"Because she isn't a Hamilton girl, of course, and the Chamber of
Commerce wants the cast to be all local talent," Sprague answered,
lapsing unconsciously into the present tense.
"And just what were you warning her against?"
"I'd told her before to watch her step," Sprague went on more easily.
"You see, Dundee, Nita Leigh is--was--a first-class little vamp, and I
could see she was playing her cards with the men here--" he indicated
four of Hamilton's most prominent Chamber of Commerce members with a
wave of his hand--"to get them all so crazy about her that they'd vote
for her as the star of the picture. I could see her point, all right. It
would have been a big chance for her to show how she could act.... Well,
I could see it was dangerous business, and that the girls--" and he
smiled jerkily at the tense women in the living room, "--were getting
pretty wrought up over the way Nita was behaving.... All except Mrs.
Dunlap," he added. "_She_ didn't want to act in the picture, and Nita
didn't make any headway at all with Peter Dunlap."
"Thanks, Mr. Sprague," Lois Dunlap drawled, with an amused quirk of her
broad mouth.
"Get along with the row, Sprague!" Dundee commanded impatiently.
"As I said, it wasn't really a row. I just pleaded with Nita last night
to smooth down the girls' rumpled feathers, and to make it clear to them
that she didn't want the star part in the picture any more than she
wanted any other woman's husband or sweetheart.
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