Jack Knebworth was in his most cheery mood. The scenes had been, he thought, most successful.
“I can’t tell, of course, until I get back to the laboratory and develop the pictures; but so far as young Leamington is concerned, she’s wonderful. I hate predicting at this early stage, but I believe that she’s going to be a great artiste.”
“You didn’t expect her to be?” said Michael in surprise.
Jack laughed scornfully.
“I was very annoyed with Mendoza, and when I took this outfit on location, I did so quite expecting that I should have to return and retake the picture with Mendoza in the cast. Film stars aren’t born, they’re made; they’re made by bitter experience, patience and suffering. They have got to pass through stages of stark inefficiency, during which they’re liable to be discarded, before they win out. Your girl has skipped all the intervening phases, and has won at the first time of asking.”
“When you talk about ‘my girl,’ ” said Michael carefully, “will you be good enough to remember that I have the merest and most casual interest in the lady?”
“If you’re not a liar,” said Jack Knebworth, “you’re a piece of cheese!”
“What chance has she as a film artiste?” asked Michael, anxious to turn the subject.
Knebworth ruffled his white hair.
“Precious little,” he said. “There isn’t a chance for a girl in England. That’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s true. You can count the so-called English stars on the fingers of one hand; they’ve only a local reputation and they’re generally married to the producer. What chance has an outsider got of breaking into the movies? And even if they break in, it’s not much good to them. Production in this country is streets behind production either in America or in Germany. It is even behind the French, though the French films are nearly the dullest in the world. The British producer has no ideas of his own; he can adopt and adapt the stunts, the tricks of acting, the methods of lighting, that he sees in foreign films at trade shows; and, with the aid of an American cameraman, he can produce something which might have been produced a couple of years ago at Hollywood. It’s queer, because England has never been left behind as she has been in the cinema industry. France started the motorcar industry: today, England makes the finest motorcar in the world. America started aviation: today, the British aeroplanes have no superior. And yet, with all the example before them, with all the immense profits which are waiting to be made, in the past twenty years England has not produced one film star of international note, one film picture with an international reputation.”
It was a subject upon which he was prepared to enlarge, and did enlarge, throughout the journey back to Chichester.
“The cinema industry is in the hands of showmen all the world over, but in England it is in the hands of peep-showmen, as against the Barnums of the States. No, there’s no chance for your little friend, not in this country. If the picture I’m taking makes a hit in America—yes. She’ll be playing at Hollywood in twelve months’ time in an English story—directed by Americans!”
In the outer lobby of his office he found a visitor waiting for him, and gave her a curt and steely good morning.
“I want to see you, Mr. Knebworth,” said Stella Mendoza, with a smile at the leading man who had followed Knebworth into his office.
“You want to see me, do you? Why, you can see me now. What do you want?”
She was pulling at a lace handkerchief with a pretty air of penitence and confusion. Jack was not impressed. He himself had taught her all that handkerchief stuff.
“I’ve been very silly, Mr. Knebworth, and I’ve come to ask your pardon. Of course, it was wrong to keep the boys and girls waiting, and I really am sorry. Shall I come in the morning? Or I can start today?”
A faint smile trembled at the corner of the director’s big mouth.
“You needn’t come in the morning and you needn’t stay today, Stella,” he said. “Your substitute has done remarkably well, and I don’t feel inclined to retake the picture.”
She flashed an angry glance at him, a glance at total variance with her softer attitude.
“I’ve got a contract: I suppose you know that, Mr. Knebworth?” she said shrilly.
“I’d ever so much rather play opposite Miss Mendoza,” murmured a gentle voice. It was the youthful Reggie Connolly, he of the sleek hair. “It’s not easy to play opposite Miss—I don’t even know her name. She’s so—well, she lacks the artistry, Mr. Knebworth.”
Old Jack didn’t speak. His gloomy eyes were fixed upon the youth.
“What’s more, I don’t feel I can do myself justice with Miss Mendoza out of the cast,” said Reggie. “I really don’t! I feel most awfully, terribly nervous, and it’s difficult to express one’s personality when one’s awfully, terribly nervous. In fact,” he said recklessly, “I’m not inclined to go on with the picture unless Miss Mendoza returns.”
She shot a grateful glance at him, and then turned with a slow smile to the silent Jack.
“Would you like me to start today?”
“Not today, or any other day,” roared the old director, his eyes flaming. “As for you, you nut-fed chorus boy, if you try to let me down I’ll blacklist you at every studio in this country, and every time I meet you I’ll kick you from hell to Halifax!”
He came stamping into the office, where Michael had preceded him, a raging fury of a man.
“What do you think of that?” he asked when he had calmed down. “That’s the sort of stuff they try to get past you! He’s going to quit in the middle of a picture! Did you hear him? That cissy-boy! That mouse! Say, Brixan, would you like to play opposite this girl
