tragedy in
Jean's eyes at what might have happened; unfeeling in his greedy
seizure of her horror as good "stuff" for Muriel Gay to mimic. Yet the
man's energy was dynamic; his callousness was born of his passion for
the making of good pictures. He swept even Jean out of the emotional
whirlpool and into the calm, steady current of the work they had to do.

He instructed Pete to count as spoiled those fifteen feet of film which
recorded Jean's swift horror. But Pete Lowry did not always follow
slavishly his instructions. He sent the film in as it was, without
comment. Then he and Gil Huntley counted on their fingers the number
of days that would probably elapse before they might hope to hear the
result, and exchanged knowing glances now and then when Robert Grant
Burns seemed especially careful that Jean's face should not be seen by
the recording eye of the camera. And they waited; and after awhile
they began to show a marked interest in the mail from the west.

CHAPTER XV

A LEADING LADY THEY WOULD MAKE OF JEAN

Sometimes events follow docilely the plans that would lead them out of
the future of possibilities and into the present of actualities, and
sometimes they bring with them other events which no man may foresee
unless he is indeed a prophet. You would never think, for instance,
that Gil Huntley and his blood sponge would pull from the future a
chain of incidents that would eventually--well, never mind what. Just
follow the chain of incidents and see what lies at the end.

Pete Lowry and Gil had planned cunningly for a certain readjustment of
Jean's standing in the company, for no deeper reasons than their
genuine liking for the girl and a common human impulse to have a hand
in the ordering of their little world. In ten days Robert Grant Burns
received a letter from Dewitt, president of the Great Western Film
Company, which amply fulfilled those plans, and, as I said, opened the
way for other events quite unforeseen.

There were certain orders from the higher-ups which Robert Grant Burns
must heed. They were, briefly, the immediate transfer of Muriel Gay to
the position of leading woman in a new company which was being sent to
Santa Barbara to make light comedy-dramas. Robert Grant Burns grunted
when he read that, though it was a step up the ladder for Muriel which
she would be glad to take. The next paragraph instructed him to place
the young woman who had been doubling for Miss Gay in the po