"Well, I'd have to be capitalized to do anything here the same as in New York, and the field there is larger." I went on to explain something of what the metropolis had to offer.
"I guess the worst thing about Chicago is that you're out of a job. People don't get sore on a place where they are doing well."
"No. They generally light out for a place where there are more jobs." I thought I should get on better if I took Henry in his own key, but he forged ahead of me.
"If there's anything the matter with your acting, why don't you ask somebody?"
"There's nobody to ask. Besides, there isn't anything the matter with it; the matter is with me."
"Well, I must say I don't see the difference."
"Oh!" I cried. I hadn't realized that they wouldn't just take my word for it. "It is because I am empty—empty!" I trailed off, seeing how wide I was of his understanding. I shouldn't have questioned Henry Mills's word about the capitalization of a joint stock company; and I resented their discounting my own statement of my difficulties. Pauline got hold of my hand and patted it. I wondered if it was because all her own crises were complicated with Henry Mills that she always thought that affectionateness was part of the answer.
"It is only that, with all your Gift, Henry can't understand how you need anything else," she extenuated.
"I need food and clothes," I blurted out; "pretty soon I shall need a lodging."
"Oh, my dear!" Pauline was shocked at the indelicacy. I don't know if she didn't understand how poor I was, or if it was only the general notion of the sheltered woman, to find in complaint a kind of heresy against the institution by which they are maintained. "After all," she caught up with her accustomed moral attitude, "there's a kind of nobility in suffering for your art. It's what gives you your spiritual quality." I thought I recognized the phrase as one that was current in the women's clubs of that period. I took hold of my courage desperately.