affiliations with the producers of the legitimate stage,
Continent Films was the first concern to make the five-reel
feature. Stella, as a Continent player, was the very first
feature star. Under the banner of Manton Pictures, she had never
surrendered her position of pre-eminence.

Also, scandal somehow had failed to touch her. Those initiated to
the inner gossip of the film world, like myself, were under no
illusions. The relations between Stella and Manton were an open
secret. Yet the picture fans, in their blind worship, believed
her to be as they saw her upon the screen. To them the wide and
wistful innocence of her remarkably large eyes could not be
anything but genuine. The artlessness of the soft curves of her
mouth was proof to them of the reality of an ingenuous and very
girlish personality.

Even her divorce had helped rather than harmed her. It seemed
irony to me that she should have obtained the decree instead of
her husband, and in New York, too, where the only grounds are
unfaithfulness. The testimony in the case had been sealed so that
no one knew whom she had named as corespondent. At the time, I
wondered what pressure had been exerted upon Millard to prevent
the filing of a cross suit. Surely he should have been able to
substantiate the rumors of her association with Lloyd Manton.

Lawrence Millard, author and playwright and finally scenario
writer, had been as much responsible for the success of his wife
as Manton, and in a much less spectacular way. It was Millard who
had written her first great Continent success, who had developed
the peculiar type of story best suited for her, back in the early