“Well, I wasn’t going with Chess. And I wouldn’t let Tommy tag after you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be so foolish, Helen,” sighed her chum.
“If you act this way,” declared the rather unreasonable Helen, “you’ll spoil our whole visit at the Thousand Islands.”
“My goodness!” exclaimed Ruth, for once showing exasperation, “you do not talk very sensibly, Helen. I have come here to work, not to play. Please bear that in mind. If you think I spoil your sport I will not join any other evening parties.”
The next evening when the Copley party came over to get acquainted with some of the moving picture people and arrange for a big dance on Saturday night, Ruth was as good as her word, and remained in Mr. Hammond’s office, recasting certain scenes in her story that Mr. Hooley proposed to make next day.
Helen was sure Ruth was “mad” and kept out of the way intentionally. She told Tom so. But she did not choose to relieve Chess Copley’s loneliness when she saw him mooning about.
Whenever Chess tried to speak to Helen in private she ran away from him. Whether it was loyalty to her brother, Tom, or some other reason that made Helen treat Copley so unkindly, the fact remained that Chess was plainly not in Helen’s good books, although she made much of the two Copley girls.
The next day Ruth was quite as busy, for the making of the picture was going ahead rapidly while the good weather lasted. This story she had written was more of a pageant than anything she had yet essayed. The scenes were almost all “on location,” instead of being filmed under a glass roof.
Helen and Tom did not seem to understand that their friend could not go off fishing or sailing or otherwise junketing whenever they would like to have her. But picture making and directors, and especially sunlight, will not wait, and so Ruth tried to tell them.
It was Chess Copley, after all, who seemed to have the better appreciation of Ruth’s situation just at this time. Before a week had passed he was almost always to be found at Ruth’s beck and call; for when she could get away from the work of picture making, Chess turned up as faithfully as the proverbial bad penny.