“So I did! Well, that can wait. Are you feeling pretty confident about the picture, eh?”
“I? No, I’m not confident, Mr. Knebworth; I’m in a state of nerves about it. You see, it doesn’t seem possible that I should make good at the first attempt. One dreams about such things, but in dreams it is easy to jump obstacles and get round dangerous corners and slur over difficulties. Every time you call ‘camera!’ I am in a state of panic, and I am so self-conscious that I am watching every movement I take, and saying to myself ‘You’re raising your hands awkwardly; you’re turning your head with a jerk.’ ”
“But that doesn’t last?” he said sharply, so sharply that she smiled.
“No: the moment I hear the camera turning, I feel that I am the character I’m supposed to be.”
He patted her on the shoulder.
“That is how you should feel,” he said, and went on: “Seen nothing of Mendoza, have you? She isn’t annoying you? Or Foss?”
“I’ve not seen Miss Mendoza for days—but I saw Mr. Foss last night.”
She did not explain the curious circumstances, and Jack Knebworth was so incurious that he did not ask. So that he learnt nothing of Lawley Foss’s mysterious interview with the man in the closed car at the corner of Arundel Road, an incident she had witnessed on the previous night. Nor of the white and womanly hand that had waved him farewell, nor of the great diamond which had sparkled lustrously on the little finger of the unknown motorist.
Going home, Adele stopped at a confectioner’s and a florist’s, collected the cakes and flowers that were to adorn the table of Mrs. Watson’s parlour. She wondered more than a little just what attraction she offered to this man of affairs. She had a trick of getting outside and examining herself with an impartial eye, and she knew that, by self-repression and almost self-obliteration, she had succeeded in making of Adele Leamington a very colourless, characterless young lady. That she was pretty she knew, but prettiness in itself attracts only the superficial. Men who are worth knowing require something more than beauty. And Michael was not philandering—he was not that kind. He wanted her for a friend at least: she had no thought that he desired amusement during his enforced stay in a very dull town.
Half-past four came and found the girl waiting. At a quarter to five she was at the door, scanning the street. At five, angry but philosophical, she had her tea and ordered the little maid of all work to clear the table.