章节正文
have stayed with him."
"You don't think Lite quite capable of taking care
of him."
"Oh, yes, of course he is! But I just feel that
way."
Dewitt shifted a little, so that he was half facing her,
and could look at her without having to turn his head.
If his eyes told anything of his thoughts, the President
of the Great Western Film Company was curious to
know how she felt about her position and her sudden
fame and the work itself. Before they had worked
their way into the next block, he decided that Jean was
not greatly interested in any of these things, and he
wondered why.
The machine slowed, swung to the curb, and crept
forward and stopped in front of the Victoria. Dewitt
looked at Burns and Pete Lowry, who was on the front
seat.
"I thought you'd like to take a glance at the lobby
display the Victoria is making," he said casually.
"They are running the Lazy A series, you know,--to
capacity houses, too, they tell me. Shall we get
out?"
The chauffeur reached back with that gesture of
toleration and infinite boredom common to his kind and
swung open the door.
Robert Grant Burns started up. "Come on, Jean,"
he said eagerly. "I don't suppose that eternal calm of
yours will ever show a wrinkle on the surface, but let's
have a look, anyway."
Pete Lowry was already out and half way across the
pavement. Pete had lain awake in his bed, many's the
night, planning the posing of "stills" that would show
Jean at her best; he had visioned them on display in
theater lobbies, and now he collided with a hurrying
shopper in his haste to see the actual fulfillment of those
plans.
Jean herself was not so eager. She went with the
others, and she saw herself pictured on Pard; on her
two feet; and sitting upon a rock with her old Stetson
tilted over one eye and her hair tousled with the wind.
She was loading her six-shooter, and talking to Lite,
who was sitting on his heels with a cigarette in his
fingers, looking at her with that bottled-up look in his
eyes. She did not remember when the picture was
taken, but she liked that best of all. She saw herself
leaning out of the window of her room at the Lazy A.
She remembered that time. She was talking to Gil
outside, and Pete had come up and planted his tripod
directly in front of her, and had commanded her to
hold her pose. She did not count them, but she
had curious impressions of dozens of pictures of
herself scattered here and there along the walls of
the long, cool-looking lobby. Every single one of
them was marked: "Jean, of the Lazy A." Just
that.
On a bulletin board in the middle of the entrance, just
before the marble box-office, it was lettered again in
dignified black type: "JEAN OF THE LAZY A." Below
was one word: "To-day."
"It looks awfully queer," said Jean to Mr. Dewitt,
who wanted to know what she thought of it all; "they
don't explain what it's all about, or anything."
"No, they don't." Dewitt pulled his mustache and
piloted her back to the machine. "They don't have
to."
"No," echoed Robert Grant Burns, with the fat
chuckle of utter content in the knowledge of having
achieved something. "From the looks of things, they
don't have to." He looked at Jean so intently that she
stared back at him, wondering what was the matter;
and when he saw that she was wondering, he gave a
snort.
"Good Lord!" he said to himself, just above a
whisper, and looked away, despairing of ever reading the
riddle of Jean's unshakable composure. Was it pose
Was the girl phlegmatic,--with that face which was so
alive with the thoughts that shuttled back and forth
behind those steady, talking eyes of hers? She was not
stupid; Robert Grant Burns knew to his own discomfiture
that she was not stupid. Nor was she one to
pose; the absolutesincerity of her terrificfrankness was
what had worried Robert Grant Burns most. She must
know that she had jumped into the front rank of popular
actresses, and stood out before them all,--for the time
being, at least. And,--he stole a measuring sidelong
glance at her, just as he had done thousands of times in
the past four months,--here she was in the private
machine of the President of the Great Western Film
Company, with that great man himself talking to her
as to his honored guest. She had seen herself featured
alone at one of the biggest motion-picture theaters in
Los Angeles; so well known that "Jean, of the Lazy
A" was deemed all-sufficient as information and
advertisement. She had reached what seemed to Robert
Grant Burns the final heights. And the girl sat there,
calm, abstracted, actually not listening to Dewitt when
he talked! She was not even thinking about him!
