“And I suppose you invited him?” demanded Custer accusingly.
“And why not? I had to be polite, didn’t I?”
“You know perfectly well that father has never permitted such a thing,” insisted her brother, looking toward the colonel for support.
“He didn’t ask father — he asked me,” returned the girl.
“You see,” said the colonel, “how simply Eva solves every little problem.”
“But you know, Popsy, how perfectly superb it would be to have them take some pictures right here on our very own ranch where we could watch them all day long.
“Yes,” growled Custer; “watch them wreck the furniture and demolish the lawns! Why, one bird of a director ran a troop of cavalry over one of the finest lawns in Hollywood. Then, they’ll go up in the hills and chase the cattle over the top into the ocean. I’ve heard all about them. I’d never allow one of ‘em on the place.”
“Maybe they’re not all inconsiderate and careless,” suggested Mrs. Pennington.
“You remember there was a company took a few scenes at my place a year or so ago,” interjected Mrs. Evans. “They were very nice indeed.”
“They were just wonderful,” said Grace Evans. “I hope the colonel lets them come. It would be piles of fun!”
“You can’t tell anything about them,” volunteered Guy. “I understand they pick up all sorts of riffraff for extra people — IWWs1 and all sorts of people like that. I’d be afraid.”
He shook his head dubiously.
“The trouble with you two is,” asserted Eva, “that you’re afraid to let us girls see any nice-looking actors from the city. That’s what’s the matter with you!”
“Yes, they’re jealous,” agreed Mrs. Pennington, laughing.
“Well,” said Custer, “if there are leading men, there are leading ladies, and from what I’ve seen of them, the leading ladies are better looking than the leading men. By all means, now that I consider the matter, let them come. Invite them at once, for a month — wire them!”
“Silly!” cried his sister. “He may not come here at all. He just mentioned it casually.”
“And all this tempest in a teapot for nothing,” said the colonel.
Wilson Crumb was forthwith dropped from the conversation and forgotten by all, even by impressionable little Eva.
As the young people gathered around Mrs. Pennington at the piano in the living room, Mrs. Evans and Colonel Pennington sat apart, carrying on a desultory conversation while they listened to the singing.
“We have a new neighbor,” remarked Mrs. Evans, “on the 10-acre orchard adjoining us on the west.”
“Yes — Mrs. Burke. She has moved in, has she?” inquired the colonel.
“Yesterday. She is a widow from the East — has a daughter in Los Angeles, I believe.”
“She came to see me about a month ago,” said the colonel, “to ask my advice about the purchase of the property. She seemed rather a refined, quiet little body. I must tell Julia — she will want to call on her.”
“I insisted on her taking dinner with us last night,” said Mrs. Evans. “She seems very frail and was all worn out. Unpacking and settling is trying enough for a robust person, and she seems so delicate that I really don’t see how she stood it all.”
Then the conversation drifted to other topics until the party at the piano broke up and Eva came dancing over to her father.
“Gorgeous Popsy!” she cried, seizing him by an arm. “Just one dance before bedtime — if you love me, just one!”
Colonel Pennington rose from his chair, laughing.
“I know your one dance, you little fraud — five foxtrots, three one-steps, and a waltz.”
With his arms about each other, they started for the ballroom — really a big playroom, which adjoined the garage. Behind them, laughing and talking, came the two older women, the two sons, and Grace Evans. They would dance for an hour and then go to bed, for they rose early and were in the saddle before sunrise, living their happy, care-free life far from the strife and squalor of the big cities and yet with more of the comforts and luxuries than most city dwellers ever achieve.
1 IWW — Industrial Workers of the World. A former international labor union and radical labor movement in the United States; founded in Chicago in 1905 and dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism. — R-G.]
CHAPTER V
THE BUNGALOW at 1421 Vista del Paso was of the new school of Hollywood architecture, which appears to be a hysterical effort to combine Queen Anne, Italian, Swiss chalet, Moorish, Mission, and Martian. Its plaster walls were of a yellowish rose, the outside woodwork being done in light blue while the windows were shaded with striped awnings of olive and pink. On one side of the entrance rose a green pergola — the ambitious atrocity that marks the meeting place of landscape gardening and architecture and that outrages them both. Culture has found a virus for the cast-iron dogs, deer, and rabbits that ramped in immobility upon the lawns of yesteryear, but the green pergola is an incurable disease.
Connecting with the front of the house, a plaster wall continued across the narrow lot to the property line at one side and from there back to the alley, partially inclosing a patio — which is Hollywood for backyard. An arched gateway opened into the patio from the front. The gate was of rough redwood boards, and, near the top, there were three auger holes arranged in the form of a triangle — this was art. Upon the yellow-rose plaster above the arch a design of three monkeys was stenciled in purple — this also was art.
As you wait in the three-foot-square vestibule, you notice that the floor is paved with red brick set in black mortar and that the Oregon pine door, with its mahogany stain, would have been beautiful in its severe simplicity but for the little square of plate glass set in the upper right hand corner, demonstrating conclusively the daring originality of the artist-architect.
Presently, your ring is answered, and the door is opened by a Japanese “schoolboy” of 35 in a white coat. You are ushered directly into a living room, whereupon you forget all about architects and art, for the room is really beautiful, even though a trifle heavy in an Oriental way, with its Chinese rugs, dark hangings, and ponderous, overstuffed furniture. The Japanese schoolboy, who knows you, closes the door behind you and then tiptoes silently from the room.
Across from you, on a divan, a woman is lying, her face buried among pillows. When you cough, she raises her face toward you, and you see that it is very beautiful even though the eyes are a bit wide and staring and the expression somewhat haggard. You see a mass of black hair surrounding a face of perfect contour. Even the plucked and penciled brows, the rouged cheeks, and carmined lips cannot hide a certain dignity and sweetness.
At sight of you, she rises, a bit unsteadily, and, smiling with her lips, extends a slender hand in greeting. The fingers of the hand tremble and are stained with nicotine. Her eyes do not smile — ever.
“The same as usual?” she asks in a weary voice.
Your throat is very dry. You swallow before you assure her eagerly, almost feverishly, that her surmise is correct. She leaves the room. Probably, you have not noticed that she is wild-eyed and haggard or that her fingers are stained and trembling, for you, too, are wild-eyed and haggard, and you are trembling worse than she.
Presently, she returns. In her left hand is a small glass phial containing