Then, however, it seemed to strike even Dorothy that she was not behaving very well. Suddenly she said, “All right, I will borrow it; will to-morrow do?”
“I should be awfully obliged,” said Amory, helping Dorothy on with the Ararat Coat.
But Dorothy relapsed from the right attitude again immediately. Without stopping to think that the Ararat sleeve was wet and Amory dry, she suddenly passed her arm about her. She held her close, making her horridly wet, and began to say a number of the so-called sympathetic things that, when they are not impertinences, are banalities.
“I am sorry, dear,” she said. “I see how it is; of course you aren’t cut out for this sort of life. I saw that the moment I came in. Now, look here, what you ought to do would be to give Mrs. ’Ill a sum every week, and to tell her that she’s got to do you, all in, for that. Not too much, either; you can’t buy, but she can. That’s the way I do. I saw how you’d been living when I washed up; eggs and sardines and pressed beef; and you’re really run down. You ought never to have signed that contract, but I’ll tell you what you perhaps can do about that. Tell Croziers’ that you won’t go to another dealer, but that you must have leave to sell things privately, and that you’ll pay them commission just as if they’d sold them. If they won’t—well, just you sell without their permission, and let ’em sue you if they like. They won’t sue you. They can’t afford it. I’m seeing business men every day, remember, and I’m sure that’s what Mr. Miller would say. And if my thing comes off I’ll buy a picture from you next Spring. Will you promise to do that, Amory?”
Even Amory saw the sense of it, but that did not alter the fact that to all intents and purposes Dorothy was lending her money on the condition that she did as she was told with it. Not exactly that, of course, but rather indelicately like it. And she had all but told Amory that her place was disgracefully dirty and herself underfed. Amory wasn’t sure that Dorothy wasn’t simply one mass of pose. She could come here and speak her mind plainly enough, could talk in quite a grasping spirit of the money she intended to get; but Amory could imagine her with Mr. Miller—anything but plain; sly, wheedling, not helping in the emancipation of her sex at all, but actually doing all she could to rivet their chains the faster upon them; neither forgetting, nor allowing Mr. Miller to forget, that she was rather a personable young woman. Amory called it the next thing to—well, she wouldn’t say what. She would be kind, merely say that they were in opposite camps, and let it go at that.
Therefore she was not giving Dorothy one for herself, but was merely showing herself staunch to a high ideal, when she said, effusively, but still with dignity, “Oh, thank you so very, very much ... if you could possibly get me the money.... Perhaps I haven’t managed very well, but as you say, I’ve other things to think of; and about what you say about Croziers’, I hardly think——”
But Dorothy cut bluntly in. “Rubbish! They’ve just taken advantage of your ignorance and inexperience. I should tell ’em they could make kite-tails of their silly old contract! Look here, shall I see Mr. Dix for you?”
Amory hesitated. She did not want to see Mr. Dix again herself, firstly because she felt that an artist ought to be spared these sordid matters, and secondly because she always wanted to wash herself when Mr. Dix had covered her with those galantined eyes. But Dorothy was not an artist, and apparently didn’t mind a glutinous look more or less. To the coarser nature the coarser task. One didn’t chop firewood with a razor....
“What’d be the good?” she sighed. “I signed the thing.”
“Leave that to me,” said Dorothy briskly. “I’ll talk to Mr. Dix for you. At least I’ll get permission for you to sell things privately, and then you can reckon the ten pounds off the price of the picture I’ll buy—for my scheme’s bound to come off! So we’ll call that a bet. And now I must fly. Do try my plan with Mrs. ’Ill. When’s Cosimo coming back? Yes, I saw about his uncle. Good-bye, dear.... And oh, dear, now I’m forgetting the very thing I came for! You will sign that advertisement, won’t you?”