“But how can he?” Helen swept back her pretty hair in a puzzled gesture. “Surely all his troubles have been caused by his own cheating and double-dealing.”
“Of course they have,” Ruth agreed. “It was Bloomberg, you remember, who lured Viola Callahan away from the lead in my picture when he knew to do such a thing at that time would almost certainly ruin the whole thing——”
“And you fooled him by taking the lead yourself and making a better leading lady than Viola Callahan ever could,” chuckled Helen.
Ruth tried to bow, which in her cross-legged position was rather a hard thing to do. Then she frowned and fell silent while she reviewed the details of her quarrel with Bloomberg.
It all began when she engaged Layton Boardman, an ex-star of Bloomberg’s, to play the lead in her new Western picture. Though Bloomberg and Boardman had quarreled, Bloomberg really wanted to renew the actor’s contract, though at a salary that no actor of Boardman’s reputation would care to accept.
When the Fielding Film Company signed up Bloomberg’s ex-star at a good salary, the producer was furious. In retaliation he later tempted Viola Callahan, Ruth’s leading lady, to come over to him at a time when Miss Callahan’s desertion would almost certainly ruin Ruth’s picture.
The fact that Ruth’s picture was not ruined and to avert the catastrophe she had taken the lead herself—and successfully—had only served to increase Bloomberg’s dislike of her.
Bloomberg’s own picture, featuring Viola Callahan, was a failure. This, coupled with the unsavory story of his treachery to the Fielding Film Company, Ruth’s producing company, served to ruin what shreds of fortune and reputation he had and practically forced him out of the producing end of the business.
Ruth supposed, ruefully, that Bloomberg blamed all his misfortunes upon her because she had dared to sign up Layton Boardman when the latter was not under contract to Bloomberg or any one else and was absolutely free to accept any offer that was made him.
“I observed,” drawled Helen, after a considerable silence, “that you made a love of a leading lady, Ruthie.”