"
Mina Raff gazed at him blankly, this time from under the scallops of
the veil. "That is hard to believe," she objected; "he talks to me
beautifully about my pictures and a future on the stage. He says that I
am going to revolutionize moving pictures--"
"I don't question that," he put in; "but did Peyton show you how it
would be done?"
She hesitated, gracefully lowering her potent gaze.
"Probably," Lee Randon added keenly, "it was to happen because you were
so excessively beautiful." There was no reply to this. "I don't need to
tell you," he admitted, "that I did my best to discourage him; and I
pointed out that the time must come when you would fancy, no, need,
someone else."
"Oh, that was cruel!" she cried softly; "and it isn't, it won't be
true. Do you think, just because I happen to be an actress, that I
can't be faithful?"
"It is all a question of degree," he instructed her, "of talent or
genius. Talent may be faithful to a number of things--a man or a
country or even an ideal; but the only fidelity of genius is to
itself."
"I hadn't thought of that," she reflected, sadly.
"Why should you?" he demanded; "you are being natural; I am the
disturbance, the conventional voice sentimentally reading from the call
book. But you don't have those in moving pictures: it would be a
sentimentally stupid director. You must believe me: your acting will
always be incomprehensible to Peyton: he will approve of the results
and raise hell--for the comparatively short time he will last--with the
means.
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