CHAPTER XVIII

A NEW ROLE

Ruth Fielding scarcely slept at all that night. Her thoughts went whirling round and round in an endless circle. She was not the least tired, only restless and eager.

On the morrow she was to face the camera in an all-important part--she, who had directed so many others just how to do it! They were to be test films only, to determine whether or not she would film well, whether or not her particular type of good looks would show well on the screen.

Ruth had studied her face long and attentively the evening before, studied it at every possible angle, impersonally, critically, as though it had been a perfectly strange face to her. As a matter of fact, it might almost have been a stranger’s face from the number of surprising things Ruth found out about it. She had been too engrossed all through the years in her play and work to think much of her looks one way or another. Last night she had found out that Ruth Fielding’s face was something more than a good practical face. It was, she had to admit it, even though she blushed in the dark over her lack of modesty, an unusually attractive and pleasing face. Some, she thought, still impersonally, might call it handsome.

It was a surprising, but extremely satisfying, discovery.

Having finished with her face, Ruth’s thoughts veered to Tom and Helen and the different manner in which the two had accepted her decision the night before.

Helen had been delighted, enthusiastic, but, Ruth could not help feeling, a wee bit envious. For where is the girl, even one engaged and in love, who does not in her heart cherish an ambition to be a movie star? But on the whole Helen had been very satisfactory, had kissed her chum and hugged her and predicted great things for her future.

Tom had been different. This time he had not even attempted to hide his disapproval, his wretched jealousy, she thought resentfully. Had Mr. Hammond understood the reason for Tom’s detached, glum mood? She wondered, and finally decided that he could not very well have helped doing so.

Well, defiantly, she would have to learn to go ahead and do as she thought best whether Tom approved or not. Why should she care, anyway?

But even at the moment she knew that she cared very, very much indeed what Tom thought.

“If he would only be sensible! If he would only behave himself!” she whispered to herself.

At this period Ruth fell asleep and awoke a scant two hours later to find the sun shining in the window.

Even then she did not feel tired. Her chief worry was lest she had overslept. She got up, looked at her wrist watch, and reached for her clothes all in the same instant.

A chuckle from the bed made her turn toward it. Helen was awake, regarding her with lazy, laughing eyes.

“Good morning, Star,” said the young lady, adding whimsically: “How does it feel?”

Ruth went over and sat down on the side of the bed, putting a cold hand over Helen’s warm one.

“I--I’m just scared to death!” she confessed.

“Looking as you do this morning,” returned Helen, looking her chum over impartially and critically, “you have no earthly right to be scared of anything.”

Ruth laughed and again reached for her clothes.

“You’re a darling, Helen. But see that you stand by me to-day. I sort of feel I’ll need all the backing I can get!”

But there were so many things for Ruth to decide, so many plans to make, that she forgot all about being selfconscious or frightened.

The tests were taken right after breakfast and it seemed as if everybody on the ranch turned out to see them. Even the cowboys were interested, sensing the dramatic possibilities of the event.

There was not one of them who did not like and admire Ruth personally and there were several who cherished even warmer emotions in regard to the charming author-director. That these emotions did not reach the stage of audible expression was due entirely to Ruth’s manner. Pleasant, friendly, she always was, but beyond that she would not go--and no one else dared go.

Ruth went through the various tests with a skill and ease that amazed herself. She had not realized before how much she had learned of the difficult art of acting in her capacity as scenario writer and director. But what her modesty failed to point out to her was that she was a born actress as well. Before she had been posing five minutes every one on the lot but Ruth could see that.

Layton Boardman was there, watching Ruth with a queer expression in his narrowed eyes. No one could tell whether he was criticizing or admiring.

But when, the tests over, Ruth made her way through a throng of onlookers, Layton Boardman stepped over to her and held out his hand.

“My congratulations,” he said in a low tone, his gray eyes holding hers. “But--I am congratulating myself even more!”

For a moment Ruth could not draw her eyes from Boardman’s. There was something heady, intoxicating in the actor’s spontaneous praise. Then she realized that he was still holding her hand and drew it quickly away.

“You said that very nicely,” she said lightly, to cover her confusion, and moved on.

Tom had not missed the little interchange. He was in a savage mood as he turned away from the ranch house and started toward the hills.

What was the use of adding his congratulations to the chorus of Ruth’s admirers? he asked himself. She would miss neither him nor his praise. He thought of Boardman and clenched his hands. Time enough to get even with the fellow!

Meanwhile, Ruth was glad enough to escape to the comparative privacy of the ranch house. She had never felt so appallingly conspicuous in her life and, not being used to it, the experience rather staggered her.

Nevertheless she was excited, exalted, in a mood for almost anything to happen.

In the living room Helen flung her arms about her chum and kissed her.

“Ruthie, you were marvelous! Just think of all the time you have been wasting your talents!”

Ruth shook her head and pushed Helen gently from her.

“You are all combining to spoil me,” she said. “What I need now is a clear head, if I ever had one in my life.”

“I’ll wager there’s nothing the matter with your head, Miss Ruth,” said Mr. Hammond, smiling genially down upon her. “I’ve never yet found anything wrong with it.”

“There has to be a beginning to everything,” Ruth reminded him gravely, and then they all laughed together, like excited and gleeful children. Though under Ruth’s laughter was a little ache as she wondered where Tom was.

“But seriously,” said Ruth, when their laughter had subsided, “I feel the need of good and well-seasoned advice--I feel it badly. What I want to know,” she turned to Mr. Hammond, “is whether you know of any one I could get for a moderate salary to come down here and give me the points on acting my inexperience so badly needs. I know it is asking a good deal,” she added anxiously, “but I do feel that I must have the advantage of some one else’s experience.”

“That was the very thing I intended to discuss with you,” said Mr. Hammond. He drew up a chair close to the couch on which the two girls were sitting and fixed Ruth with an earnest eye. “I know the very woman for your purpose,” he announced.

Ruth leaned forward, her eyes shining.

“I believe you must have Aladdin’s lamp with you, Mr. Hammond,” she said whimsically. “Every time you rub it a wish comes true.”

“I wish that were always so,” he responded, smiling. “But if I can make any wishes of yours come true, I’m very happy.”

“About this woman you speak of,” Ruth prompted eagerly. “Do I know her?”

“You undoubtedly have heard of her,” Mr. Hammond responded. “Every one in the picture world has. She served during the World War with the Red Cross and was twice decorated for bravery----”

“Oh, I know,” Ruth interrupted breathlessly. “You are speaking of Edith Lang, aren’t you? And she was wounded in the leg while ministering to wounded soldiers behind the lines, wasn’t she?”

Mr. Hammond nodded gravely.

“And you may recollect that later blood poisoning set in and she had to lose her leg.”

Helen uttered an exclamation of pity.

“How terrible--and for an actress, too! What does she do now?”

“What she can,” the man responded. “She can play a character part now and then--helpless invalids mostly where no action is required of her.”

“Not very inspiring,” said Ruth soberly.

“Exactly. And not very well paid either. But, for all that, Edith Lang is an excellent actress. Knows all the tricks of the trade and has a splendid thinking apparatus, as well.”

“Do you suppose she would be willing to come out here to coach me in the tricks of the trade, as you say?” Ruth queried breathlessly.

“I happen to know,” returned the other with decision, “that Edith Lang would be willing to do almost anything just now for the sake of steady occupation. She’d jump at the chance.”

Ruth regarded her kind friend eagerly.

“Mr. Hammond, you are wonderful,” she said. “You make me ashamed of my own stupidity. I will send for Edith Lang at once!”