His weakness, so far as I could ascertain it, was revealed by his mouth and chin, and by a certain nervousness of his hands, hands where a square, practical palm was belied by the slight tapering of his fingers, the mark of the dreamer.  His mouth was unquestionably sensuous, with the lips full and now and then revealing out of the studied practiced calm of his face an almost imperceptible twitching, as though to betray a flash of emotion, or fear.  His chin was feminine, softening his expression and showing that his feelings would overbalance the cool calculation denoted by his eyes and the rather heavy level brows above.

As he entered the room, taking the chair indicated by Kennedy, he seemed perfectly cool and his glance, as it strayed to the lifeless form of Stella, revealed his iron self-control.  The little signs which I have mentioned, which betrayed the real man beneath, were only disclosed to me little by little as Kennedy’s questioning progressed.

“Tell me just what happened?” Kennedy began.

“Well—­” Manton responded quickly enough, but then he stopped and proceeded as though he chose each word with care, as if he framed each sentence so that there would be no misunderstanding, no chance of wrong impression; all of which pleased Kennedy.

“In the scene we were taking,” he went on, “Stella was crouched down on the floor, bending over her father, who had just been murdered.  She was sobbing.  All at once the lights were to spring up.  The young hero was to dash through the set and she was to see him and scream out in terror.  The first part went all right.  But when the lights flashed on, instead of looking up and screaming, Stella sort of crumpled and collapsed on top of Werner, who was playing the father.  I yelled to stop the cameras and rushed in.  We picked her up and put her on the couch.  Some one sent for the doctor, but she died without saying a word.  I—­I haven’t the slightest idea what happened.  At first I thought it was heart trouble.”

“Did she have heart trouble?”

“No, that is—­not that I ever heard.”

Kennedy hesitated.  “Why were you taking these scenes out here?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to answer for Manton.  I knew that at one time many fine interiors were actually taken in houses, to save expense.  I was sorry that Kennedy should draw any conclusion from a fact which I thought was too well known to require explanation.  Manton’s answer, however, proved a distinct surprise to me.

“Mr. Phelps asked us to use his library in this picture.”

“Wouldn’t it have been easier and cheaper in the long run to reproduce it in the studio?”

Manton glanced up at Kennedy, echoing my thought.  Had Kennedy, after all, some knowledge of motion pictures stored away with his vast fund of general and unusual information?

“Yes,” replied the producer.  “It would save the trip out here, the loss of time, the inconvenience—­why, in an actual dollars and cents comparison, with overhead and everything taken into account, the building of a set like this is nothing nowadays.”