In fact, Kedzie, if she lives, will find the spirit of the world
almost altogether what grandmothers have always found it. But Kedzie
must be left to find this out for herself.
When, then, Kedzie saw how beautifully she photographed and how well
she looked as an old lady, she wept rapturously and sighed, "I'll
never give up the pictures."
Ferriday sighed, too, for that meant to his knowing soul that she
was not long for this movie world. But he did not tell her so. He
told her:
"You're as wise as you are beautiful. You'll be as famous as you'll
be rich. And this Dyckman lad can hurry things up."
"How?" asked Kedzie, already foreseeing his game.
"The backers of the Hyperfilm Company are getting writer's cramp
in the spending hand. They call it conservatism, but it's really
cowardice. The moving-picture business has gone from the Golconda
to the gambling stage. A few years ago nearly anybody could get rich
in a minute. A lot of cheap photographers and street-car conductors
were caught in a cloudburst of money and thought they made it. They
treated money like rain, and the wastefulness in this trade has
been rivaled by nothing recent except the European war. Some of the
biggest studios are dark; some of the leaders of yesterday are so
bankrupt that their banks don't dare let 'em drop for fear they'll
bust and blow up the whole business. Most of the actors are not
getting half what they're advertised to get, but they're getting
four times what they ought to get.
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