Lucia turned to Lloyd, with her most entrancing smile. "Thanks, for past and future favours," she said, realising the disastrous storm the unexpected turn of events had roused in Mr. Jardine's conventional soul.
Lloyd bowed in gravest acknowledgment, and as she stepped down from the stage she remarked:
"My first and last appearance on the boards."
"You graced them," said Ruth airily.
But the two men, heavily silent, said nothing.
Lloyd ceremoniously saw them to the door, as if he had been entertaining them in the character of host, and as they departed he lifted his hat with a dignity all at variance with the sudden humorous cry of the spieler close at hand—"He eats 'em—he eats 'em alive!"
Lucia shrugged her disdainful shoulders.
"What an experience! What a place! The incongruities are amazing. I feel as if I were in a fevered dream, or a grotesque fairy-tale."
"You'll ruin those films if you don't look out for that camera," Ruth warned her, but she made no reply and swung the camera as carelessly as before.