Robert Grant Burns gave her another quick, resentful
glance, and wondered what under heaven the girl WAS
thinking about.
As a matter of fact, having accepted the fact that she
seemed to have made a success of her pictures, her
thoughts had drifted to what seemed to her more vital.
Had she done wrong to come away out here, away from
her problem? The distance worried her. She had not
even found out who was the mysterious night-prowler,
or what he wanted. He had never come again, after
that night when Hepsy had scared him away. From
long thinking about it, she had come to a vague, general
belief that his visits were somehow connected with the
murder; but in what manner, she could not even form a
theory. That worried her. She wished now that she
had told Lite about it. She was foolish not to have
done something, instead of sticking her head under the
bedclothes and just shivering till he left. Lite would
have found out who the man was, and what he wanted.
Lite would never have let him come and go like that.
But the visits had seemed so absolutely without reason.
There was nothing to steal, and nothing to find. Still,
she wished she had told Lite, and let him find out who
it was.
Then her talk with the great lawyer had been
disquieting. He had not wanted to name his fee for
defending her dad; but when he had named it, it did not
seem so enormous as she had imagined it to be. He
had asked a great many questions, and most of them
puzzled Jean. He had said that he would take up the
matter,--by which she believed he meant an investigation
of her uncle's title to the Lazy A. He said that he
would see her father, and he told her that he had
already been retained to investigate the whole thing, so
that she need not worry about having to pay him a fee.
That, he said, had already been arranged, though he did
not feel at liberty to name his client. But he wanted
to assure her that everything was being done that could
be done.
She herself had seen her father. She shrank within
herself and tried not to think of that horrible meeting.
Her soul writhed under the tormenting memory of how
she had seen him. She had not been able to talk to him
at all, scarcely. The words would not come. She had
said that she and Lite were on their way to Los Angeles,
and would be there all winter. He had patted her
shoulder with a tragicapathy in his manner, and had
said that the change would do her good. And that was
all she could remember that they had talked about.
And then the guard came, and--
That is what she was thinking about while the big,
purple machine slid smoothly through the tunnel, negotiated
a rough stretch where the street-pavers were at
work, and sped purring out upon the boulevard that
stretched away to Hollywood and the hills. That was
what she kept hidden behind the "eternal calm" that
so irritated Robert Grant Burns and so delighted Dewitt
and so interested Jim Gates, who studied her for
what "copy" there was in her personality.
It was the same when, the next day, Dewitt himself
took her over to the big plant which he spoke of as the
studio. It was immense, and yet Jean seemed
unimpressed. She was gladder to see Pard and Lite again
than she was to meet the six-hundred-a-week star whose
popularity she seemed in a fair way to outrival. Men
and women who were "in stock," and therefore within
the social pale, were introduced to her and said nice,
hackneyed things about how they admired her work and
were glad to welcome her. She felt the warm air of
good-fellowship that followed her everywhere. All of
these people seemed to accept her at once as one of
themselves. When she noticed it, she was amused at the
way the "extras" stood back and looked at her and
whispered together. More than once she overheard
what seemed almost to have become a catch-phrase out
here; "Jean of the lazy A" was the phrase.
Jean was not made of wood, understand. In a manner
she recognized all these little tributes, and to a certain
degree she appreciated them. She was glad that
she had made such a success of it, but she was glad
because it would help her to take her dad away from that
horrible, ghastly place and that horrible, ghastly death-
in-life under which he lived. In three years he had
grown old and stooped--her dad!
And Burns twitted her ironically because she could
not simper and lose her head over the attentions these
people were loading upon her! Save for the fact that
in this way she could earn a good deal of money, and
could pay that lawyer Rossman, and trace Art Osgood,
she would not have stayed; she could not have endured
the staying. For the easier they made life for her, the
greater contrast did they make between her and her
dad.
Gil brought her a great bunch of roses, unbelievably
beautiful and fragrant, and laughed and told her they
didn't look much like those snowdrifts she waded
through the last day they worked on the Lazy A serial.
