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Kedzie was disappointed in him. He was nothing like Ferriday. He didn't use a French word once. She was afraid to venture on her own. "I'll take the same things," she said. "Sensible lady," said Jim. "Women who work must eat." Kedzie hated to be referred to as a worker by an idler. She little knew how much Jim Dyckman wished he were a worker. She could not make him out.
He said, "Much obliged, Garfinkel" and Garfinkel remembered pressing duty elsewhere. His departure left Kedzie alone with Ferriday in a cavern pitch black save for the cone of light spreading from the little hole in the wall at the back to the screen where the spray of light-dust became living pictures of Kedzie.
Then she wrote him that she was doing fairly well at the studio and she would stick to her work. She sent him oceans of love, but she did not send him the thirty dollars. Besides, he had borrowed it of her in the first place, and she had had to borrow more of Ferriday. She had neglected to pay him back.
Kedzie was pleasantly terrified, and she wondered what would befall her next. She gave the retreating Garfinkel no further thought. She sat and trembled before the devouring gaze of the great Ferriday. He studied her professionally, but he was intensely, extravagantly human. That was why he appealed to the public so potently.
With Kedzie's fame he was having a very sudden and phenomenal triumph if anything could be called phenomenal in a field which itself was phenomenal always. Ferriday did not know, of course, that Kedzie was married. She hardly knew it herself now. Gilfoyle had been three weeks late in sending her the thirty dollars' fare to Chicago.
Kedzie was beginning to imitate the upper dialect already. She who but a twelvemonth past was dividing people into "hicks" and "swells," and whose epithets were "reub" and "classy," was now a generation advanced. Ferriday saw it and raged. One day in discussing the cast of a picture he mentioned the screen-pet Lorraine Melnotte as the man for the principal male role.
He cried out in the dark that she was the blank-blankest little witch in the world. Then he groveled in apology, as if his profanity had not been the ultimate gallantry. When the picture was finished he turned to Kedzie and said, "My God, you're great!" He turned to Ferriday. "Isn't she, Mr. Fenimore?" "I think so," said Ferriday; "and the world will think so soon." Kedzie shook her head.
"If it was for the advancement of your career, yes," Ferriday insisted. "What's Mr. Dyckman got to do with my career?" "He can make it, if he doesn't break it." "Come again." "If you fall in love with that big thug, or if you play him for a limousine like a chorus-girl on the make, your career is gone.
She was glad to have long gloves to take off slowly while she recovered herself and took in the gorgeous room full of gorgeous people. Gloves are most useful coming off and going on. Kedzie was afraid of the bill of fare with its complex French terms, but Ferriday took command of the menu.
She felt that the world had not treated her squarely. Why should she have to carry all this luggage of her past through the gate with her? She wondered if it would not be better to linger in the studios till she grew more famous and could bring a little prestige along. But Ferriday was already ousting her even from that security.
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