Said Carpenter: "What are you going to do about it, Mary?"
"What can I do? My contract has seven years to run."
"Couldn't you do something honest? I mean, couldn't you tell an
honest story in your pictures?"
"Me? My God! Tell that to T-S, and watch his face! Why, they hunt
all the world over for some new kind of clothes for me to take off;
they search all history for some war I can cause, some empire I can
wreck. Me play an honest woman? The public would call it a joke, and
the screen people would call it indecent."
Carpenter got up, and began to pace the room. "Mary," said he, "I
once lived under the Roman empire--"
"Yes, I know. I was Cleopatra, and again I was Nero's mistress while
he watched the city burning."
"Rome was rough, and crude, and poor, Mary. Rome was nothing to
this. This is Satan on my Father's throne, making new worlds for
himself." He paced the room again, then turned and said: "I don't
understand this world. I must know more about it, if I am to save
it!" There was such grief, such selfless pity in his voijce as he
repeated this: "I must know more!"
"You know everything!" exclaimed Mary, suddenly.
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