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"I see," said Ferriday. "Miss Anita Adair ring Mrs. Gilfoyle's bell. All right, my angel, at seven. Run along." He kissed her, and she was ice-cold. But then women were often like that before Ferriday's genius. The things we are ashamed of are an acid test of our souls. Kedzie Thropp was constantly improving the quality of her disgusts.
There were times when Ferriday raised her hopes and her pride so high that she fairly squealed with love of him and hugged him. That would have been the destruction of Kedzie if there had not been the counter-weight of conceit in Ferriday's soul, for at those times he would sigh to himself or aloud: "You are loving me only because I am useful to you." This thought always sobered and chilled Mr.
She had probably heard Ferriday use the expression and she got herself up on it till she was glib. Anybody who can be glib with "peculiarly impossible" is in a fair way to be articulate. All Kedzie needed was a little more certainty on her grammar; and her ear was giving her that. Her contempt for Lorraine Melnotte culminated in a dark suspicion that that was not his real born name.
Her eyes were made up with a delicate green that gave them an effect unknown to him. She was dressed as a young farm girl with a sunbonnet a-dangle at the back of her neck, her curls trailing across her rounded shoulders and down upon her dreamy bosom. She sat and swung her little feet and looked up at him sidewise. He forgot all about Ferriday, and when Ferriday came along did not see him.
The whole army of the studio stood meanwhile at ease, drawing salary and waiting for Ferriday to remember his day's program and give the order to go ahead. But he was busy with his new story, in the throes of nympholepsy, seeing visions, hearing voices. Kedzie sat in a marble expectancy, Galatea watching Pygmalion create her and prepare to bring her to life. She had never lived. She realized that.
But first Kedzie must divorce herself from the Hyperfilm Company. She went to the studio with rage in her heart. She told Ferriday that she would not go to California. He proposed that she break with the Hyperfilm Company and form a corporation of her own with Dyckman as angel. Kedzie was wroth at this. From now on, spending Dyckman's money would be like spending her own.
There followed various scenes in which Kedzie did not appear, close-up pictures of other people. Ferriday fell back growling. Then he came bolt upright as the purring spinning-wheel of the projection machine poured out more of Kedzie. Suddenly he shouted through the dark: "Stop! Wait! Go back! Give us the last twenty feet again. Who is that girl that dream? Who is she, Garfinkel?"
Ferriday belittled himself in Kedzie's eyes by his groans of baffled egotism. She could read his plots on his countenance, and thwart him in advance. But this was not always easy for her, and again and again he had only himself to blame for his non-success with Kedzie's heart.
Ferriday had neither the time nor the patience for the task. But when the chance came to dazzle the rich by the rich generosity of working for nothing, he could not afford to let it pass. To tip a millionaire! He had to do that. He saw incidentally that Kedzie was fairly hypnotized by Dyckman and Dyckman by her. His first flare of jealousy died out.
He stayed a long while and saw everything and yet he said he would come again. He suggested that it might be nice if Mr. Ferriday and Miss Adair would dine with him soon. Ferriday was free "to-morrow," and so they made it to-morrow evening at the Vanderbilt. Kedzie was there and Dyckman was there, but a boy brought a note from Mr.
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