About this time the Hyperfilm managers decided to move their factory
to California, where the sempiternal sunlight insured better
photography at far less expense. This meant that Kedzie must leave
New York only partly conquered and must tear herself away from Jim
Dyckman.
She broke down and cried when she told Dyckman of this, and for the
first time his sympathies were stampeded on her account. He petted
her, and she slid into his arms with a child-like ingratiation that
made his heart swell with pity.
"What's the odds," he said, attempting consolation, "where you work,
so long as you work?"
"But it would mean," she sobbed--"it would mean taking me away-ay
from you-ou."
This tribute enraptured Dyckman incredibly. That he should mean so
much to so wonderful a thing as she was was unbelievably flattering.
He had dogged Charity's heels with meek and unrewarded loyalty until
he had lost all pride. Kedzie's tears at the thought of leaving him
woke it to life again.
"By golly, you sha'n't go, then!" he cried. "I was thinking of coming
out there to visit you, but--but it would be better yet for you to
stay right here in little old New York."
This brought back Kedzie's smile. But she faltered, "What if they
hold me to my contract, though?"
"Then we'll bust the old contract. I'll buy 'em off. You needn't
work for anybody."
There was enough of the old-fashioned woman of one sort left in
Kedzie to relish the slave-block glory of being fought over by two
purchasers.
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