"Oh, it isn't that I question his grasp of business conditions and fundamentals. But he's got such an active mind, he finds it hard to let well enough alone, he's everlastingly embroidering everything he takes an interest in with the most amazing arabesques. Let him run wild, and by nightfall he'll have the motion-picture industry of the United States pooled under one Napoleonic directing head, whose identity I leave you to surmise—and all on the basis of his undertaking to shape the film destinies of Linda Lee. And he'll draw diagrams and produce figures to prove what he predicts can't fail to come true, he'll even name the date of the coming millenium in the Lontaine fortunes. So somebody's got to keep a check on the accelerator, and I'm incompetent, I don't know the first thing about business, and I'm looking to you."
"Afraid you're leaning on a broken reed, my dear."
"Don't believe it. You're so wonderfully level-headed about things, Cindy, I have implicit confidence in you. Now this morning Harry has waked up with his poor dear bean more than usually addled with gorgeous schemes, and says he wants to consult you. What he really wants is your unconditional approval of everything he has to propose. It's only fair to warn you, any other attitude will prove inacceptable in the extreme. That's what Harry calls 'talking business.' So do be wise as well as kind."
"I'll try," Lucinda promised.
Considered in the light of this semi-serious warning, all that Lontaine had to lay before her seemed almost disappointingly conservative. But perhaps he was more subtile than Fanny knew. Uncommonly grave and intent when he presented himself for the conference, in business-like fashion he went at once to the heart of things.
"I've been thinking it over all night," he assured Lucinda seriously, as she and Fanny settled to give him attention, "and it seems to me I ought to let you know more specifically what you're letting yourself in for, before I ask you to hold yourself pledged."
"That sounds suspiciously like preparation for letting me down easily."
"Please don't think that." There was a convincing glint of alarm in Lontaine's look. "Never more enthusiastic, more sure of anything than I am of your eventual success. But it's going to mean hard work for both of us, slavery for many months, and hindrances may crop up we ought to be prepared against."
"I shan't mind hard work," Lucinda replied. "In fact, I can't think of anything that I'd find more agreeable than consciousness of at least trying to do something worth while with my life. As for disappointments, I don't expect much, so I can't be very hard hit if everything doesn't turn out as happily as one might wish."
"If that spirit won't win for us, nothing will," Lontaine declared. "Now for a tentative programme.... Our first step, naturally, will be to incorporate. And since it seems to be the fashion on this side, and our corporate name will serve as a trade-mark, I venture to suggest 'Linda Lee Inc.'"