“There’ll come a time when the Betsy Blythe Films will mean only Eris. “If she’s going to become as good as that she ought to have her own company. She couldn’t stand such competition; nobody could; and I’m not going to. “_I_ don’t want to bury her; but if we go on playing together she’ll bury me. It’s right that we should part, professionally. It’s only fair to both of us. “That darned Albert Smull is responsible. He’s been out here three times. When it comes to casting the company, outside of myself, what he wants is done. And he’s mad about Eris. “The last time he came out here, his partner, Leopold Shill, came with him. Between them they do two-thirds of our financing. Well, while they were, as always, perfectly friendly to me, their interest was in Eris. How the devil am I to make it plain to them that Eris and I ought not to be in the same company? “I _could_ explain it to her and she’d understand. But Albert Smull and Leo Shill would misunderstand, utterly, and put me down as a jealous cat. “So ‘that’s that,’ as Eris has it when she’s made up her mind. I’ve made up mine. I’ve got to kiss her good-bye. But when I do I’ll kiss a future star. I’ll say so. You tell ’em. “Good-bye, you philandering but lovable egoist. I like your rotten novel--not spontaneously--but because if one only could like that sort of sob-stuff it’s the stuffiest, sobbyest story I ever snivelled over. “BETSY. “P. S.--Your dowdy, disagreeable aunt, Mrs. Magnelius Grandcourt, is in Pasadena for her health--maybe her temper, too--and she was nasty to me because I’m in pictures. “Of course I don’t mind: nobody pays any attention to those old dames who ruled New York a decade ago. All that ended with the war. She knows darned well where I belong. “But the funny part of it is that she’s taken a majestic shine to Eris. She’s stopping with the Pelham-Cliffords at their handsome place near Pasadena, and the Pelham-Cliffords are live ones and they let us shoot some scenes on their place. “That was how your aunt had an opportunity to be nasty to me. But exactly why she condescended to patronise Eris, I don’t know. “She continually asks the P-Cliffords to ask Eris over. Eris goes occasionally. I asked her point-blank why that peevish old party was so amiable to her, and she blushed in that engagingly confused way and said that your aunt knew her great grandmother. “Apparently there _was_ quality in the forebears of Eris, or that dumpy old snob wouldn’t have made any fuss over the great grandchild of somebody who died years and years ago.” CHAPTER XVI Annan was in a way of being rather pleased with himself. Nobody can remain entirely unshaken by the impact of the sort of flattery hurled in hunks by the Great American Ass. For with him it is all or nothing, repletion or starvation.