It was Mrs. Landish's own attitude--her silly rambling irresponsibility, so like an elderly parody of Lita's youthful carelessness. Mrs. Landish had met Manford's stern interrogations by the vague reply that he mustn't ever come to _her_ for dates and figures and statistics: that facts meant nothing to her, that the only thing she cared for was Inspiration, Genius, the Divine Fire, or whatever he chose to call it. Perhaps she'd done wrong, but she had sacrificed everything, all her life, to her worship of genius. She was always hunting for it everywhere, and it was because, from the first, she had felt a touch of it in Lita that she had been so devoted to the child. Didn't Manford feel it in Lita too? Of course she, Mrs. Landish, had dreamed of another sort of marriage for her niece ... Oh, but Manford mustn't misunderstand! Jim was perfect--_too_ perfect. That was the trouble. Manford surely guessed the meaning of that "too"? Such absolute reliability, such complete devotion, were sometimes more of a strain to the artistic temperament than scenes and infidelities. And Lita was first and foremost an artist, born to live in the world of art--in quite other values--a fourth-dimensional world, as it were. It wasn't fair to judge her in her present surroundings, ideal as they were in one way--a way that unfortunately didn't happen to be hers! Mrs. Landish persisted in assuming Manford's complete comprehension ... "If Jim could only be made to understand as you do; to see that ordinary standards don't apply to these rare natures... Why, has the child told you what Klawhammer has offered her to turn _one film_ for him, before even having seen her dance, just on the strength of what Jack Staley and Ardwin had told him?" Ah--there it was! The truth was out. Mrs. Landish, always in debt, and always full of crazy schemes for wasting more money, had seen a gold mine in the exploitation of her niece's gifts. The divorce, instead of frightening her, delighted her. Manford smiled as he thought how little she would be moved by Pauline's threat to cut off the young couple. Pauline sometimes forgot that, even in her own family, her authority was not absolute. She could certainly not compete financially with Hollywood, and Mrs. Landish's eyes were on Hollywood.