The album had been empty.

It had been deemed best not to inform the actor that later close-ups of the pages would show him to have been refreshed by studying photographs of himself--copies, in fact, of the stills of Clifford Armytage at that moment resting on Baird's desk.
As he stood now, a hand affectionately upon the album, a trace of the fatuously admiring smile still lingering on his expressive face, a knock sounded upon the door.

"Come in," he called.
The valet entered with the morning mail.

This consisted entirely of letters.

There were hundreds of them, and the valet had heaped them in a large clothes-basket which he now held respectfully in front of him.
The actor motioned him, with an authentic Parmalee gesture, to place them by the table.