Tomorrow morning, then,” she said hurriedly, fixing her face for the degree of attention that was appropriate in one about to be honoured.

The chairman made a very dull speech about the significance of motion pictures in the national life, and during the applause that followed George said: “Are you by any chance going on to the Fulton-Griffins’ when this thing is over?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. I was asked, but I understand there’s such a crowd always there, and I hate crowds.”

“So do I, but a Fulton-Griffin party is something you ought to see if you haven’t been to one before. I thought if you were going I’d have a chance to talk to you without all these interruptions.”

“Oh yes, I’d like that, but I really think I ought to go home. I’ve been rather tired since the picture finished and—”

The chairman was introducing the next speaker, a local politician who would present the awards. He was her neighbour on the other side, so the mechanics of it would be simple. But he talked too long, though he was easier to listen to and told a few mildly amusing stories. Presently he veered his remarks in her direction and announced her as the winner of the actress award.

George applauded with more than his usual fervour when she accepted the plaque. Then she made a short but charming speech in which there was no discernible trace of nervousness at all. He wondered if it were concealed, or whether she had made a habit of telling people about it in advance and then surprising them. George, however, was not surprised. He had seen tricks like that before, and had sometimes practised them in court with much success. But he admired the total effect of her performance and was more than sincere in his whispered “Bravo” when she sat down. “You did very well,” he commented.

“Did I? Who’s next? Is it Greg?”

It was Greg. He was a handsome fellow, invariably cast for heroic parts; not a great actor, not even in his own estimation. Sufficient that in a few ill-chosen sentences he could mumble thanks and work off a laboured gag about golf, which was his passion and pastime; any eloquence, even too much coherence, would have been almost disconcerting from such a source.

Then the director’s award to Paul Saffron. For some reason Saffron was seated far down the table, and had to come forward to a microphone; as he did so George studied him with curiosity, chiefly because of Carey’s remark that his speeches were apt to make her nervous. George wondered how many of them she had been forced to hear. Saffron was certainly a personality; his face large and jowly, the expression that of a man facing limitless challenge; there was a certain splendour, though, in the contour of cheeks and forehead, caprice in the waving wispy hair, something of a Pan-like sparkle in the small blue-grey eyes. George wondered if he had drunk too much; a few minutes later he was beginning to wonder what else could be the matter with the man.

For it was, by and large, the most deplorable exhibition George could remember. Saffron, in a strident staccato that would have been loud enough even without a microphone, began by telling the donors of the award that he considered their choice a bad one. At first some of the audience thought this must be a joke, but he glared them down and went on to state categorically that Morning Journey was the worst picture he had ever made. “Of course an artist gets used to being praised for all the wrong reasons—he’s lucky to be praised at all—and in my own case I can boast that my best work was never praised, it was never even finished—they wouldn’t allow me to finish it.” (He didn’t say who ‘they’ were, but by this time it was abundantly clear that he was not cracking jokes.) “As for Morning Journey, I have this to say, and as an artist I must say it, that the picture you have so extravagantly praised and undeservedly honoured is a product of the gigantic factory that does for entertainment what Henry Ford has done for automobiles. A competent picture—oh yes. A clever picture— perhaps. But a great picture?… Oh dear no, let us save that word for some occasion when it might possibly be needed—even here. Because it has been needed here—in earlier days. Griffith could have claimed the word—and Chaplin—perhaps a few others whose names are less well known, perhaps a few whose names are by now completely forgotten…”

George shared the general discomfort with which all this was received. It was not that he specially disagreed; he had no great opinion of Hollywood and all it stood for; to him it was a place to earn a living, a place also in which he had found friends. A few of Saffron’s remarks he would not have disputed at all—for instance—“This place is full of craftsmen who might have been artists if only they’d stayed away.” That, in a magazine article, might have been worth saying and quotable; on an occasion such as this it seemed merely graceless. There was, indeed, an appalling disregard of the feelings of others in the whole spectacle, and George, who considered manners more important than sincerity on many of the occasions of life, felt as if his mental well-being were being sandpapered.