Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

126 Photoplay Magazine "Extraordinary!" I agreed, with feeling. "What is your favorite book?" "The Bible," she replied. It's a wonderful lineup of stuff. We both agreed that it was about as original a bunch of information as was ever gathered together in one notebook. She's a pretty nice sort of a girl, Florence is, and after Ave got the notes down, we had quite a chat. I find out that she's a corking good skater and a true Frenchwoman. She told me that her favorite author was Lewis Carroll, and that next to "Memoirs of the French Court" she preferred "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." "So your favorite flower is the geranium," I said, harking back to the notes I had taken for the formal interview which was to result from our earlier conversation. "Geraniums? Heavens, no! I adore American beauties — the most expensive money can buy. You know, most people will insist that one should have simple tastes, so I told you that my favorite flower was the geranium in order that I might not appear to be trying to be out of the ordinary. I wonder why it is always considered a crime to like beautiful, expensive things?" "Miss La Badie," said I, "It is sweet to hear you. Mine ear is accustomed to much hullabaloo and piffle of the variety generally handed out to a sweetly unsuspecting public by the interviewer and the unimaginative press agent, as to the tender simplicity of the average actress' life, when I know there is not one who does not prefer champagne to beer and beer to water. I know not one that does not adore delicate salads, expensive viands and luncheon at the Claridge. The theatrical person is a lover of the luxurious things of the world. I wish that I could write an interview some day and tell the exact truth about people as they are." "You may about me," she replied brightly, running a spatulate hand through the strands of her pale gold hair that the wind had loosened so that they fell over her collar in a wonderful loop of scintillant golden threads. "I am an Indiffercntist. I don't care what happens." "I should say you don't !" I expostulated warmly. "Why, the trouble is, if I were to tell the truth, no one would believe me, and do you suppose for one moment that I. a writer of interviews of some standing in several communities for his truth-telling proclivities, wishes to be branded far and wide, from sea to sea and from pole to pole. wherever Photoplav Magazine is read, as a graceless, brazen liar, imposing on innocent editors in order that I might shout my hoarse falsehoods to all the tribes of men? Never. I shall die before I tell the truth ! Woman, think of my reputation !" "Yes," she murmured, rising and bestowing an azure glance from her eyes and a pearl and scarlet smile, "I suppose, poor man. you must consider your reputation. It is too bad. The thought of reputation keeps so many from having so many good times !" The woman has a diabolical faculty for speaking the truth. The thought of her is a poem ; the sight of her is the "Yissi d'arte" aria in the second act of "Tosca," and all ye who have seen Geraldine Farrar on the screen, and then imagine her voice as a thousand times more marvelous than her acting in the last scene of the Lasky "Carmen," will realize that Florence La Badie. in whose veins flows the blood of that France whose saints, sinners and heroes are immortal, and the beauty of whose face is as the beauty of all women, as the Gaels say, is worth} a poem by Swinburne carved into marble by Rodin. After I bade her good-bye. and she had vanished through my portals en route to her waiting limousine below. I sighed. The delightful part of my meeting with the delightful lady was over. There was nothing to do but make up an interview and write it. . . . ■ "Oh." said Miss Cohen, "wasn't that the interview? I've taken it all down!" "Great Scott! Have I been talking aloud?" I demanded. "Yes." "Yery well then. Write it down and mail it. We will send this account of a real conversation with the real Florence La Badie as a shining mark which all interviewers forever hereafter may look back upon as a precedent granting them forever hereafter the right to tell the truth !" No man is a hero to his stenographer. Miss Cohen went to her typewriter with a sardonic smile, while I retired to my sanctum with Miss La Badie's copy of "Memoirs of the French Court." She had forgotten to take it with her.