“For moving pictures?” gasped Nan, at last waking up to what the woman meant.  “Oh, no, indeed!”

“You are not like most other young girls, then?” said the woman.  “You haven’t the craze to act in the silent drama?”

“I never thought of such a thing,” Nan innocently replied.  “Film companies do not hire girls of my age, do they?”

“Not unless they are wonderfully well adapted for the work,” agreed the actress.  “But I am approached every week—­I was going to say, every day—­by girls no older than you, who think they have genius for the film-stage.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Nan, beginning at last to take interest in something besides her recent unpleasant experience.  “Do you make moving pictures?”

The actress raised her eyes and clasped her hands, invoking invisible spirits to hear.  “At last! a girl who is not tainted by the universal craze for the movies—­and who does not know me!  There are still worlds for me to conquer,” murmured the woman.  “Yes, my child,” she added, to the rather abashed Nan, “I am a maker of films.”

“You—­you must excuse me,” Nan hastened to say.  “I expect I ought to know all about you; but I lived quite a long time in the Michigan woods, and then, lately, I have been at boarding school, and we have no movies there.”

“Your excuses are accepted, my dear,” the actress-director said demurely.  “It is refreshing, I assure you, to meet a girl like you.”

“I—­I suppose you see so many,” Nan said eagerly.  “Those looking for positions in your company, I mean.  You do not remember them all?”

“Oh, mercy, no, my dear!” drawled the woman.  “I see hundreds.”

“Two girls I know of have recently come to Chicago looking for positions with moving picture concerns,” explained Nan, earnestly.  “They are country girls, and their folks want them to come home.”

“Runaways?”

“Yes, ma’am.  They have run away and their folks are dreadfully worried.”

“I assure you,” said the moving picture director, smiling, “they have not been engaged at my studio.  New people must furnish references—­especially if they chance to be under age.  Two girls from the country, you say, my dear?  How is it they have come to think they can act for the screen?” and she laughed lightly again.

Nan, sipping her tea and becoming more used to her surroundings and more confidential, told her new acquaintance all about Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins.

“Dear, dear,” the woman observed at last.  “How can girls be so foolish?  And the city is no place for them, alone, under any circumstances.  If they should come to me I will communicate with their parents.  I believe I should know them, my dear—­two girls together, and both from the country?”

“Oh! if you only would help them,” cried Nan.  “I am sure such a kind act would be repaid.”

The woman laughed.  “I see you have faith in all the old fashioned virtues,” she said.  “Dear me, girl!  I am glad I met you.  Tell me how I may communicate with the parents of these missing girls?”