Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 107: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

VANITY HAIR. if he was a leading man. And if she got the chance she would tell the casting director all about it! He was a regular guy, and he would understand. As they rehearsed the action of the scene, walking through a door at the back of the stage and approaching the camera, Lucia felt Reginald’s arm leave her waist and steal up her back. She didn’t know what he in- tended to do, but she wished the scene was over. She did not feel his touch upon her hair, because one doesn’t feel the touch of a hand upon a wig. But suddenly, in that exposed place, with many eyes upon her, she felt utterly nude. Her hands fluttered to her curls; to her dismay they had almost fallen off, hanging over her right ear, ex- posing her own dull hair. The “ girl with the hair ” was a fraud! Two things she heard in the moment that followed. First, the perfunctory but malicious ‘I beg your pardon” of Berk- eley; and then a shout of merry laughter, in which Berkeley, the director, his assis- tant, the camera man and his helpers, the electricians and props joined gleefully. Her cheeks burned with shame. Tears filled her hazel eyes. Her beautiful curls hung ludicrously over her ears. Pursued by the laughter and blinded by her own tears she ran from the set and into the dressing- room, adjusting the wig as she went. There she seized her hat and cloak, her make-up box and suit case, and ran again, this time to the outer -studio gate. She stopped for nothing until she had gained the street car that would take her home. The casting director, who had seen her flight past his office door, went out on the lot to investigate. He found the set where Lucia had been working still in an uproar of laughter. Between chokes and gasps, with malice in his voice, Berkeley told what had happened. “You should have seen your prize beauty without her hair,” he chortled. ‘Oh, what a comedy face! And to think that even I fell for those curls!” The casting director didn’t even smile. He knew Berkeley and he knew life. Hun- dreds of aspirants came to him and begged for work in the movies, begged and pleaded and wept and flirted. Lucia had come in 897 a different way. He had liked her, and had backed her to the limit. But now he saw what she had been up against, what a struggle she had made to carry off the part she had assumed. He smiled gently at the pathetic subterfuge she had invented as he walked back to the office. ‘The poor little kid!” he said. “She had nerve and brains. That’s a new one on me! I’ll bet she’s all cut up about it. I'l] drop around tomorrow and see what I can do for her.” . The following morning Lucia met Bill Bailey for the last time. Her eyes were stamed from hours of crying; her spirit crushed. “ J'll take my bill, please,” she said. “ I’m moving today.” ‘“‘What’s the matter, girl?” demanded Bill. “ Who’s been making.you cry? Tell your big brother! Come on.” Well—she told him. Not right away. Not without much urging and many smiles and a lot of talk. But at last she had told him the whole story, about buying the wig material and pretending to be a chorus girl and everything. She told him, too, how she enjoyed seeing him every morning, because with him she did not have to pre- tend. She even put on the blond curls to let him see how beautiful she had been, but he rudely took them off. ‘“T don’t like ’em at all,’’ he commented. “They make you look too much like a movie actress. I like you better as you are—you look like a regular human being and not a big doll.” | Somehow, amid sighs and tears and shaky laughter, Lucia’s dull brown common sense head rested on Bill Bailey’s cheap cotton shirt. And then he was kissing her, and his kisses were warm and sweet like warm sweet milk, and she was kissing him back. And when the kind-hearted casting di- rector got around to see what he could do for Lucia he was too late. Lucia Lyons, herself, was married to Bill Bailey, milk- man. ‘“ The girl with the hair ” had left Hollywood forever. The blond wig has been sold to Madame Murphy to help pay for the furniture of the house of William Bailey. comicloool C©