“Who told you that?” demanded Mrs. Sniffen, amazed to hear such authoritative language.
“Nobody. But I’m quite sure it’s so. Books alone do not educate. They are like roughage for cattle. There is no nourishment in them but they help to digest Truth. I wish to see and hear for myself, and learn to understand in my own way.... What my eyes and ears tell me is what I ought to think about and try to understand. And I believe this is more important than reading in books what other people think of what they have seen and heard.”
“God bless her baby-face!” exclaimed Mrs. Sniffen, exasperated. “Where does a kiddy find such notions, and the outlandish words for them, now? What are young folk coming to, any’ow, gypsying about the world as they please these crazy days? It’s a bad world, Missy, and the worst of it settles in big cities like rancid grease in a sink.... Not that I’m the kind to push my nose into others’ business. I know better. No, Miss, I’ve troubles enough to mind of my own, I ’ave. But when I see a polite and well mannered young person turn her back on ’ealth and ’ome to come to a nasty, rotten place like New York and sleep in the public parks at that, ’ow can I ’elp expressing my opinion? I can’t ’elp expressing it. I’m bound to say you ought to go ’ome; and it would be a shame to me all my days if I ’adn’t spoken!”
She seemed to be in a temper. She marched out with her tray, her starched skirts bristling, her nose high. Opening the door, she looked back wrathfully at Eris, hesitated, door-knob gripped:
“I’ll ’ave some chicken for you before you sleep,” she snapped; and closed the door with a distinct bang.
Downstairs, Annan had entertained three friends at dinner—Coltfoot, Rosalind Shore, and Betsy Blythe.
Of the making of moving pictures there is no end—until the sheriff enters. And Miss Blythe helped make as many pictures as her rather brief career had, so far, permitted.
She was to have her own company now. The people interested finally had “come across”; Betsy talked volubly at dinner. Gaiety, excitement and congratulations reigned and rained.
Rosalind Shore, another stellar débutante, already in her first season, had won her place in musical comedy. She was one of those dark-eyed, white-skinned, plumply graceful girls, very lazy but saturated with talent. Which, however, would have meant little beyond the chorus unless her mother, an ex-professional, had literally clubbed musical and dramatic education into her.