Personally, Gladys Ermintrude offered no objections to spending the night there. On the contrary, she appeared to be greatly taken with the idea. She said it reminded her of ‘Clashing Souls,’ where the hero and the heroine were cast away on the desert island. Tim said he was awfully sorry about it and hoped her poor mother wouldn’t worry too much. Gladys Ermintrude said she wouldn’t, probably, because this was choir-practice night, and her mother played the organ, and that would keep her mind busy; and was she to sleep in the tent, or where? Pud pointed out gloomily that to light a fire would be tempting Providence, but he was secretly thankful when he was overruled by the others, since the prospect of eating cold food was as repugnant to him as to Tim and Harmon. The latter soon had a small blaze, and presently there was the cheering fragrance of sizzling bacon. Pud walked along the bank of the creek a way and returned with the welcome assurance that you couldn’t see the light of the fire more than about fifty feet distant. Gladys Ermintrude sat on the ground close to the blaze and chattered cheerfully. She said it must be wonderful to be able to cook things the way Harmon did. Herself, she knew nothing about cooking or any household duties. Her mother had never allowed her to do any of the work because it might injure her hands. Besides, with all the servants they employed, what would have been the sense of it? Oh, of course, she could make delicious fudge, but that was just play. Cooking and such household drudgery was all right, she thought, for girls who had no ambition, but personally she considered it a waste of time. There were so many more important things, weren’t there? Tim, the principal recipient of these confidences, said he supposed there were, but that he guessed it wasn’t a bad idea for girls to know how to cook a little, because they never could tell when they might have to. But Gladys Ermintrude laughed lightly. In her own case, she declared, knowing or not knowing how to cook didn’t matter a bit, because she meant to live entirely for her Art. Motion-picture actresses, especially stars――one of which Gladys Ermintrude was to become shortly――didn’t have to bother themselves with such ordinary and vulgar affairs as keeping house. They either lived in magnificent hotels or else they owned beautiful bungalows in California and had large retinues――Gladys Ermintrude pronounced it ‘retin-wees’――of servants. Tim was rather impressed with all this, in spite of the secret conviction that Gladys Ermintrude was totally unlike any moving-picture star he had ever seen, and he would have patiently listened to further particulars regarding her career if Harmon had not announced supper just then.