They adjourned to the larger cathedral, where the lights were dim, and there appeared, very appropriately in place of the altar, a large white screen. At the far end of the room was a projecting machine, and the guests distributed themselves in lounging chairs, prepared to pay for their entertainment by watching the first two reels of Annabelle’s new picture, and giving their professional judgments on the “cutting.” “Pangs of Passion” you may recall as a soul-shaking story about a society bud whose handsome young husband is led astray by a divorcee, and who, in order to make him jealous, begins a flirtation with a bootlegger, and is carried off in a rum-running vessel, and made the victim of the customary pulling and hauling and tearing of feminine costumes. “My God,” said Vee Tracy, in an aside to Bunny, “Annabelle has been playing these society flappers since before they were born, and in all that time she’s never had a story above the intelligence of a twelve year old child! You’ll think it’s a joke, but I know it for a fact that Perry Duchane gets a bunch of school children together and tells them the scenario, and if there’s anything they don’t like, he cuts it out.” And then to Annabelle she said, “It’s up to standard, my dear; it will sell all right.” And to Bunny, “That’s one good thing about Annabelle, you can say that and she’s satisfied—she doesn’t ask you if it’s a work of art. But others do, and I’ve made mortal enemies because I won’t lie to them. I say, ‘Leave art out of it, dearie; we all know our stuff is trash.’” There was technical discussion, and Bunny had an opportunity to learn about the tricks of “cutting.” Also he learned what had been the gross business on a number of Annabelle Ames’ pictures, and the inside figures on other successes. Tommy Paley had recently indulged in the luxury of making an artistic and beautiful picture, which the papers had called a “classic”; he and a group of friends had come out something over a hundred thousand in the hole, and he had charged it up to education, and said, “Let the Germans do the art stuff after this!” All this time there had been a silent spectral figure flitting about the cathedral, clad in white duck coat and trousers and padded purple slippers; the Chinese boy, bearing a tray with little glasses full of pink and yellow and purple and green liquid. He would move from guest to guest, offering his tray, and they would put down empty glasses and take up full ones, and during the entire course of the evening the spectre never made one sound, nor did anyone make a sound to it. Some three hundred years ago an English poet, long since forgotten by the movie world, had asked the question why a man should put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains; but here at the Monastery, the anxiety appeared to be that some one might forget to put the enemy into his mouth—hence this Chinese spectre to save the need of recollecting.