"I thought it would be nice if we could all have tea in my dressing-room," Miss Daley explained; "and then Daddy suggested we could have it served here, on the set—make a regular little scene of it, you know, for the camera."
"I'm sure that would be delightful," replied Lucinda, suspended judgment melting into liking even in those first few minutes.
"Oh, Daddy thinks of all the nice things!"
"And I'll see each you ladies gets a print," Culp volunteered benignly, "so's you can get it run through a projectin' machine any time you want, d'y'see, and show your friends how you once acted with Alma Daley."
"Daddy! don't be ridiculous."
Vivacious, by no means unintelligent, and either an excellent actress in private life or else an unpretending body, happy in her success and unashamed of humble beginnings, Miss Daley was tactful enough to make her guests forget themselves and the trial to come, as they took their places—with no prearrangement but much as if they were actually meeting at the Ritz—and were served with tea by actor-waiters in correct livery. All the same, Lucinda noticed that their hostess ingeniously maneuvered to a central position in the foreground, where she sat full-face to the camera; this being by far her best phase. And just before the lights blazed up, the girl launched into a spirited account of her passage-at-arms with King Laughlin, which, recited without malice but with keen flair for the incongruous, carried the amateur players easily over the first minutes, in which otherwise constraint must inevitably have attended camera-consciousness.
"I was so fussed," she concluded, "I swore I'd never act another scene for him. But when I remembered how foolish he looked, posing in front of that awful orchestra like a hypnotized rabbit, I just had to laugh; and I couldn't laugh and be mad at the same time, of course. And then I had to tell King what I was laughing at, and that made him so ashamed he's sulking in his office now and won't come out while any of you are here."
"Then all's serene-o once more, Miss Daley?"
"Oh, sure. You see, Mr. Lontaine, we've simply got to finish this picture tonight, somehow, even if we have to work on till morning; so I accepted his apology and made it up."
"But those extra people Mr. Culp let go——?"