beiner's office last Tuesday afternoon.