At this point the party split up into two cliques, Amory turning to Cosimo again, and Walter and the others continuing their semi-symbolistic pastime.
Amory had not yet told Cosimo that she intended presently to make this room her home. Cosimo was leaning against her knees now, and had tied two strands of her hair together in a loose knot on his breast; and when she spoke to him he turned up his fine face so that she saw it upside down. When Cosimo had removed into his studio near the Vestry Hall seven or eight months ago, Amory had spent whole days with him, reading aloud passages from one or other of her Association volumes while he had papered and distempered and hung his curtains, and nothing had ever been so jolly; and so she told him now of her own approaching change. He twisted half round within the loop of hair.
“Give you a hand? Rather! By Jove, with your view you ought to be able to make this place perfectly ripping! How are you thinking of doing your windows?”
Amory had known that he would be enthusiastic. She began to say something about muslin, but Cosimo shook his handsome tendrilled head peremptorily. He loosed himself from the bond of hair and faced round, cross-legged, before her.
“Oh no, you mustn’t dream of having muslin! I know something far better than that! There’s a remnant-sale at Peter Hardy’s, and they have some shop-soiled casement-cloth at one-four-three double width, all colours; that’s your stuff! Oh, decidedly!... Then stencil it—something like Dickie’s yoke there, only a broader treatment, of course—and there you are! They’ll take down and put up again in a couple of jiffs, and you have to put muslin up wet, and it catches every bit of dust, and only washes about twice—oh no: the casement-cloth by all means!... Now, what furniture have you got?...”
He entered wholeheartedly into her plans; he was so handsome and intuitive, so big and tall, yet so almost femininely sympathetic. Amory could have hugged him, there was so little of the mere superior blatant male about him.... They plunged into a discussion—or rather Cosimo plunged into a harangue—on the most satisfactory way of staining floors....
Dorothy had been talking to Mr. Bielby, the young man who had been “just brought along,” and had discovered that he was still at the McGrath. Suddenly she gave a laugh and a call to Laura Beamish.
“I say, Laura! Mr. Jowett’s still just the same as ever, Mr. Bielby says,” she said.
Walter Wyron broke into a laugh. “Jowett? ’Pon my word, I’d almost forgotten poor old Jowett! Immortelle’s his flower, I should say! What’s Jowett’s latest, Bielby?”