"There—there!" he returned, indulgently, "don't try to flatter your old father. You are just like your dear mother. Run along now, I must take up this new work. What a relief not to have to declaim my lines! I shall only move my lips, and who knows but, in time, my voice may come back?"
"I hope it will," answered Ruth, with a sigh. Somehow she could not quite bring herself to like her father in moving picture rôles. Alice was entirely different.
"But, even if it does come back," said the younger girl, "you may like this new work so well, Dad, that you'll keep at it."
"Perhaps," he assented. "Here, Ruth, take care of this money—my first moving picture salary," and he handed her the bills.
As he went to his room with the typewritten sheets of his new part, Alice whispered to her sister:
"Hurray! Now we can have a real dinner. I'll go and buy out a delicatessen store."
The meal was a great success—not only from a gastronomic standpoint, but because of the jollity—real or assumed—of Mr. DeVere. He went over the lines of his new part, telling the girls how at certain places he was to "register," or denote, different emotions. "Register" is the word used in moving picture scenarios to indicate the showing of fear, hate, revenge or other emotion. All this must be done by facial expression or gestures, for of course no talking comes from the moving pictures—except in the latest kind, with a phonographic arrangement, and with that sort we are not dealing.
"Oh, I'm sure it will be fine!" cried Alice. "Can we go and see you act for the camera, Daddy?"
"Yes, I guess so," he replied. "Would you like it, Ruth?"
"I believe I should!" she exclaimed, with more interest than she had before shown. "It sounds interesting."