"Do that, will you, Miss Lee, if you can? And be on the lot at eight tomorrow, made up, please. It's a forty-mile run to the location, and we want to get there early's we can so's to get all set to shoot when the light's right."
Actor and director pranced grateful attendance on the two women as they returned to their motor-car; and when it had vanished down the drive, Summerlad fell upon Jacques and shook him fervently by the hand.
"You're a true friend, Joe!" he declared in mock-emotional accents. "I'll never forget what you've done for me this day."
"Worked out pretty, didn't it?" the director grinned. "What d'you know about them dames walking in on us, just when we'd got it all doped? But you always were a fool for luck, Lynn, s'far's the skirts are concerned—you old hyena!"
"I am this flop, anyway," Summerlad mused with a far-away look. "Those white riding-breeches were a regular inspiration, Joe: if she finds a pair before night, I miss my guess."
"Well, it don't do to ride your luck too hard. You've got all afternoon with the coast clear—maybe! Get your make-up off and beat it quick."
XXV
As it turned out, however, Lucinda experienced no great difficulty in fitting herself acceptably with a ready-made costume of white linen for cross-saddle riding, and light tan boots of soft leather.
The prospect of at last doing real work before a camera, after her long wait since falling in with Lontaine's scheme, inspired a quiet elation. She had already been elaborately tested and re-tested, of course, by the cameraman under contract with Linda Lee Inc.; she had ceased to feel self-conscious in the fierce white light of the Kliegs, and was familiar almost to satiety with the sensation, at first so nightmarish, of sitting in a darkened chamber and watching herself move to and fro upon a lighted screen. This last, however, had given Lucinda confidence in the photographic value of her good looks; and she had furthermore learned, through measuring her unproved abilities by those of established screen actresses daily displayed to the millions, not to be apprehensive of scoring an utter failure when her time came to entertain with the mobile shadow of her self audiences that had paid to be amused.