lt job on earth.
This isn't _Shore Acres!_ It isn't the _Doll's House!_ It's a realized
dream, and it's got to be put across with such quality and power that it
will fire a new dream in the public mind. I propose to spring right out
at 'em, startle 'em--yes, shock 'em; and all the time keep it where
they can't lay their vulgar hands on it. We can't show our Nature
effects--primitive, half-nude people--against a background of a New
Jersey farm land with a chestnut tree and a couple of oaks in the middle
distance!”

“Pretty fine trees, those!” observed Peter.

“Not for a minute!” Zanin sprang to his feet; his voice rang. “Got to
be remote, exotic--dream quality, fantasy all through. Florida or
California--palm trees and such. Damn it, the thing's a poem! It's got
to be done as a poem.”

He strode down the room and back.

Peter got up, very calm, rather white about the mouth and watched
him.... Dream quality? His thoughts were woven through and through with
it at this moment. A voice at his inner ear, a voice curiously like
Hy's, was murmuring over and over: “Sure! Kiss her.”

“Don't you see?” cried Zanin, confronting him, and spreading out those
big hands. Peter wished wildly that he would keep them in his pockets,
put them behind his back--anything to get them out of sight!... “Lets be
sensible, Maun. As you said, we're business men, you and I. You let me
take the scenario. I'm to see Sue this evening--I'll read it to her.
I'm sure it's good. It'll reassure her. And it will help me to hold her
enthusiasm and pave the way for a better understanding between her and
you.”

Quite unforeseen by either, the little matter of reading the scenario
had struck up an issue between them. All was not harmony within the
directorate of The Nature Film Producing Co., Inc., Jacob Zanin, Pres't.

“No,” said Peter. “I won't let you have it now.”

“But--good lord!--”

“I will think it over.”

Magnificent was the word. Zanin gulped down a temperamental explosion
and left.

Peter, as he came slo