"A gen'leman to see you--Mistoo Ferriday."

"Send him along."

"He's on the way now."

"Oh, all right."

As Kedzie hung up the receiver it occurred to her that this little interchange was about the un-swellest thing she had ever done. She had been heedless of the convenances. Her business life made her responsible only to herself, and she felt able to take care of herself anywhere.

Now it came over her that she could not aspire to aristocracy and allow negro hall-boys to send men up in the elevator and telephone her afterward. She s.n.a.t.c.hed up the telephone and said:

"That you?"

"Ya.s.sum, Miss Adair."

"How dare you send anybody up without sending the name up first?"

"Why, you nevva--"

"Who do you think I am that I permit anybody to walk in on me?"

"Why, we alwiz--"

"The idea of such a thing! It's disgraceful."

"Why, I'm sorry, but--"

"Don't ever do it again."

"No'm."

She slapped the receiver on the hook and fumed again, realizing that a something of elegance had been lacking in her tirade.

The door-bell rang, and she did not wait for her maid, but answered it in angry person. Ferriday beamed on her.

"Oh, it's you. You didn't stop to ask if I was visible. You just came right on up, didn't you?"

He whispered: "Pardon me. Somebody else is here. Exit laughingly!"

That was insult on insult.

"Stop it! There is not anybody else. Come back. What do you want?"

He came back, his laughter changed to rage.

"Look here, you impudent little upstart from nowhere! I invented you, and if you're not careful I'll destroy you."

"Is that so?" she answered; then, like Mr. Charles Van Loan's baseball hero, she realized with regret that the remark was not brilliant as repartee.

Ferriday was too wroth to do much better:

"Yes, that's so. You little n.o.body!"

"n.o.body!" she laughed, pointing to the newspapers spangled with her portraits.

Ferriday snorted, "Paid for by Jim Dyckman's money."

"What do you mean--Jim Dyckman's money?"

"Oh, when I saw how idiotic he was over you, and how slow you were in landing him, and when I realized that the Hyperfilm Company was going to slide your pictures out with no special advertising, I went to him and tried to get him into the business."

"You had a nerve!"

"Praise from Lady Hubert!"

"Whoever she is! Well, did he bite?"

"Yes and no. He's not such a fool as he looks in your company. He has a hard head for business; he wouldn't invest a cent."

"I thought you said--"

"But he has a soft head for you. He said he wouldn't invest a cent in the firm, but he'd donate all I could use for you. It was to be a little secret present. He told me you refused to accept presents from him. Did you?"

Kedzie blushed before his cynic understanding.

He laughed: "You're all right. You know the game, but you've got to quicken your speed. You're taking too much footage in getting to the climax."

Kedzie was still incandescent with the new information:

"And Jim Dyckman paid for my advertising?"

"On condition that his name was kept out of it. That's why you're famous. You couldn't have got your face in a paper if you had been fifty times as pretty if he hadn't swamped the papers with money. And he would never have thought of it if I hadn't gone after him. So you'd better waste a little politeness on me or your first flare will be your last."

Kedzie acknowledged his conquest, bowed her head, and pouted up at him with such exquisite impudence that he groaned:

"I don't know whether I ought to kiss you or kill you."

"Take your choice, my master," Kedzie cooed.

He snarled at her: "I guess the news I bring will do for you. There was a fire in the studio last night. You didn't know of it?"

Kedzie, dumbly aghast, shook her head.

"If you'd read any part of the newspapers except your own press stuff you'd have seen that there was a war in Europe yesterday and a fire in New York last night. I was there trying to save what I could. I got a few blisters and not much else. Most of your unfinished work is finished--gone up in smoke."

"You don't mean that my beautiful, wonderful films are destroyed?"

He nodded--then caught her as her knees gave way. He felt a stab of pity for her as he dragged her to her _chaise longue_ and let her fall there.