The Ypsilanti Daily Press

SYNOPSIS

A versatile, beautiful, and aspiring to fame on the stage, meets LAURENCE PEYTON, top-ranking actor, and AUGUST DRAKE, Peyton's leading lady. Larry in turn introduces her to Heiress LOIS LYNDON, and her brother, JIMMY.

YESTERDAY: Anette learns in the papers that, in order to give the marriage more "importance," August told them that she had named Larry Peyton's bride the "most promising young actress."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PROFESSOR VERRAZANO made an ironically low bow when Anette walked into his studio late that afternoon. "What can I do for you, Mrs. Peyton?"

"Teach me to be a dramatic actress in six easy lessons." She walked to one of the huge leather chairs, stretched at full length in it and plopped her feet out before her. "Have you seen the papers?"

"Yes. I've seen them. Sit up straight and stop cramping your lungs!"

She obeyed instantly. "She made up all that slush to give the wedding importance. She even dragged you into it. 'The eminent Verrazano claims the young embryonic actress his most talented pupil!'"

Stormy topaz eyes met the dim ones of the dramatic coach.

Quietly he told her, "I do. Not that I've ever said so to anyone, and certainly not to August. But I do."

For a moment she was unable to speak. "You don't know how happy that makes me." She was silent a while longer, then her hands began to shake uncontrollably. "But they don't think so. They think it is funny. Larry said it was a joke. He- he laughed!" she murmured beneath her breath, then clamped her upper teeth against her lower lip to steady it. "I'll show them."

"Yes, yes. You'll make them eat their words. I know everything that is going through your mind. And you probably will. Stars are not made by pats on the back. They are made by hunger, ridicule, all sorts of heartbreak." He moved to a vermilion and gold Chinese cupboard and came back with two tiny glasses of wine. "Blackberry. Not even your grandmother could have disapproved of this." He took a chair beside her. "We are not going to work today, Anette. You're to calm down and come back tomorrow. Today we visit." He saluted her with his glass.

The girl took a minute sip, then steadied the glass in the palm of her empty hand. "Wasn't I a sight in the photographs, Professor Verrazano? And August-just the opposite, so alive, so vivid-"

"Yes. As dynamic as lightning in a summer storm. But she has had years of practice, Anette." Still deeper creases set into his forehead as he frowned. "You at least should have kept on your leopard coat-"

Anette's unhappy voice interrupted, "I'm glad I didn't. Larry hates it so. He said-oh, it doesn't matter what he said. I'm to buy a new one this afternoon and throw this one away."

The teacher's comment was dry and somewhat sarcastic. "That sounds fair enough. But just remember, nothing photographs better than spots, checks and stripes."

"And orchids! You notice she bought big bouncing orchids for her own corsage. For me, flat gardenias that wilted in no time. She must have asked for stale ones. I was too dumb to know better."

Her poisonous words caused the old man to smile over his glass of wine. "You're not too dumb to learn, though. You've learned that orchids are the most durable of expensive flowers. They live on air and consequently last longer. August knew that and now you know it. After all, she is more than twice as old as you. She should be smarter. Just try to remember everything you learn from her. It will come in handy."

"So would a little strychnine!"

He reprimanded her sharply "Don't ever say a thing like that again!"

"I do say it! And I wish I never had to see her again, hear her voice; hear her name-"

"I'd stop for breath if I were you. Look here, Anette. I'll admit there is a sweeping wickedness about August's ambition. It makes her practically indomitable. But don't ever mistake the professional alliance between her and Larry for anything else. It is what you call 'good theater' for them to appear considerate of each other. But when August Drake falls in love it always is with some man outside the theatrical world and he invariably is influential. Larry may seem the most wonderful man in the world to you, but to her he is simply another climbing and ambitious young actor." Smiles crinkled his eyes. "That is, I suppose he seems the most wonderful man in the world to you."

