Hour of Enchantment by Roy J. Snell

  CHAPTER X ENTERING A NEW WORLD

  "Of course, when I sail away on that glorious yachting party, you'll comehere to live." That Lorena LeMar, Jeanne's double, spoke in amatter-of-fact tone made no difference. Jeanne's heart fluttered.

  "Here!" she managed to gasp as her eyes swept the spacious hotelapartment with its glimmer of silver and gold, silk and satin. "Here? Icouldn't!"

  "Oh, but you must!" In Lorena LeMar's tone there was a note of finality."You couldn't well live anywhere else. This is the apartment of LorenaLeMar. Every one knows that. This is my address. They call me on thephone here, my company, my friends, my--"

  "Your friends!" Jeanne gasped afresh. "Am I to be Lorena LeMar to yourfriends also? How--how very impossible!"

  Jeanne's head was in a wild whirl. For three days she had haunted thesteps of her double, Lorena LeMar. They had been obliged to show greatcaution. Never had they been where others might see them together. Thiswould have proved fatal to their plans. Nevertheless in out-of-the-wayplaces and in this, Lorena LeMar's apartment, Jeanne had been privilegedto study her famous double until, as she expressed it to Florence,"already I am no more Petite Jeanne, but altogether Lorena LeMar."

  Never until this moment had it occurred to her that if she were to carryoff her part she must abandon the shabby comfort of her rooms withFlorence and come here to live, nor that Lorena LeMar's friends must fortwo weeks be her friends.

  "How does Lorena LeMar live?" she asked herself with a sinking heart."And what do those friends expect of her?"

  Little need to ask. Already she knew all too well. Lorena LeMar was anAmerican, city-bred girl, no better and no worse than the average.Slender, vivacious, frank, quite lovable, she lived as those others live.There were dances, late parties, jazz and everything that went with it.Jeanne knew very little of this type of life.

  "Your--your friends--" she stammered again.

  "Oh, well, as to that--" Lorena LeMar shrugged her shoulders. "Shake 'em,every one of them. Tell them that Lorena LeMar, meaning you, is doing apicture, a vastly important picture, going to make you famous and allthat. Tell 'em you are in mourning or something like that, no parties, nonothing until this picture is made."

  "I--I see," Jeanne replied.

  "And that," she thought aside, "is perhaps more true than you think."

  Once again her gaze swept the room. Could she do it, live like anAmerican queen for two weeks?

  Costly paintings were on the walls, the sort she loved. Inch-deepOriental rugs were on the floor. Against the broad wall was a greatfriendly hearth where a real wood fire burned. Heavy draperies wereeverywhere.

  "Those Oriental embroideries, threads of silver and gold," she thoughtsuddenly. "How they would fit in here!

  "But no! No! It must never be! I--"

  "If you'll step in here for a moment," the movie queen threw open a door,"I will show you my wardrobe."

  "It's rather poor," she apologised. "Some good things, though."

  Jeanne found herself in a sleeping chamber. The opening of a second doorrevealed row upon row of coats and gowns. Here squirrel, mink and erminevied with silk and satin.

  "Oh!" she breathed. "Oo, la la!"

  "Of course," once again Lorena LeMar's tone was matter-of-fact, "whileyou are Lorena LeMar you will wear these. Nothing will go so far towardperfecting your disguise."

  This time Jeanne had no word to offer. She was trying in vain to pictureherself, Petite Jeanne--the little French girl who for many months hadtraveled with gypsies, dancing with a bear--living in this apartment andwearing these clothes.

  It was true that for the better part of a year she had been consideredrich. But, in France, to be rich is to be thrifty. Her people were allthat. She had fallen into their way of thinking. Few garments had beenadded to her wardrobe.

  "And now this!" she thought. "Ah, well, I am to be a queen, a queen ofthe movies for two weeks."

  She went skipping away across the floor in one of her wild gypsy dances.

  Lorena LeMar caught her in her arms as she came dancing back. "Then youwill do it? You dearest of all creatures!"

  "How could I resist it?"

  And yet, left alone in the midst of all this splendor while her doublewent on a shopping tour to secure sports clothes for her yachting trip,the little French girl was all but overcome with misgivings. It is onething to appear on a movie lot each day and say certain words, go throughcertain gestures that have been learned and rehearsed; but quite anotherto live as your double has lived, among acquaintances, associates,friends off stage, from morning till night.

  "I shall become a bookworm," she assured herself. "When I am notrehearsing or playing a part I shall be right here curled up reading abook."

  But could she? Would Lorena LeMar's friends permit it? What did thosefriends expect?

  "Ah, well, time will tell," she sighed.

  "And besides, there is that so beautiful story, the movie story ofmountain life, life of Lincoln's own country, where he was born. Onecannot forget, one must not forget!

  "When the dogwood is in bloom," she murmured. "If only I can do it! Ifonly I can!

  "Ah, well," she consoled herself, "Lorena LeMar belongs in California.All her friends are there, or nearly all. They must be."

  That she was mistaken in this, she was to know, and that almost at once.As she left the hotel elevator on the way home, a hand touched her arm.She turned about to find herself looking into a pair of smiling eyes.

  "I'm Jerry," the boy was saying. "You remember me, don't you, Miss LeMar?Could I--"

  For a second Jeanne's head spun, then she found her senses and her readyFrench tongue.

  "No, no, Jerry! No dates! I'm out on the lot, doing a picture, you know.It--it's dreadfully important. Sorry, Jerry. Good-bye."

  "There now," she whispered to herself as she leaped into a taxi, "I gotaway with it."

  For all that, a sinking feeling lurked around the pit of her stomach."This," she was thinking, quite against her will, "is but the beginning.Miss LeMar has many friends and more admirers. Not all of these will beas smiling and as kind as this Jerry.

  "Oh, well," she reassured herself, "Florence shall be my bodyguard.She'll throw them from the window." She smiled a merry smile.

  But Florence was working. Long hours every day she was on the EnchantedIsland. And just there came the blow to Jeanne's plans.