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42
Pictures ar\d Pict\jreO'oer
MAY 1924
Top : She made a charming bride in " The
Furnace" Above : Agnes at home with
her pets.
loved flowers, but I had never imagined such a beautiful garden as this. Roses everywhere . . . the white walls of her Hollywood bungalow . . . the blue of the Californian sky . . . and Agnes herself, basket in hand, coming to meet me between rows of glowing colour ... it did not need the eye of an artist to appreciate the picture.
She greeted me with genuine pleasure. " This is really kind of you," she said. " I love it when my friends come to sec me."
" You have a beautiful garden. Miss Ayres," I remarked.
She caught up my words with enthusiasm. " Yes, isn't it," she answered. " Some of my roses are very rare specimens, and I'm afraid I'm enor mously vain about them. 1 couldn't ever live without a garden. Until quite recently I've always led an out
Above : A love scene with Casson Ferguson. Right : In " The Lane That Had No Turning."
door life. 1 was born just outside Carbondale in a little brown cottage with a lovely garden full of roses. Somehow the scent of those roses seems to have got into my life. I was only four when my father, who was a druggist, died, and we moved from the old home. But I can remember it as clearly as though I had seen it yesterday. And roses still mean to me all that is beautiful and all that is sincere in the world."
As she was speaking she led the way towards the house, and presently I found myself in her blue-and-orange drawing room. I was aware of a faint perfume in the air. " What a delicious scent!" I said. I couldn't help it. It really was delicious.
Agnes seemed pleased. " I'm so glad you like it. It is a blossom scent which I have" made specially for me. I am very fond of perfumes myself, but I
always prefer White Lilac and various light flower odours. The heavy Oriental scents never seem quite suitable to me. I think they submerge any personality but a very striking one. Barbara La Marr can use them, but I can't. You must have something exotic in your make-up if you can hope to carry them off."
I looked at her wonderingly. It seemed to me it would have to be a very strong scent indeed to submerge the personality of Agnes Ayres. Still, the Lilac was like her . . . somehow with Agnes you always " say it with flowers." " As a matter of fact," she added, a little shyly, as if afraid I would laugh at her revelation, " I use perfume to a considerable extent in playing my parts. I think out beforehand the kind of scent that my heroine would be likely to use — a light French perfume for a heroine of the ice-cream soda variety, and a drowsy Eastern scent for a heroine of the more voluptuous type. I find it helps me to catch the spirit of the character. To me the sense of smell is more important than any of the other four. It is the carrier of all memories."
" That's why you love your roses I expect?"
" Yes. Roses mean Carbondale to me, and the next period of my life which I spent on my uncle's farm is always brought back to me by the fragrant scent of hay. How I loved those days ! The fat cattle, the friendly horse? who used to rub their velvet noses against my cheeks, the dogs and birds ... I just loved it all !"
" Did you ever think in those days of
motion picture career?" I enquired.