years. This was
Harrietta's part. In the book there had been a young girl, too--a
saccharine miss of seventeen who was the minor love interest. This was
Lydia Lissome's part. Slowly it dawned on Harrietta that things had been
nightmarishly tampered with in the film version, and that the change in
name was the least of the indignities to which the novel had been
subjected.

It took Harrietta some time to realize this because they were not taking
the book scenes in their sequence. They took them according to light,
convenience, location. Indoor scenes were taken in one group, so that
the end of the story might often be the first to be filmed.

For a week Harrietta was dressed, made up, and ready for work at nine
o'clock, and for a week she wasn't used in a single scene. The hours of
waiting made her frantic. The sun was white hot. Her little dressing
room was stifling. She hated her face with its dead-white mask and
blue-lidded eyes. When, finally, her time came she found that after
being dressed and ready from nine until five-thirty daily she was
required, at 4:56 on the sixth day, to cross the set, open a door, stop,
turn, appear to be listening, and recross the set to meet someone
entering from the opposite side. This scene, trivial as it appeared, was
rehearsed seven times before the director was satisfied with it.

The person for whom she had paused, turned, and crossed was Lydia
Lissome. And Lydia Lissome, it soon became evident, had the lead in this
film. In the process of changing from novel to scenario, the Young Wife
had become a rather middle-aged wife, and the Flapper of seventeen had
become the heroine. And Harrietta Fuller, erstwhile actress of youthful
comedy parts for the stage, found herself moving about in black velvet
and pearls and a large plumed fan as a background for the white ruffles
and golden curls and sunny scenes in which Lydia Lissome held the
camera's eye.

For years Harrietta Fuller's entrance during a rehearsal always had
created a little stir among the company. This one rose to give her a
seat; that one made her a compliment; Sam Klein, the veteran director,
patted her cheek and said: "You're going to like this part, Miss Fuller.
And they're going to eat it up. _You_ see." The author bent over her in
mingled nervousness and deference and admiration. The Young Thing who
was to play the ingenue part said shyly: "Oh, Miss Fuller, may I tell
you how happy I am to be playing with you? You'