"Oh, I know all about that," Connie said without ceremony. "It was just the same with me in the happy days. My dear Mary, that pretty, pretty stuff of yours is all very well to bring you in flattery from bazaar managers, but the milk-stool school of art is no good when you get into the market. Painters, real painters, mind, not daubers like us, find colour work dreadfully hard to sell. There isn't a dealer who would give you five shillings for what you have there. Could you do work like mine, for instance?"
"I'm afraid that I should not care to attempt it," Mary said coldly.
"There you go! Too vulgar for you, of course! You would never get the price of your lodgings out of your class of work, believe me. I know, because I tried it myself. But you will need to have your lesson like the rest of us, and I will give you the names of a few of the most likely dealers in London. You start off directly after breakfast and go the round of them. I shan't be back to luncheon because I've got an hour or two on one of the evening papers getting out sketches of a fashion plate for a lady's page."
Mary grasped eagerly at the suggestion. She wanted to prove that Connie was wrong. With her head high and heart full of hope, she set off presently.
On the whole, it was a morning to be remembered. It was hot and stuffy, and Mary was not accustomed to the blistering, trying heat of London pavements. She was tired and worn out and her head ached terribly by the time she got back. Nor was there any difference in the weight and contents of her portfolio.
Alas, for the blood of the Dashwoods! It was all the same to those flinty-hearted dealers. Mary might have been the meanest beggar in London for all the reception she met with. Struck by her distinguished appearance and haughty beauty, a cringing shop assistant or proprietor would probably ask her business, but what a change when the portfolio was produced! It was the same in one shop after another, contemptuous inspection, rude denial, a suggestion that the shopkeeper had more rubbish already than he knew what to do with. The tears were at the back of Mary's eyes now; unconsciously her voice grew soft and pleading. One dealer, a little kinder than the rest, did suffer the drawings to be laid out before him.
"No use, my dear," he said with a sympathetic familiarity that, strange to say, Mary could not bring herself to resent. "Bless your soul, cheap lithographs and German reproductions have driven them out of the market. If you offered me the lot at half-a-crown each I couldn't take them. It'll save you a lot of trouble and disappointment if you put the whole batch on the fire. Why should I buy that group of flowers for five shillings when I can sell you a photogravure of Watts's for half the money? Your work has been out of date since the mid-Victorian period."
It was the same everywhere, not so kindly expressed. At one o'clock Mary returned to her lodgings utterly tired out and ready to cry in the bitterness of her disappointment. How hard people were to one another, she thought. It never occurred to her that this hardness had been her own great besetting sin in the past. She was even inclined to quarrel with Connie because the latter's prophecy had come so cruelly true.
But Connie was not in yet, and therefore Mary had to fight out her trouble alone. Still, she had learned already a deeper and more important lesson than she was aware of. She began to see that there was a world beyond the narrow limit of the Dashwood horizon. There were other men and women living in the world quite as worthy of respect. Mary took her sketches and dropped them one by one slowly into the empty grate. Then she put a match to them and watched them burn away to ashes. It was a full and complete confession of failure, and Mary felt all the better for it. She rang the bell for a glass of milk to drink with her frugal meal that was already set out on the table.
Nobody came in reply to her ring. Mary was not aware that it was an understood thing in a general way that nobody rang the bell except at stated times such as just after breakfast and the like. In houses of that class the lodgers were expected to be away all day more or less. Otherwise, they were really obliged to look after themselves. After the third ring Mary went downstairs to investigate.