“I have heard other people mention it,” Noel Bridges intervened, “although not quite with the same conviction as you, Mr. Greene.  Curiously enough, however, the photograph of Romilly which they sent out from England, and which was in all the Sunday papers, didn’t strike me as being particularly like Mr. Ware.”

“It was a damned bad photograph, that,” Mr. Raymond Greene pronounced.  “I saw it—­couldn’t make head nor tail of it, myself.  Well, the world is full of queer surprises, but this is the queerest I ever ran up against.  Believe me, Mr. Ware, if this man Romilly who disappeared had been a millionaire, you could have walked into his family circle and been made welcome at the present moment.  Why, I don’t believe his own wife or sister, if he had such appendages, would have been able to tell that you weren’t the man.”

“Unfortunately,” Bridges remarked, as he sipped the cocktail which the cinema man had ordered, “this chap Romilly was broke, wasn’t he?—­did a scoot to avoid the smash-up?  They say that he had a few hundred thousand dollars over here, ostensibly for buying material, and that he has taken the lot out West.”

“Well, I must say he didn’t seem that sort on the steamer,” Mr. Raymond Greene declared, “but you never can tell.  Looked to me more like a schoolteacher.  Some day, Mr. Ware, I want you to come along to my office—­it’s just round the corner in Broadway there—­and have a chat about the play.”

“You don’t want to film us before we’ve finished its first run, surely?” Philip protested, laughing.  “Give us a chance!”

“Well, we’ll talk about that,” the cinema magnate promised.

They were joined by other acquaintances, and Philip presently made his escape.  One of the moments which he had dreaded more than any other had come and passed.  Even if Mr. Raymond Greene had still some slight misgivings, he was, to all effects and purposes, convinced.  Philip walked down the street, feeling that one more obstacle in the path of his absolute freedom had been torn away.  He glanced at his watch and boarded a down-town car, descended in the heart of the city region of Broadway, and threaded his way through several streets until he came to the back entrance of a dry goods store.  Here he glanced once more at his watch and commenced slowly to walk up and down.  The timekeeper, who was standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, watched him with interest.  When Philip approached for the third time, he addressed him in friendly fashion.

“Waiting for one of our gals, eh?”

Philip stifled his quick annoyance and answered in as matter-of-fact a tone as possible.

“Yes!  How long will it be before they are out from the typewriting department?”

“Typewriting department?” the man repeated.  “Well, that depends some upon the work.  They’ll be out, most likely, in ten minutes or so.  I guessed you were after one of our showroom young ladies.  We get some real swells down here sometimes—­motor cars of their own.  The typists ain’t much, as a rule.  It’s a skinny job, theirs.”