"Oh, yes," she breathed and closed her eyes. "When he kisses me I feel as if I were going to melt and turn into a little jug of warm honey-" The black-lashed fringes snapped back. "That is why-"

Verrazano finished for her. "You would like to take him away to a deserted tropical island where there would be no interference."

"You make me sound such a fool."

"You are to a certain extent. Where August is concerned, beyond a doubt, you are a fool! August is bossy. Not even I would deny that. But you can't blame her. She has spent years training Larry and she is responsible for his being a fine actor-I belittle him, but he really is a fine actor. You know that."

The girl cast Verrazano a sidewise glance of intense scrutiny. "I thought you had trained him."

"I've helped Larry. Assuredly, I've helped him. But not as she has. Anette, I've seen her spend a whole hour perfecting him in one sentence of dialogue. Yes, and at the end of that time he was ready to kill her. Later he knew she was right, but that sweaty, grating struggle was another story. Do you think I would have worked like that with Larry? Why, in less than 15 minutes I'd have been throwing things and cursing. That's August for you, though. Naturally it is to her advantage to have him the ultimate, but I've seen her do it with various members of the cast-she would do it for you."

"She'll never get the chance!"

"August Drake eventually will be one of your best friends." The dumpy little man looked into her furiously flared eyes. "Don't tell me now," he ordered. "Tell me a year from now. You know, child, marriage for you isn't a matter of learning that spinach shrinks and rice swells and gelatin with fruit in it goes farther than plain gelatin. It is going to be unhappiness and jealousy and learning that the man you've married belongs to every customer of the theater just as you will belong to every customer when you're a public figure."

"If I ever am," she commented dully.

"You will be! It will happen when you least expect it. Right now, until the lunatic enchantment wears off your marriage and you are less green-eyed it will be particularly good for you to have work as an additional outlet. I'm not greatly worried about you, my dear, because I know Larry loves you, even though he is the type to mask emotion with tender insults. That is just a part of his ferocious vitality."

"His insults aren't always so tender," she inserted

"All right, all right! Stop feeling so sorry for yourself. Feel just sorry enough. Again, I say I'm not worried, for while you have married a hurricane, you are no ordinary girl. Even at your tender age you have plenty of spunk and that's what is necessary to handle Larry. Don't ever feel inferior, for heaven's sake. When you get down to brass tacks Larry is nothing but a street urchin. You'd think he would tumble for a rich girl of the opposite class, but no. He picks you, an unknown, penniless orphan, drawn doubtlessly by the gamin quality in you."

The girl's black eyebrows drew together. "I just can't get a picture of Larry as anything but the successful and magnetic actor."

Verrazano repeated, "Just a street urchin who grew up, got glamorized and made money. A dual personality. Laurence Peyton, who, with a single word, gesture or facial expression, can cut like a knife. Laurence Peyton, who moved his parents from a Chicago tenement to the chicken farm they had dreamed about all their lives." The snapshot on the dresser flashed into the girl's mind: So that was it. How sweet! Just hearing about it made her feel as if Larry suddenly had a family.

The professor took her empty glass and set it beside his on a small tray. "And that is enough chat today. You go on now and buy that new fur coat. I have New York friends of mine coming in for a couple of days, Bradford and Seymour."

"Who are they?" She was sliding into her well-worn wrap.

"Bradford and Seymour, my naive nit-wit, are producers, a pair of the finest. Better even than those who produce Larry's and August's shows. By the way, Anette, I'd suggest you pay less attention to actors and more to producers. They are the important names." He wrapped an absurdly gay scarf about his neck and buttoned himself into a thick coat. "Is Larry meeting you some place?"

The girl got to her feet. "No. He is sleeping until six." Amazed, she watched the pudgy, talkative little fellow dive at a chair and come up with an armload of newspapers Are you going to sleep in the park tonight?

"These are not old newspapers. They are the new ones with your wedding accounts in them." He said, in a half jocular tone, "I'm going to show your pictures to Bradford and Seymour."

(To Be Continued)