“The only thing about you that’s a block of wood is your head, Stella,” grunted the producer, and went on, oblivious to the rising fury expressed in the girl’s face. “You’ve had two years playing small parts in Hollywood, and you’ve brought nothing back to England but a line of fresh talk, and you could have gotten that out of the Sunday supplements! Temperament! That’s a word that means doctors’ certificates when a picture’s half taken, and a long rest unless your salary’s put up fifty per cent. Thank God this picture isn’t a quarter taken or an eighth. Quit, you mean-spirited guttersnipe—and quit as soon as you darn please!” Boiling with rage, her lips quivering so that she could not articulate, the girl turned and flung out of the studio. White-haired Jack Knebworth glared round at the silent company. “This is where the miracle happens,” he said sardonically. “This is where the extra girl who’s left a sick mother and a mortgage at home leaps to fame in a night. If you don’t know that kinder thing happens on every lot in Hollywood you’re no students of fiction. Stand forth, Mary Pickford the second!” The extras smiled, some amused, some uncomfortable, but none spoke. Adele was frozen stiff, incapable of speech. “Modesty don’t belong to this industry,” old Jack sneered amiably. “Who thinks she can play ‘Roselle’ in this piece—because an extra’s going to play the part, believe me! I’m going to show this pseudo-actress that there isn’t an extra on this lot that couldn’t play her head off. Somebody talked about playing a part yesterday—you!” His forefinger pointed to Adele, and with a heart that beat tumultuously she went toward him. “I had a camera test of you six months ago,” said Jack suspiciously. “There was something wrong with her: what was it?” He turned to his assistant. That young man scratched his head in an effort of memory. “Ankles?” he hazarded a guess at random—a safe guess, for Knebworth had views about ankles. “Nothing wrong with them—get out the print and let us see it.” Ten minutes later, Adele sat by the old man’s side in the little projection room and saw her “test” run through. “Hair!” said Knebworth triumphantly. “I knew there was something. Don’t like bobbed hair. Makes a girl too pert and sophisticated. You’ve grown it?” he added as the lights were switched on. “Yes, Mr. Knebworth.” He looked at her in dispassionate admiration. “You’ll do,” he said reluctantly. “See the wardrobe and get Miss Mendoza’s costumes. There’s one thing I’d like to tell you before you go,” he said, stopping her. “You may be good and you may be bad, but, good or bad, there’s no future for you—so don’t get heated up. The only woman who’s got any chance in England is the producer’s wife, and I’ll never marry you if you go down on your knees to me! That’s the only kind of star they know in English films—the producer’s wife; and unless you’re that, you haven’t——!” He snapped his finger.