For just a minute he thought Jean was going to throw
them at him, and he worried himself into sleeplessness,
poor boy, wondering how he had offended her, and how
he could make amends. Could he have looked into
Jean's soul, he would have seen that it was seared with
the fresh memory of iron bars and high walls and her
"You don't think Lite quite capable of taking care
of him."
"Oh, yes, of course he is! But I just feel that
way."
Dewitt shifted a little, so that he was half facing her,
and could look at her without having to turn his head.
If his eyes told anything of his thoughts, the President
of the Great Western Film Company was curious to
know how she felt about her position and her sudden
fame and the work itself. Before they had worked
their way into the next block, he decided that Jean was
not greatly interested in any of these things, and he
wondered why.
The machine slowed, swung to the curb, and crept
forward and stopped in front of the Victoria. Dewitt
looked at Burns and Pete Lowry, who was on the front
seat.
"I thought you'd like to take a glance at the lobby
display the Victoria is making," he said casually.
"They are running the Lazy A series, you know,--to
capacity houses, too, they tell me. Shall we get
out?"
The chauffeur reached back with that gesture of
toleration and infinite boredom common to his kind and
swung open the door.
Robert Grant Burns started up. "Come on, Jean,"
he said eagerly. "I don't suppose that eternal calm of
yours will ever show a wrinkle on the surface, but let's
have a look, anyway."
Pete Lowry was already out and half way across the
pavement. Pete had lain awake in his bed, many's the
night, planning the posing of "stills" that would show
Jean at her best; he had visioned them on display in
theater lobbies, and now he collided with a hurrying
shopper in his haste to see the actual fulfillment of those
plans.
Jean herself was not so eager. She went with the
others, and she saw herself pictured on Pard; on her
two feet; and sitting upon a rock with her old Stetson
tilted over one eye and her hair tousled with the wind.
She was loading her six-shooter, and talking to Lite,
who was sitting on his heels with a cigarette in his
fingers, looking at her with that bottled-up look in his
eyes. She did not remember when the picture was
taken, but she liked that best of all. She saw herself
leaning out of the window of her room at the Lazy A.
She remembered that time. She was talking to Gil
outside, and Pete had come up and planted his tripod
directly in front of her, and had commanded her to
hold her pose. She did not count them, but she
had curious impressions of dozens of pictures of
herself scattered here and there along the walls of
the long, cool-looking lobby. Every single one of
them was marked: "Jean, of the Lazy A." Just
that.
On a bulletin board in the middle of the entrance, just
before the marble box-office, it was lettered again in
dignified black type: "JEAN OF THE LAZY A." Below
was one word: "To-day."
"It looks awfully queer," said Jean to Mr. Dewitt,
who wanted to know what she thought of it all; "they
don't explain what it's all about, or anything."
"No, they don't." Dewitt pulled his mustache and
piloted her back to the machine. "They don't have
to."
"No," echoed Robert Grant Burns, with the fat
chuckle of utter content in the knowledge of having
achieved something. "From the looks of things, they
don't have to." He looked at Jean so intently that she
stared back at him, wondering what was the matter;
and when he saw that she was wondering, he gave a
snort.
"Good Lord!" he said to himself, just above a
whisper, and looked away, despairing of ever reading the
riddle of Jean's unshakable composure. Was it pose
Was the girl phlegmatic,--with that face which was so
alive with the thoughts that shuttled back and forth
behind those steady, talking eyes of hers? She was not
stupid; Robert Grant Burns knew to his own discomfiture
that she was not stupid. Nor was she one to
pose; the absolutesincerity of her terrificfrankness was
what had worried Robert Grant Burns most. She must
know that she had jumped into the front rank of popular
actresses, and stood out before them all,--for the time
being, at least. And,--he stole a measuring sidelong
glance at her, just as he had done thousands of times in
the past four months,--here she was in the private
machine of the President of the Great Western Film
Company, with that great man himself talking to her
as to his honored guest. She had seen herself featured
alone at one of the biggest motion-picture theaters in
Los Angeles; so well known that "Jean, of the Lazy
A" was deemed all-sufficient as information and
advertisement. She had reached what seemed to Robert
Grant Burns the final heights. And the girl sat there,
calm, abstracted, actually not listening to Dewitt when
he talked! She was not even thinking about him!
