She only wanted to borrow until the Christmas quarter; indeed, it was not so much an advance on her allowance as an anticipation of the Christmas present she was sure to receive from her uncle and aunt. Then she would be straight again, and would know how to spend more wisely for the future. And Dorothy could well afford it, if one might judge of her fortune from her unhygienic but expensive dresses. If only the rain would stop she would go to Dorothy at once. She knew that Dorothy’s position had improved, and, if the world chose to regard its art as a parasitic thing, the artist could hardly be blamed if he spoiled the Philistine whenever he had the opportunity. In one sense she would actually be doing Dorothy a favour. A loan would put Dorothy into the honourable position of being a patron. Many a Philistine name lives on the formal page of an immortal work that otherwise would have been forgotten.
Amory continued to watch the flounces of water that spilled from the eaves and to listen to the runnings and gurglings of the West London drainage system.
But all at once a merry “Cooee!” came from below; a flapping as of shaken garments sounded in the entry; and a step and a call of “Amory!” were heard on the stairs. It was the voice of Dorothy herself. The door flew inwards, and Dorothy Lennard stood there, a pair of blue eyes and the tip of a nose visible, the rest of her a shimmer of some greenish-yellow material, thin as goldbeaters’ skin and trickling rivulets of water. She shook herself on the landing in a haze of water-dust, like a dog that comes out of a pond, and then cried—
“Quick, Amory, and certify me—you shall take ’em off yourself and feel—Mr. Miller said Sloane Street, but it was so near I thought I’d come in—how are you?—No, I’ll unbutton them, then your hands will be quite dry to feel——”
She took from her head a sort of poke that fitted like a bathing-cap, allowed the long garment to rustle in a small close heap to the floor, and cried, “There! Now feel me!”
She seized Amory’s wrist and patted herself with Amory’s palm.
“That damp isn’t the rain come through,” she went on. “Quite the other way; that’s my warmth that did that, they’re as impervious as that! And of course they’re rather dear. But it’s a perfect day for it! There’ll be a column of floods and rainfall in all the papers to-morrow, and we’re setting all the telephones on the jump now getting the space next to it. You do certify me? I said to Mr. Miller, ‘What is the good of sticking a piece of the stuff under a tap in the window? What does it convey to anybody? They only think there’s some fake somewhere (advertisers have faked so much, you see), and besides, it’s been done.’ So I said, ‘Why not let somebody go out in this rain in ’em? If they’ll stand this they’ll stand anything. Then get some known person to certify that at such-and-such a time yesterday (the wettest day for eighteen years) so-and-so arrived as dry as a bone at such-and-such a place, having walked in Ararat Extra Light and Japhet Boots’—but you must feel my stockings too.”
She sat down in one of Amory’s basket-chairs, began to unlace her boots, and presently thrust out for Amory’s examination, one after the other, her grey silk-stockinged soles.
“So they’re mine,” Dorothy cried jubilantly, “and if you’ll give me your signature I’ll get you a set, not to speak of the advertisement for you—can’t do without that nowadays—‘I, the undersigned, Amory Towers’—if they’ve never heard of you they daren’t say so when they see that.... Those Cosimo’s slippers? I’ll put ’em on.... I say, you have let your fire down! No, I’ll set it going—you fill the kettle—I have enjoyed my walk!”