Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel

"There is gossip, then?"

"What do you think? According to all reports, you've been going it, rather, you and this chap Summerlad – 'stepping out together,' as they say in Hollywood."

Lucinda affected a shrug of indifference: Bel mustn't guess she cared what people said.

"But I am still waiting to hear why you've come out this time; what it means when you hire quarters here in the studio where I am working daily, and pretend you're going into the producing business. You may be able to make Zinn believe that tale; at least, he won't ask embarrassing questions so long as you put money in his pocket; but you can hardly expect me – !"

"You're wrong there, Linda. I'm just as much in earnest about becoming a producer of good motion-pictures as you are about becoming a star. I got a little look into the game that fascinated me, in those two days while I was killing time, waiting for the night you'd set for our talk. You ought to be able to understand: you were fascinated yourself at first sight."

"But you – ! Bellamy Druce dabbling in the motion-picture business!"

"Well, what price Mrs. Bellamy Druce in the same galley?"

"No, Bel: frankly, I don't believe you. You're here with some wild idea you can influence me to do what you wish – whatever that is, since you say you've given up wanting me to come back to you."

"Oh, as to that – absolutely!"

"Then why must you set up your shop here, where we can't help running into each other half a dozen times a day?"

"Because there isn't another inch of stage to be hired in all Los Angeles today. I've had a man looking round for me ever since my first visit, he's tried every place. The only thing I could do to avoid renting from Zinn was to build, and that meant a longer wait than I wanted. Ask anybody who knows the local studio situation, if you doubt what I say."

"So you didn't come out this time with any idea of seeing me at all, Bel?"

"Of course, I did. I had to see you. Things couldn't rest as they were, especially after you'd taken up with this Summerlad. I'm assuming you're serious in that quarter, of course."

"And what has that to do – ?"

"Just this: I don't like it. As I say, if you want to run around with a movie actor, that's your affair; but so long as you remain my wife, it's my affair, too. Don't forget it's my name you're trailing through the muck of this sink-hole of scandal."

She flamed at him – "Bel!" – but he wouldn't heed.

"You don't suppose you're going to get away with the Linda Lee thing much longer, do you? If all these people don't know it's an assumed name now, they jolly soon will. How do you suppose I found out you were up to this game? No: not through detectives, but simply by calling on your friend, Ben Culp, the man who first put this picture bee in your bonnet. Nelly Guest gave me that cue, and I thought Culp might know something helpful. Well: he did, when I called he had on his desk a trade paper that carried a report of the incorporation of Linda Lee Inc. Did you imagine anybody would need more than that name, coupled with Lontaine's as president of the company? Culp himself was the first to tumble to it… And that's what I'm here to ask you. If you're going through, if you're bent on leading the life you have been leading ever since you fell in with these people, be good enough to keep my wife's name out of it! Get your divorce and get it soon. That's all I have to ask of you."

Lucinda replied with a slow inclination of her head.

"What you want is my dearest wish," she said. "Depend on it, Bel, I shan't waste a day, I'll take the first train I can catch for Reno, after finishing this picture."

"That's simply splendid of you!" Bellamy declared heartily. "Anything I can do to help along, of course – just let me know."

"I'll be glad if you'll go now," Lucinda told him. "I think I've had about all I can stand for one day."

"Then good bye, my dear – a thousand thanks!"

XXXI

Lucinda told Fanny that, when the dressing-room door had shut Bellamy out, she "didn't know whether to laugh or to cry"; though it's true that the laugh, if any, being admittedly on herself, she was the more moved to weep. And for some minutes she stood in thought, with a curiously uncertain expression, a look that, trembling between a smile and a frown, faithfully reflected a mind that couldn't readily choose between relief and chagrin. In the end throwing herself into a chair, she hid her face in her hands and shook with mirth which she really wasn't able to control, all the while aware that, but for the assurance of Lynn's love to cushion the shock to self-esteem, tears instead must have been her portion.

After all, one couldn't deny that it had been a facer, that complete snub Bel had administered to her expectations with his cool relinquishment of all pretense of claim upon her, barring that which was his beyond dispute, his right to demand the speediest feasible dissolution of their bonds.

"And you really think divorce is what he's after?" Fanny doubted darkly, having duly turned the matter over in her mind.

"I'm sure you'd think so, if you had heard him."

"I don't know… Of course, he was your property long enough, you ought to know his wretched little ways. But I wouldn't trust any man to mean what he says to a woman under such circumstances."

"Fanny! how long is it since you set up to be such a cynic?"