Robert Grant Burns gave her another quick, resentful
glance, and wondered what under heaven the girl WAS
thinking about.
As a matter of fact, having accepted the fact that she
seemed to have made a success of her pictures, her
thoughts had drifted to what seemed to her more vital.
Had she done wrong to come away out here, away from
her problem? The distance worried her. She had not
even found out who was the mysterious night-prowler,
or what he wanted. He had never come again, after
that night when Hepsy had scared him away. From
long thinking about it, she had come to a vague, general
belief that his visits were somehow connected with the
murder; but in what manner, she could not even form a
theory. That worried her. She wished now that she
had told Lite about it. She was foolish not to have
done something, instead of sticking her head under the
bedclothes and just shivering till he left. Lite would
have found out who the man was, and what he wanted.
Lite would never have let him come and go like that.
But the visits had seemed so absolutely without reason.
There was nothing to steal, and nothing to find. Still,
she wished she had told Lite, and let him find out who
it was.
Then her talk with the great lawyer had been
disquieting. He had not wanted to name his fee for
defending her dad; but when he had named it, it did not
seem so enormous as she had imagined it to be. He
had asked a great many questions, and most of them
puzzled Jean. He had said that he would take up the
matter,--by which she believed he meant an investigation
of her uncle's title to the Lazy A. He said that he
would see her father, and he told her that he had
already been retained to investigate the whole thing, so
that she need not worry about having to pay him a fee.
That, he said, had already been arranged, though he did
not feel at liberty to name his client. But he wanted
to assure her that everything was being done that could
be done.
She herself had seen her father. She shrank within
herself and tried not to think of that horrible meeting.
Her soul writhed under the tormenting memory of how
she had seen him. She had not been able to talk to him
at all, scarcely. The words would not come. She had
said that she and Lite were on their way to Los Angeles,
and would be there all winter. He had patted her
shoulder with a tragicapathy in his manner, and had
said that the change would do her good. And that was
all she could remember that they had talked about.
And then the guard came, and--
That is what she was thinking about while the big,
purple machine slid smoothly through the tunnel, negotiated
a rough stretch where the street-pavers were at
work, and sped purring out upon the boulevard that
stretched away to Hollywood and the hills. That was
what she kept hidden behind the "eternal calm" that
so irritated Robert Grant Burns and so delighted Dewitt
and so interested Jim Gates, who studied her for
what "copy" there was in her personality.
It was the same when, the next day, Dewitt himself
took her over to the big plant which he spoke of as the
studio. It was immense, and yet Jean seemed
unimpressed. She was gladder to see Pard and Lite again
than she was to meet the six-hundred-a-week star whose
popularity she seemed in a fair way to outrival. Men
and women who were "in stock," and therefore within
the social pale, were introduced to her and said nice,
hackneyed things about how they admired her work and
were glad to welcome her. She felt the warm air of
good-fellowship that followed her everywhere. All of
these people seemed to accept her at once as one of
themselves. When she noticed it, she was amused at the
way the "extras" stood back and looked at her and
whispered together. More than once she overheard
what seemed almost to have become a catch-phrase out
here; "Jean of the lazy A" was the phrase.
Jean was not made of wood, understand. In a manner
she recognized all these little tributes, and to a certain
degree she appreciated them. She was glad that
she had made such a success of it, but she was glad
because it would help her to take her dad away from that
horrible, ghastly place and that horrible, ghastly death-
in-life under which he lived. In three years he had
grown old and stooped--her dad!
And Burns twitted her ironically because she could
not simper and lose her head over the attentions these
people were loading upon her! Save for the fact that
in this way she could earn a good deal of money, and
could pay that lawyer Rossman, and trace Art Osgood,
she would not have stayed; she could not have endured
the staying. For the easier they made life for her, the
greater contrast did they make between her and her
dad.
