"I could have guessed it, darling. And I don't suppose you were the first, either… I had two lessons on the spot, and I've had another two today; and if he can teach anyone anything worth knowing about acting, then I can train ducks to write shorthand. I was so dumb that anyone with an ounce of artistic feeling would have thrown me out of the window, but when I left him this afternoon he almost hugged me and told me he could hardly wait to finish the course before he rushed out to show me to Gilbert Miller."
She moved her head a little, gazing at him with big sober eyes.
"He was just the same with me, too. Oh, I've been such a fool!"
"We're all fools in our own way," said the Saint consolingly. "Boys like Homer are my job, so they don't bother me. On the other hand, you've no idea what a fool I can be with soft lights and sweet music. Come on to dinner and I'll show you."
"But now you've given Quarterstone a thousand dollars, and what are you going to do about it?"
"Wait for the next act of the stirring drama."
The next act was not long in developing. Simon had two more of Mr. Quarterstone's special, personal, private, exclusive lessons the next day, and two more the day after — Mr. Homer Quarterstone was no apostle of the old-fashioned idea of making haste slowly, and by getting in two lessons daily he was able to double his temporary income, which then chalked up at the very pleasing figure of two hundred dollars per diem, minus the overhead, of which the brassy blonde was not the smallest item. But this method of gingering up the flow of revenue also meant that its duration was reduced from ten days to five, and during a lull in the next day's first hour (Diction, Gesture and Facial Expression) he took the opportunity of pointing out that Success, while already certain, could never be too certain or too great, and therefore that a supplementary series of lessons in the Art and Technique of the Motion Picture, while involving only a brief delay, could only add to the magnitude of Mr. Tombs's ultimate inevitable triumph.
On this argument, for the first time, Mr. Tombs disagreed.
"I want to see for myself whether I've mastered the first lessons," he said. "If I could get a small part in a play, just to try myself out…"
He was distressingly obstinate, and Mr. Quarterstone, either because he convinced himself that it would only be a waste of time, or because another approach to his pupil's remaining nineteen thousand dollars seemed just as simple, finally yielded. He made an excuse to leave the studio for a few minutes, and Simon knew that the next development was on its way.