And this quoted phrase struck poignantly to Ruth Fielding’s mind. For it was one she had used in that last scenario—the one that had so strangely disappeared from the summer-house back at the Red Mill!
Amazed—almost stunned—by this discovery, she sat on the boulder scarcely seeing what Tom and the others were doing toward salvaging the old hermit’s skiff and other property.
Thoughts regarding the quotation shuttled back and forth in the girl’s mind in a most bewildering way. The practical side of her character pointed out that there really could be no significance in this discovery. It could not possibly have anything to do with her stolen script.
Yet the odd phrase, used in just this way, had been one of the few “flashes” indicated in her scenario. Was it likely that anybody else, writing a picture, would use just that phrase?
She balanced the improbability of this find meaning anything at all to her against the coincidence of another author using the quotation in writing a scenario. She did not know what to think. Which supposition was the more improbable?
The thought was preposterous that the paper should mean anything to her. Ruth was about to throw it away; and then, failing to convince herself that the quotation was but idly written, she tucked the piece of paper into the belt of her bathing suit.
When Tom was ready to go back to their fishing station, Ruth went with him and said nothing about the find she had made.
They had fair luck, all told, and the chef at the camp produced their catch in a dish of boiled tautog with egg sauce at dinner that evening. The company ate together at a long table, like a logging camp crew, only with many more of the refinements of life than the usual logging crew enjoys. It was, however, on a picnic plane of existence, and there was much hilarity.
These actor folk were very pleasant people. Even the star, Miss Loder, was quite unspoiled by her success.
“You know,” she confessed to Ruth (everybody confided in Ruth), “I never would have been anything more than a stock actress in some jerkwater town, as we say in the West, if the movies hadn’t become so popular. I have what they call the ‘appealing face’ and I can squeeze out real tears at the proper juncture. Those are two very necessary attributes for a girl who wishes to gain film success.”