"As long as I've been an honest married woman, darling. I think the first thing a woman with her wits about her learns, once she begins to convalesce from that foolish bride feeling, is that men are just as treacherous as we are in affairs of the heart, so-called. Anyway, if your Bellamy were mine, he'd wait a long time for me to give him his freedom, precisely as long as he insisted on sticking round and making me uncomfortable… The most outrageous proceeding I ever heard of!"

"I don't see through Bel, myself," Lucinda admitted. "You'd think it would be the last thing he'd do. Of course – I'll speak to Harry about it tonight – we can't stay, we'll have to move as soon as we finish this picture."

"We're lucky to be as well along as we are, in that case. Barry Nolan said today he expected to finish up in two weeks more."

"Then there's no time to be wasted. Your husband will have to begin looking for new studio accommodations right away; though I haven't the least idea where we'll find them, if Bel told the truth."

"It's barely possible he did, of course. And then it's equally possible that he's taking advantage of the demand exceeding the supply to force you out of the business, assuming you'll quit Zinn's even if it involves suspending production, rather than be made miserable by seeing him every day. In which case, of course, he'll have some other scheme ready to make it difficult if not impossible for you to resume."

"Heavens! what a wild-eyed theory, Fanny!"

"Any more wild-eyed, pray, than the facts in the case? – than what Bellamy has done in leasing space in the same studio with a woman whom he has every reason for wishing to avoid, if one can believe a word he says! Cindy: don't tell me you believe Bellamy Druce ever left New York, his home and his friends, to come out here and muck about Hollywood because he likes it, or because he's discontented with having been no better than a drone all his life long and wants to redeem himself by doing something worth-while? If that's his motive, in Heaven's name! what made him pick out the motion-picture business?"

"It is funny," Lucinda confessed. "I don't pretend to understand…"

No more did she. But the seeds of suspicion that conversation planted took root readily and flowered into a dark jungle of strange, involuted fancies in which fears ran wild until Lynn Summerlad came home to charm them all asleep. Lucinda only needed to see him, indeed, to forget her troubles altogether and become once more the voluntary thrall of a species of intoxication as potent to her senses as a drug.

The Lontaines had arranged a supper party at Santa Monica in Summerlad's honour for that night, but considerately had neglected to preface it with dinner. So the lovers had the hours till eleven to themselves. At seven Summerlad called, finding his way unannounced to Lucinda's sitting-room. She went to his arms with a cry of joy, buried her face on his shoulder, clung to him as if she would never let him go.

"I've missed you so, Lynn, I've missed you so!"

He seemed startled and unmistakably affected by the artlessness of this confession, and held her close, comforting her with all the time-old and tested responses of the lovers' litany, with a tenderness in his voice more deep and true than he had ever sounded in the most impassioned moments of his wooing.

"But, my dearest girl! you're trembling. What is it? Tell me…"

"It's so wonderful to have you back, Lynn. Don't ever leave me for so long again."

"You tempt me to," he laughed indulgently. "I think you've learned to love me better while I've been away than you did in all the while that I was here!"

She answered with an odd little laugh of love and deprecation: "I really think I have…"

They dined at Marcelle's, not the happiest selection for their first few hours together, for the place was thronged with picture-folk, as it is always of a Saturday, and acquaintances were continually running over to their table to tell Summerlad how glad they were to see him back. Practically the only moments they had alone were when they danced; so they made excuse to leave early, that they might drive to Santa Monica by the most round-about way.

Nothing was wanting to endue that drive with every illusion of a dream. Spring was so well advanced that the night air, windless, was as warm as it would ever be in Summer. There was again a moon, as on that first night when Summerlad had driven Lucinda and the Lontaines home from dinner at his bungalow and on the way had turned aside to show Lucinda from that high place in the hills all the provinces of her new kingdom mapped out beneath her. Summerlad's car, its superb motor in perfect tune, made light of speed laws on lonely roads far from the main-travelled ways that link the towns. On the back seat, snuggled into the hollow of Summerlad's arm, Lucinda rested a long time in contented silence, watching the molten magic of the night fling itself at their faces, dissolve, blend into rushing shadows, and sweep behind, to music of cloven air like fairy laughter. How could she ever have been so stupid as to harbour a thought disloyal to this land of dim enchantment?

"It is too perfect," she murmured at length, "too sweet to last. It can't last, I know it can't!"

"Why not? So long as we love, what's to prevent all beauty lasting?"

"Life. I mean" – it took all her courage to speak of what she had till then purposely kept back – "Bellamy."