“And can you exhibit new ones anywhere else?”
“They’ll take the new ones too, at the same rate.”
“But can you exhibit them anywhere else if you want?”
“Not for two years.”
“Then,” said Dorothy slowly, “I don’t think I’d sign the contract, Amory.”
Amory took a drink of tea; then she leaned back with the air of one who might say, “This is interesting.”—“Oh? Why not?” she asked.
“Well, if it’s as you say, it seems to me that they just muzzle you for two years.”
“Well, I can hardly expect to have dealings with two sets of people at once, can I? I don’t want to exhibit anywhere else. That would be to nobody’s interest. And my Show would have been next except for——” She checked herself; she had almost forgotten that Herbertson’s condition was a secret. “And anyway, Mr. Dix is going to write a number of articles on me at once, and Mr. Dix doesn’t write articles for amusement, I can assure you. There are wheels within wheels, Dorothy. I call it a splendid bargain. I’m perfectly satisfied——”
The last words seemed to say, “So if I am, I don’t see what anybody else has got to complain about.” She was a little disappointed in Dorothy. She thought that friends ought to rejoice at one another’s good fortune. She hoped there was not just a trace of jealousy in Dorothy’s demeanour.
When Dorothy next spoke Amory wondered, too, whether she had come from Oxford Street entirely in obedience to her telephone-summons. For Dorothy, it appeared, also had something to say. For the last ten days Dorothy had been very little in the studio in Cheyne Walk; the reason for this, Amory understood, was that certain of her fellow-artists (she supposed they called themselves that) had been given a holiday; and now Dorothy was telling Amory that Cheyne Walk was about to see even less of her.