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!