At the cashier's window, no longer obstructed, he received his money, another five-dollar bill adorned with the cheerfully prosperous face of Benjamin Harrison and half that amount in silver coin. Then, although loath to do this, he went to the dressing room and removed his make-up. That grease paint had given him a world of confidence.
At the casting office he stopped to tell his friend of the day's camera triumph, how the director had seemed to single him out from a hundred or so revellers to portray facially the deadly effect of Broadway's night life.
"Good work!" she applauded. "Before long you'll be having jobs oftener. And don't forget, you're called again to-morrow morning for the gambling-house scene."She was a funny woman; always afraid he would forget something he could not possibly forget. Once more in the Patterson kitchen he pressed his suit and dreamt of new eminences in his chosen art.
The following morning he was again the first to reach the long dressing room, the first to be made up by the grumbling extra, the first to reach the big stage. The cabaret of yesterday had overnight been transformed into a palatial gambling hell. Along the sides of the room and at its centre were tables equipped for strange games of chance which only his picture knowledge enabled him to recognize. He might tarry at these tables, he thought, but he must remember to look bored in the near presence of Henshaw. The Spanish girl of yesterday appeared and he greeted her warmly. "I got some cigarettes this time," he said, "so let me pay you back all those I smoked of yours yesterday." Together they filled the golden case that hung from her girdle.
"It's swell, all right," said the girl, gazing about the vast room now filling with richly clad gamblers.
"But I thought it was all over except the tenement-house scenes where Vera Vanderpool has gone to relieve the poor," he said.
The girl explained. "This scene comes before the one we did yesterday. It's where the rich old boy first sees Vera playing roulette, and she loses a lot of money and is going to leave her string of pearls, but he says it's a mere trifle and let him pay her gambling losses, so in a weak moment she does, and that's how he starts to get her into his power. You'll see how it works out. Say, they spent some money on this set, all right."It was indeed a rich set, as the girl had said. It seemed to Merton Gill that it would be called on the screen "One of those Plague Spots that Eat like a Cancer at the Heart of New York." He lighted a cigarette and leaned nonchalantly against a pillar to smile a tired little smile at the pleasure-mad victims of this life who were now grouping around the roulette and faro tables. He must try for his jaded look.
"Some swell shack!" The speaker was back of him, but he knew her for the Montague girl, and was instantly enabled to increase the blighted look for which he had been trying. "One natty little hovel, I'll tell the world," the girl continued. "Say, this puts it all over the Grand Central station, don't it? Must be right smack at the corner of Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Well, start the little ball rolling, so I can make a killing." He turned his head slightly and saw her dance off to one of the roulette tables, accompanied by the middle-aged fop who had been her companion yesterday.
Henshaw and his assistant now appeared and began grouping the players at the various tables. Merton Gill remained leaning wearily against his massive pillar, trying to appear blase under the chatter of the Spanish girl. The groups were arranged to the liking of Henshaw, though only after many trials. The roulette ball was twirled and the lively rattle of chips could be heard. Scanning his scene, he noted Merton and his companion.
"Oh, there you are, you two. Sister, you go and stand back of that crowd around the faro table. Keep craning to look over their shoulders, and give us your side view. I want to use this man alone.
Here." He led Merton to a round table on which were a deck of cards and some neatly stacked chips. "Sit here, facing the camera. Keep one hand on the cards, sort of toying with 'em, see what I mean?"He scattered the piled chips loosely about the table, and called to a black waiter: "Here, George, put one of those wine glasses on his left."The wine glass was placed. "Now kind of slump down in your chair, like you saw the hollowness of it all--see what I mean?"Merton Gill thought he saw. He exhaled smoke, toyed contemptuously with the cards at his right hand and, with a gesture of repulsion, pushed the wine glass farther away. He saw the hollowness of it all.
The spirit of wine sang in his glass but to deaf ears. Chance could no longer entice him. It might again have been suspected that cigarettes were ceasing to allure.
