Part 13 (2/2)

There was a fine band and the dancing floor was smooth. Even Mr. Hammond went on to the floor, having secured a costume, and Mother Paisley, who acted as chaperon for the moving picture girls, was as light as anybody on her feet and the embodiment of grace.

”Actor folk nowadays,” the old woman told Ruth once, ”are not trained as they once were. I came of circus folk. My people had been circus performers in the old country for generations before my father and mother came over here. My husband was a trapeze performer.

”And working on the bars makes one supple and limber beyond any other form of exercise. Afterward, while still a young girl, I was in the ballet. At least, when one has had my training, one brings to the speaking stage a grace and carriage that can scarcely be secured in any other way.

”As for this moving picture business,” she sighed, ”I see these poor girls as awkward as heifers--and they are really learning very little.

They depend upon the director to tell them how a lady should enter a room, and how to walk. But often the director has never seen a real lady enter a room! Directors of moving pictures are not masters of deportment as our old dancing masters were.”

Ruth always listened to strictures upon the moving picture art and gained what she could from such criticism. And the harshest critics the motion pictures have are the people who work in them. But, after all, Ruth had a vision.

She felt that in spite of all the ”great,” ”grand,” ”magnificent,”

”enormous” pictures already advertised upon the billboards, the public was still waiting for a really well made and properly written and acted series of pictures that claimed neither more sensationalism than they possessed, nor were hastily and carelessly made.

Ruth liked to work with Mr. Hammond, and he had been very kind and considerate of her. But she felt that, untrammeled, she would be able to make better pictures than she had made with him. She wanted a free hand, and she felt the insistence of the treasurer's office at her elbow. Money could be lavished upon anything spectacular--for instance, like this French-Indian picture they were making. But much had to be ”speeded up”

to save money in other phases of production.

Mr. Hammond, like most of the other moving picture producers, thought only of the audience coming out of the theater with ”ohs!” and ”ahs!”

upon their lips regarding the spectacular features in the film shown.

Ruth wanted to go deeper--wanted to make the impression upon the minds and intelligence of the audiences. She felt that the pictures could be something bigger than mere display.

But this is all aside from the fun they had at the costume dance. Ruth and Helen both danced with Mr. Hammond and Mr. Grand and with several others of the moving picture people, as well as with their own friends.

Chess got the second dance with Ruth; and then he had the third; and then got the sixth. He might have gone on all the evening coming back to her and begging the favor had Ruth not insisted upon his devoting himself to some of his sisters' friends.

But, at the same time, Ruth was somewhat piqued because Tom Cameron did not come near her all the first part of the evening. She could not understand what the matter really was with him--why he acted in so offish a manner.

After that sixth dance (and Ruth had danced them all with one partner or another) she sent Chess away from her definitely. She went in search of Tom. The orchestra began playing for the next dance. Ruth looked keenly about the brilliant a.s.sembly. She knew Tom's costume--it was distinctive and could not be mistaken. But she could not mark it at all in the throng.

Two or three men asked her to dance, but she pleaded fatigue and continued to walk about the edge of the ballroom. Finally, in an alcove, sitting at an empty table, and with no companion, she spied the recreant Tom.

”Why, Tom!” she cried cheerfully, ”are you sitting out this dance too?

And the music is so pretty.”

”The music is all right,” he agreed.

”Don't you want to dance?”

”No. I do not want to dance,” he answered sourly.

”Not--not even with me, Tom?” she ventured, smiling rather wistfully at his averted face.

”With n.o.body. I am waiting for Helen and the rest of you to get enough of this foolishness and go home.”

”Why, Tom! You--you are not ill?” she ventured, putting out a hand to touch his shoulder yet not touching it.

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