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And now he studied again the scene in which Kedzie took down the draught of bitter beer, and there was a superhuman vividness in the close-up, with its magnified details in which every tiny muscle revealed its soul. "Look at her!" Ferriday cried. "She's perfect. The pathos of her! She wants training, like the devil, but, Lord, what material!"
But Ferriday was deep in love with his art; he was panting with the afflation of Apollo. Old motives, old scenes, old characters that had served as "sure-fire stuff" since the earliest Hindu drama now fell into their ancient places and he thought them new. Kedzie was sure she had never heard such original ideas. Her gratitude to Ferriday was absolute.
It threatened to bankrupt them before it was finished, but he derided them as imbeciles, moneychangers, misers. Garfinkel was manifestly afraid of Ferriday's very echo, and he cowered a little when Ferriday burst through the door with mane bristling and fangs bared. "Well, well, well!" Ferriday stormed. "What do you want, Garfinkel? What do you want, Garfinkel? What do you want?"
The telephone-bell rang. The hall-boy said: "A gen'leman to see you Mistoo Ferriday." "Send him along." "He's on the way now." "Oh, all right." As Kedzie hung up the receiver it occurred to her that this little interchange was about the un-swellest thing she had ever done. She had been heedless of the convenances.
"I'd rather meet you at the restaurant." Ferriday smiled. He understood. The poor thing was ashamed of her boarding-house. "Well, Cinderella, let me send my pumpkin for you, at least. I won't come. Where shall my chauffeur find you?" Kedzie whimpered the shabby number of the shabby street. "Shall he ask for Miss Adair, or " Kedzie was inspired: "I live in Mrs. Gilfoyle's flat-partment."
But he was hungry for praise and suffered from the lack of social prestige granted "the new art." Miss Havender seconded Charity's motion with enthusiasm. After a long conference it was agreed that Miss Havender should broach the matter to the great Mr. Ferriday while Charity recruited actors and authors.
She shoved him back and brushed the imaginary dust of his contact from the shoulders that had but lately been compressed by a million dollars. "I see you landed him," said Ferriday. "And I see that all your talk about loving me so much was just a fake," said Kedzie. "Why do you say that? I adore you." "If you did, would you throw me at the head of another fellow?" asked Kedzie.
Ferriday reached out, put his arm about her farther shoulder, and squeezed her to him after the manner of dosing an accordeon. Kedzie emitted the same kind of squeak. But she was not unhappy, and she did not even say, "Sir!"
Ferriday did not object to these professional traits. They exist in all trades, and success is never won in large measure without them. Almost all businesses are little trusts, monopolies more or less tiny, more or less ruthless. Ferriday delighted in Kedzie's battle for space with the other members of the troupe. They kept everybody intense.
Kedzie did not tell him. She pretended not to see Ferriday, though she enjoyed enormously the shock it gave him to find her so much at ease with that big stranger. Ferriday was so indignant at being snubbed in his own domain by his own creation that he sent Garfinkel to see who the fellow was and throw him out. Garfinkel came back with Dyckman, followed by Kedzie.
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