Walking on, they discussed the wretched public taste and the wretched actors that pandered to it. The slap-stick comedy, they held, degraded a fine and beautiful art. Merton was especially severe. He always felt uncomfortable at one of these regrettable exhibitions when people about him who knew no better laughed heartily. He had never seen anything to laugh at, and said as much. They crossed the street and paused at the door of Miss Kearns’ shop, behind which were her living rooms. She would to-night go over Passion’s Perils once more and send it to another company. “I wonder,” she said to Merton, “if they keep sending it back because the sets are too expensive. Of course there’s the one where the dissipated English nobleman, Count Blessingham, lures Valerie into Westminster Abbey for his own evil purposes on the night of the old earl’s murder--that’s expensive--but they get a chance to use it again when Valerie is led to the altar by young Lord Stonecliff, the rightful heir. And of course Stonecliff Manor, where Valerie is first seen as governess, would be expensive; but they use that in a lot of scenes, too. Still, maybe I might change the locations around to something they’ve got built.” “I wouldn’t change a line,” said Merton. “Don’t give in to ‘em. Make ‘em take it as it is. They might ruin your picture with cheap stuff.” “Well,” the authoress debated, “maybe I’ll leave it. I’d especially hate to give up Westminster Abbey. Of course the scene where she is struggling with Count Blessingham might easily be made offensive--it’s a strong scene--but it all comes right. You remember she wrenches herself loose from his grasp and rushes to throw herself before the altar, which suddenly lights up, and the scoundrel is afraid to pursue her there, because he had a thorough religious training when a boy at Oxford, and he feels it would be sacrilegious to seize her again while the light from the altar shines upon her that way, and so she’s saved for the time being. It seems kind of a shame not to use Westminster Abbey for a really big scene like that, don’t you think?” “I should say so!” agreed Merton warmly. “They build plenty of sets as big as that. Keep it in!” “Well, I’ll take your advice. And I shan’t give up trying with my other ones. And I’m writing to another set of people--see here.” She took from her handbag a clipped advertisement which she read to Merton in the fading light, holding it close to her keen little eyes. “Listen! ‘Five thousand photoplay ideas needed. Working girl paid ten thousand dollars for ideas she had thought worthless. Yours may be worth more. Experience unnecessary. Information free. Producers’ League 562, Piqua, Ohio.’ Doesn’t that sound encouraging? And it isn’t as if I didn’t have some experience. I’ve been writing scenarios for two years now.” “We both got to be patient,” he pointed out. “We can’t succeed all at once, just remember that.”