“You suppose you can buy me this property? Yes?”
“I don’t know. Of course, I can buy anything for you if you’ll pay enough.”
“My God! I do not enjoy commercial business. No. I enjoy art. I enjoy qualities of the heart. I–––” He looked at Jim out of his magnificent black eyes, touched his full lips with a perfumed handkerchief.
“Yes, sir,” he said, flashing a brilliant smile, “I am all heart. But my heart is for art alone! I dedicate it to the film, to the moving picture, to beauty! It is my constant preoccupation. It is my only thought. Art, beauty, the picture, the world made happier, better, for the beauty which I offer in my pictures. It is my only thought. It is my life.”
Jim politely suppressed a yawn and said that a life devoted purely to art was a laudable sacrifice.
“As example!” explained Puma, all animation and 119 childlike frankness; “I pay my artists what they ask. What is money when it is a question of art? I must have quality; I must have beauty––” He shrugged: “I must pay. Yes?”
“One usually pays for pulchritude.”
“Ah! As example! I watch always on the streets as I pass by. I see a face. It has beauty. It has quality. I follow. I speak. I am frank like there never was a man. I say, ‘Mademoiselle, you shall not be offended. No. Art has no frontiers. It is my art, not I who address you. I am Angelo Puma. The Ultra-Film Company is mine. In you I perceive possibilities. This is my card. If it interests you to have a test, come! Who knows? It may be your life’s destiny. The projection room should tell. Adieu!’”
“Is that the way you pick stars?” asked Jim curiously.
“Stars? Bah! I care nothing for stars. No. I should go bankrupt. Why? Beauty alone is my star. Upon it I drape the mantle of Art!”