“I write a little for the magazines, but, no, nothing you need to worry about. Advice columns, tidbits. No gossip.”

“Is that how you met Mary?”

“Yes. Writing a profile of her.”

Finally, that made sense to him. He concluded she was a journalist. She concluded he liked her.

The conversation had taken such an unexpected turn that the combat had drained away. He missed it. He looked past Frank, to Mildred, who had rolled down the window and was sticking out her hand to feel the breeze against it. She grinned at them both so they could see the delight her experiment was providing.

“We’re going so fast,” she said, leaning her face toward the breeze, closing her eyes. She held her fur cap tightly to her head.

It kept her out of the conversation. “France,” Chaplin said. “That’s brave,” he began, thinking of spins and gloss to give the phrase a witty finish, but then he said, “It’s brave.”

“Thank you.” She said, “I’m sorry if I was mean to you. I apologize for all the things I’ve said.”

“That’s all right.”

“Then I apologize for all the things I’m going to say in the future.”

He realized she was prepared to go all afternoon making him work for a kiss.

Mildred cried, “We’re in Santa Monica!”

“Are we?” Frances asked. “How do you know?”

“Have you ever seen fog like this before?”

The fog went from tentative fingers to swinging fists as the car descended from Wilshire onto Coastline Drive, passing the cliffs at the edge of the park, and dropping into the elements. A stiff and insistent breeze lived down here much of the day, which generally made a life at the beach in February seem like exile.

The hosts of the party were as surprised as anyone by the popularity of their house as a destination. And to clarify the hosting duties: the four handsome actors were receiving guests, but they were by no means in charge.

In 1913, Samuel Goldfish took all he knew from having made ladies’ gloves and applied it to movies. He had hired La Fontaine to design his sixteen-button kidskin gloves, and the forty most skilled seamstresses in New York to sew them. “You have to see the quality, and then be told that it’s quality,” he explained.