Jack Knebworth sat in his conventional attitude, huddled up in his canvas chair, fingering his long chin and glaring from time to time at the clock above the studio manager’s office. It was eleven when Stella Mendoza flounced in, bringing with her the fragrance of wood violets and a small, unhappy Peke. “Do you work to summer-time?” asked Knebworth slowly. “Or maybe you thought the call was for afternoon? You’ve kept fifty people waiting, Stella.” “I can’t help their troubles,” she said with a shrug of shoulder. “You told me you were going on location, and naturally I didn’t expect there would be any hurry. I had to pack my things.” “Naturally you didn’t think there was any hurry!” Jack Knebworth reckoned to have three fights a year. This was the third. The first had been with Stella, and the second had been with Stella, and the third was certainly to be with Stella. “I wanted you to be here at ten. I’ve had these boys and girls waiting since a quarter of ten.” “What do you want to shoot?” she asked with an impatient jerk of her head. “You mostly,” said Jack slowly. “Get into No. 9 outfit and don’t forget to leave your pearl ear-rings off. You’re supposed to be a half-starved chorus girl. We’re shooting at Griff Towers, and I told the gentleman who lent us the use of the house that I’d be through the day work by three. If you were Pauline Frederick or Norma Talmadge or Lillie Gish, you’d be worth waiting for, but Stella Mendoza has got to be on this lot by ten—and don’t forget it!” Old Jack Knebworth got up from his canvas chair and began to put on his coat with ominous deliberation, the flushed and angry girl watching him, her dark eyes blazing with injured pride and hurt vanity. Stella had once been plain Maggie Stubbs, the daughter of a Midland grocer, and old Jack had talked to her as if she were still Maggie Stubbs and not the great film star of coruscating brilliance, idol (or her press agent lied) of the screen fans of all the world. “All right, if you want a fuss you can have it, Knebworth. I’m going to quit—now! I think I know what is due to my position. That part’s got to be rewritten to give me a chance of putting my personality over. There’s too much leading man in it, anyway. People don’t pay real money to see men. You don’t treat me fair, Knebworth: I’m temperamental, I admit it. You can’t expect a woman of my kind to be a block of wood.”