be at the wrong place.

"What's your name?"

"Gallant--John Gallant."

"Why didn't you say so in the first place? What do you think I am, a
mind reader? The clairvoyants are all east of Main street, son, all east
of Main street. Keep right on going, you'll find her on stage number
three."

His heels crunched into the finely-graveled driveway as he walked in the
direction pointed out to him by the guard, who condescended to leave
his chair for the purpose of guiding him. He passed two huge barn-like
structures and found the third designated in large white letters, "Stage
No. 3." A superstructure of black cloth and laths was built out from the
doorway at right angles to the stage building, a precaution, he later
learned, against daylight.

It was his first visit to a motion picture studio. He had no interest in
pictures or the people who played in them. His father, from whom he
inherited his love for books and the better class of spoken drama, had
always regarded motion pictures as almost a profanation of art. Once he
had noticed an advertising poster of a well known star referred to as a
"man's man," wearing a shirt open at the neck, sleeves rolled to the
elbows, riding trousers and shiny leather puttees, endeavoring
desperately to appear like a combination of Sandow and a Northwest
Mounted Police officer. He had had the satisfaction of hurling a rock to
mar the "virile" face as it looked down defiantly at him from the
billboard.

He had always imagined that all motion picture scenes were photographed
in the open, on roofless stages, and the idea that Southern California's
perpetual sunlight gave the best service for this purpose he believed to
be the reason that Los Angeles was the principal producing point of the
world. It surprised him when he realized that the barn-like structures
were inclosed stages.

Was Consuello a screen player or had she some other work connected with
the production of pictures, designer, scenario writer, director, art
expert? Or was she only at the studio as a visitor, inviting him to be
with her because some particular star was playing or some especially
interesting scene being staged?

Entering the cloth and lath superstructure he found himself in pitch
darkness. Unable to see his hand before his face he stopped to accustom
his eyes to the absence of any light. A voice spoke out of the dark:

"Do you wish to see anyone?" it asked.

"Miss Carrillo," he answered, having an uncann