“Indeed?”
“I am afraid Jim Hooley will have to fake the whole scene after all,” continued the manager. “Those women came all dressed up ‘to have their pictures took,’ it is true. But the worst of it is, they could not be natural. It was impossible. They showed in every move and every glance that they were sitting with a bunch of actors and were not at all sure that what they were doing was altogether the right thing.
“We worked over them as though it were a ‘mob scene’ and there were five hundred in it instead of twenty. But twenty wooden dummies would have filmed no more unnaturally. You know, in your story, they are supposed to be discussing the bit of gossip about your heroine’s elopement with the schoolteacher. I could not work up a mite of enthusiasm in their minds about such a topic.”
Ruth laughed. But she saw that the matter was really serious for Mr. Hammond and the director. She became sympathetic.
“I fancy that if they had had a real scandal to discuss,” she observed, “their faces would have registered more poignant interest.”
“‘Poignant interest’!” scoffed the manager in disgust. “If these Herringport tabbies had the toothache they would register only polite anguish—in public. They are the most insular and self-contained and self-suppressed women I ever saw. These Down-Easters! They could walk over fiery ploughshares and only wanly smile——”
Ruth went off into a gale of laughter at this. Mr. Hammond was a Westerner by birth, and he found the Yankee character as hard to understand as did Henri Marchand.
“Have you quite given up hope, Mr. Hammond?” Ruth asked.
“Well, we’ll try again to-morrow. Oh, they promised to come again! They are cutting out rompers, or flannel undervests, I suppose, for the South Sea Island children; or something like that. They are interested in that job, no doubt.
“I wanted them to ‘let go all holts,’ as these fishermen say, and be eager and excited. They are about as eager as they would be doing their washing, or cleaning house—if as much!” and Mr. Hammond’s disappointment became too deep for further audible expression.