And why not? Lucinda asked herself. She was alone in the world, lonely but for these good friends who needed her help, or seemed to. It would be good fun, it would be interesting, it would satisfy a need of which she had been discontentedly aware even in the days when she had yet to dream of leaving Bel. And—even as Fanny had argued—if she should fail and have to give it up, who would care what had become of "Linda Lee"?
"Very well," she said at length, with an uncertain smile—"suppose we try."
XX
"To tomorrow's morning star of the screen, Linda Lee!"
Thus Lynn Summerlad, mildly exalted, graceful and gracious even beyond his studied habit, flourishing a glass of California champagne above the dinner table in his bungalow in Beverly Hills.
The toast went by acclamation, and Lucinda laughed, at once gratified, diverted, and disposed to deprecate the spirit of these felicitations as premature.
It all seemed rather ridiculous, when one stopped to think, this taking for granted the success of a venture projected so lately, by no strain of imagination to be considered as already launched, and based wholly upon the postulation that the greenest of novices might by some sorcery of the cinema be ripened overnight into a genius of sorts.
A phrase of Culp's recurred unbidden: "A lot of kids, that's what we got to make pitchers with, a lot of kids."
It was childish, in a way; on the other hand, it was undeniably pleasant to think of oneself as one was being tempted to, as a sort of Sleeping Beauty of the screen only waiting to be awakened to vivid life by one wave of the witching wand of courage and self-confidence; pleasant to let oneself go and believe such things might be.