Throckmorton drove rapidly to a simple farm where he was not known and would be no longer surfeited with attentions. He dressed plainly in shirts that opened wide at the neck and assisted in the farm labours, such as pitching hay and leading horses into the barn. It was the simple existence that he had been craving--away from it all!
No one suspected him to be Hubert Throckmorton, least of all the simple country maiden, daughter of the farmer, in her neat print dress and heavy braid of golden hair that hung from beneath her sunbonnet. She knew him to be only a man among men, a simple farm labourer, and Hubert Throckmorton, wearied by the adulation of his feminine public, was instantly charmed by her coy acceptance of his attentions.
That this charm should ripen to love was to be expected. Here was a child, simple, innocent, of a wild-rose beauty in her print dress and sunbonnet, who would love him for himself alone. Beside a blossoming orange tree on the simple Long Island farm he declared his love, warning the child that he had nothing to offer her but two strong arms and a heart full of devotion.
The little girl shyly betrayed that she returned his love but told him that he must first obtain the permission of her grandmother without which she would never consent to wed him. She hastened into the old farmhouse to prepare Grandmother for the interview.
Throckmorton presently faced the old lady who sat huddled in an armchair, her hands crooked over a cane, a ruffled cap above her silvery hair. He manfully voiced his request for the child's hand in marriage. The old lady seemed to mumble an assent. The happy lover looked about for his fiance when, to his stupefaction, the old lady arose briskly from her chair, threw off cap, silvery wig, gown of black, and stood revealed as the child herself, smiling roguishly up at him from beneath the sunbonnet. With a glad cry he would have seized her, when she stayed him with lifted hand. Once more she astounded him. Swiftly she threw off sunbonnet, blonde wig, print dress, and stood before him revealed as none other than the Gordon daughter.
Hubert Throckmorton had lost his wager. Slowly, as the light of recognition dawned in his widening eyes, he gathered the beautiful girl into his arms. "Now may I be your leading lady?" she asked.
"My leading lady, not only in my next picture, but for life," he replied.
There was a pretty little scene in which the wager was paid. Merton studied it. Twice again, that evening, he studied it. He was doubtful. It would seem queer to take a girl around the waist that way and kiss her so slowly. Maybe he could learn. And he knew he could already do that widening of the eyes. He could probably do it as well as Parmalee did.
* * * * * * *
Back in the Buckeye office, when the Montague girl had returned from her parting with Merton, Baird had said:
"Kid, you've brightened my whole day."
"Didn't I tell you?"
"He's a lot better than you said."
"But can you use him?"
"You can't tell. You can't tell till you try him out. He might be good, and he might blow up right at the start.""I bet he'll be good. I tell you. Jeff, that boy is just full of acting. All you got to do--keep his stuff straight, serious. He can't help but be funny that way.""We'll see. To-morrow we'll kind of feel him out. He'll see this Parmalee film to-day--I caught it last night--and there's some stuff in it I want to play horse with, see? So I'll start him to-morrow in a quiet scene, and find out does he handle. If he does, we'll go right into some hokum drama stuff. The more serious he plays it the better. It ought to be good, but you can't ever tell in our trade.
You know that as well as I do."
The girl was confident. "I can tell about this lad," she insisted.
