"Let us hope so," Alice broke in. "I do so love the water, and the Southern sea will be a dream!"
Perhaps if Alice could have looked ahead, and seen what lay before her, she would not have been so enthusiastic in anticipating the future.
Mr. Pertell saw that the other plays under way in the studio were running smoothly, and then prepared to take Mr. DeVere, his daughters, and the old sailor over to Erie Basin, to inspect the Mary Ellen, as she lay in her slip, being refitted for another voyage—her last—for she was to rest beneath the waves when she had played her part in the moving picture play.
"I wish I were going with you," said Russ Dalwood, as Ruth passed him where he was having a moment's respite from grinding away at the crank of a camera.
"I wish so, too," she answered, in a low voice.
"But I've got to stay here, and grind away at this film," he said hopelessly.
"We'll see you to-night," she called to him, as she went out.
Paul Ardite waved to Alice as she "twinkled" her fingers at him. Paul was in a cowboy costume, playing a scene in the cowboy story, which seemed to be giving more and more trouble as it proceeded.
"This is the fifth time we've done that act," Paul called to Alice in an aside as she passed. "And all because Mr. Bunn is so fussy. They'll take him out, if he isn't careful. Where are you going, Alice?"
"Over to see Mary Ellen."