to come between the star and the grinding camera.
The older man leered at the star and nervously lighted a gold-tipped
cigarette which he immediately discarded after one savage bite at it.
It could be seen that Vera Vanderpool was the gayest of all that gay
throng. Upon her as yet had come no blight of Broadway, though she
shrank perceptibly when the partially bald one laid his hand on her
slender wrist as she resumed her seat. Food and wine were brought. Vera
Vanderpool drank, with a pretty flourish of her glass.

Now the two cameras were moved forward for close-ups. The older man was
caught leering at Vera. It would surely be seen that he was not one to
trust. Vera was caught with the mad light of pleasure in her beautiful
eyes. Henshaw was now speaking in low tones to the group, and presently
Vera Vanderpool did a transition. The mad light of pleasure died from
her eyes and the smile froze on her beautiful mouth. A look almost of
terror came into her eyes, followed by a pathetic lift of the upper lip.
She stared intently above the camera. She was beholding some evil thing
far from that palace of revels.

"Now they'll cut back to the tenement-house stuff they shot last week,"
explained the Spanish girl.

"Tenement house?" queried Merton. "But I thought the story would be that
she falls in love with a man from the great wind-swept spaces out West,
and goes out there to live a clean open life with him--that's the way
I thought it would be--out there where she could forget the blight of
Broadway."

"No, Mercer never does Western stuff. I got a little girl friend
workin' with her and she told me about this story. Mercer gets into
this tenement house down on the east side, and she's a careless society
butterfly; but all at once she sees what a lot of sorrow there is in
this world when she sees these people in the tenement house, starving to
death, and sick kids and everything, and this little friend of mine does
an Italian girl with a baby and this old man here, he's a rich swell
and prominent in Wall Street and belongs to all the clubs, but he's the
father of this girl's child, only Mercer don't know that yet. But she
gets aroused in her better nature by the sight of all this trouble, and
she almost falls in love with another gentleman who devotes all his
time to relieving the poor in these tenements--it was him who took her
there--but still she likes a good time as well as anybody, and she's
stickin' around Broadway