“I’ve handled a good many women in my time,” he went on, “and I’ve never had to fire one but she didn’t produce the President, Vice-President or Treasurer and hold them over my head with their feet ready to kick out my brains! And, Stella, none of those hold-ups have ever got past. People who are financially interested in a company may love you to death, but they’ve got to have the money to love you with; and if I don’t make pictures that sell, somebody is short of a perfectly good diamond necklace.”
“We’ll see if Sir Gregory thinks the same way,” she said defiantly, and Jack Knebworth whistled.
“Gregory Penne, eh? I didn’t know you had friends in that quarter. Yes, he is a stockholder in the company, but he doesn’t hold enough to make any difference. I guess he told you that he did. And if he held ninety-nine per cent. of it, Stella, it wouldn’t make any difference to old Jack Knebworth, because old Jack Knebworth’s got a contract which gives him carte blanche, and the only getting out clause is the one that gets me out! You couldn’t touch me, Stella, no, ma’am!”
“I suppose you’re going to blacklist me?” she said sulkily.
This was the one punishment she most feared—that Jack Knebworth should circulate the story of her unforgivable sin of letting down a picture when it was half-shot.
“I thought about that,” he nodded, “but I guess I’m not vindictive. I’ll let you go and say the part didn’t suit you, and that you resigned, which is as near the truth as any story I’ll have to crack. Go with God, Stella. I guess you won’t, because you’re not that way, but—behave!”
He waved her out of the office and she went, somewhat chastened. Outside the studio she met Lawley Foss, and told him the result of the interview.
“If it’s like that you can do nothing,” he said. “I’d speak for you, Stella, but I’ve got to speak for myself,” he added bitterly. “The idea of a man of my genius truckling hat in hand to this damned old Yankee is very humiliating.”
“You ought to have your own company, Lawley,” she said, as she had said a dozen times before. “You write the stuff and I’ll be the leading woman and put it over for you. Why, you could direct Kneb’s head off. I know, Lawley! I’ve been to the only place on God Almighty’s earth where art is appreciated, and I tell you that a four-flusher like Jack Knebworth wouldn’t last a light-mile at Hollywood!”
“Light-mile” was a term she had acquired from a scientific admirer. It had the double advantage of sounding grand and creating a demand for an explanation. To her annoyance, Foss was sufficiently acquainted with elementary physics to know that she meant the period of time that a ray of light would take to traverse a mile.