Gil brought her a great bunch of roses, unbelievably
beautiful and fragrant, and laughed and told her they
didn't look much like those snowdrifts she waded
through the last day they worked on the Lazy A serial.
For just a minute he thought Jean was going to throw
them at him, and he worried himself into sleeplessness,
poor boy, wondering how he had offended her, and how
he could make amends. Could he have looked into
Jean's soul, he would have seen that it was seared with
the fresh memory of iron bars and high walls and her
- capable [´keipəbəl]
a.有能力；能干的 (初中英语单词) - western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- series [´siəri:z] n.连续；系列；丛书 (初中英语单词)
- gesture [´dʒestʃə] n.手势 v.打手势 (初中英语单词)
- eagerly [´i:gəli] ad.渴望地，急切地 (初中英语单词)
- eternal [i´tə:nəl] a.永远的；永恒的 (初中英语单词)
- wrinkle [´riŋkəl] n.&v.(使)起皱(纹) (初中英语单词)
- actual [´æktʃuəl] a.现实的；实际的 (初中英语单词)
- marble [´mɑ:bəl] n.大理石 a.大理石的 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- stupid [´stju:pid] a.愚蠢的；糊涂的 (初中英语单词)
- absolute [´æbsəlu:t] a.绝对的 n.绝对 (初中英语单词)
- actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
- mysterious [mi´stiəriəs] a.神秘的；难以理解的 (初中英语单词)
- absolutely [´æbsəlu:tli] ad.绝对地；确实 (初中英语单词)
- lawyer [´lɔ:jə] n.律师；法学家 (初中英语单词)
- enormous [i´nɔ:məs] a.巨大地，很，极 (初中英语单词)
- horrible [´hɔrəbəl] a.可怕的；恐怖的 (初中英语单词)
- tunnel [´tʌnl] n.隧道 v.挖隧道 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- immense [i´mens] a.广大的，无限的 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- contrast [´kɔntrɑ:st] n.对比 v.使对比(照) (初中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- infinite [´infinit] a.无限的，无穷的 (高中英语单词)
- bulletin [´bulətin] n.公报，公告，告示 (高中英语单词)
- awfully [´ɔ:fuli] ad.令人畏惧地 (高中英语单词)
- terrific [tə´rifik] a.可怕的；极大的 (高中英语单词)
- investigate [in´vestigeit] v.调查(研究) (高中英语单词)
- client [´klaiənt] n.委托人；顾客 (高中英语单词)
- tragic [´trædʒik] a.悲剧的；悲惨的 (高中英语单词)
- smoothly [´smu:ðli] ad.光滑地；顺利地 (高中英语单词)
- hollywood [´hɔliwud] n.好莱坞 (高中英语单词)
- studied [´stʌdid] a.故意的；有计划的 (高中英语单词)
- ghastly [´gɑ:stli] a.苍白的；可怕的 (高中英语单词)
- fragrant [´freigrənt] a.芳香的，芬芳的 (高中英语单词)
- chauffeur [´ʃəufə,ʃeu´fə:] n.(汽车)司机 (英语四级单词)
- mustache [mə´stɑ:ʃ] n.髭，小胡子 (英语四级单词)
- intently [in´tentli] ad.专心地 (英语四级单词)
- composure [kəm´pəuʒə] n.镇静，沉着 (英语四级单词)
- sincerity [sin´seriti] n.真诚；诚意 (英语四级单词)
- delighted [di´laitid] a.高兴的；喜欢的 (英语四级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- despairing [di´speəriŋ] a.感到绝望的 (英语六级单词)
- frankness [´fræŋknis] n.坦白，直率，真诚 (英语六级单词)
- shrank [ʃræŋk] shrink的过去式 (英语六级单词)
- apathy [´æpəθi] n.缺乏感情；冷淡 (英语六级单词)
- boulevard [´bu:ləvɑ:d] n.林荫大道 (英语六级单词)
- amends [ə´mendz] n.赔偿；赔罪 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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