“Hard—hard’s the word! That’s a fact! But we got to have ’em. Selling ladies’ goods has got to be made just as noble as killing their husbands and sweethearts on a field of battle. It is as noble. In a properly organized community there ought to be a Distinguished Salesmanship Order just as there’s a Distinguished Service Order for our military classes. And Mr. Stan’s only asked to graduate for the Distinguished Smiling Order, if I may take the liberty of saying so.”
“Well, perhaps he’ll do better after the Inauguration.”
“You think that?” Mr. Miller had questioned eagerly. “You think he’ll be all right on the night, so to say? Well now, if I thought that it would be a weight off my mind. I hope you’ll assist me, Miss Lennard. And thank you very much for your assistance about Mr. Dix. It’s a fact that if these people were easy to get everybody’d be getting ’em. Pardon me, after you——”
And they had parted, but not before Dorothy had wondered whether Mr. Miller’s intelligent look, when he had asked her to help him in the difficulty with Mr. Stan, had meant anything.
If you had asked Dorothy Lennard how it was that her Cousin Stanhope had come to find himself at Hallowell and Smiths’, she would probably have answered you only half candidly. You would have had to guess (as the chances were that Mr. Miller had guessed) the rest. Poor Stan, she would have told you, so far frankly, was a perfect darling, but he had no brains. Successively he had been ploughed for the army, had tried six months in the city, had spent a year in Canada, three months in a motor works, two months more in hawking from club to club a really brilliant idea for a weekly comic paper, and finally, when at the end of every natural asset he possessed, saving only his good looks, had come upon a piece of Mr. Miller’s own publicity—a column article in an evening paper on “The Disappearance of the Slur of Trade.” Stan had been much impressed by the new field thus thrown open. Chancing to meet Dorothy at about that time, for the first time since they had been children, he had spoken of the new opening, and Dorothy had offered there and then to introduce him to the writer of the article. From the first moment Stanhope had shown a willingness to be introduced to anybody whomsoever by Dorothy; and perhaps Mr. Miller had less hope than Dorothy supposed that Mr. Stan now hung about the premises for any reason at all except that Dorothy was to be seen there.... It was a case of love among the ruins, or whatever the upset may be called that is the result, not of demolition, but of rebuilding; and now, when the two were not meeting one another in halls full of trestles and plasterers’ buckets or on passages down which they had to retreat as counters and glass screens and heavy fittings came along, Dorothy, in Miss Benson’s absence, was fighting with Miss Umpleby for possession of the telephone, and talking with the bewildered marshal through a hundred and fifty yards of party-wall and fireproof floor, ceilings and lift-wells and cornices and plate-glass.... Unless an aunt or somebody died, Dorothy supposed that when they got married she would have to keep him.
Having decided that Mr. Miller’s solemn articles on the “Art of the Poster” and the “Academy of the Hoardings” might as well be written by Mr. Hamilton Dix as by anybody else, Dorothy Lennard was not such a fool as to receive that handy critic in the fashion studio on the upper floor. Instead she asked Mr. Miller when he would be out, and borrowed his office—his fourth office since the building had been in progress, and, though not yet his permanent one, still an oasis of upholstery and quietness in a waste of concrete and ladders and new paint and half-hung walls. She also ordered cut flowers, whisky and soda, and tea. She had not forgotten her promise to Amory, that she would, if it was possible, obtain some mitigation of the Crozier contract.
Mr. Dix, for his part, accustomed to shedding the lustre of his name at ordinary space rates, was prepared to be as lustrous as anybody liked when money was flowing as it flowed about the new Hallowells’. He knocked at the door that was plain inside but ornamental without at four o’clock of a Friday afternoon early in January, and Dorothy had all in readiness for him. Before showing Mr. Dix the proofs of the posters on which for many months past Hallowells’ had been spending money like water (they were bound together at the top edge and set, like a huge book of wallpaper patterns, on a special easel so as to be conveniently turned over), she gave him an outline of the general scheme and the part it was hoped he would consent to play in it; and from the outset Mr. Dix liked this young woman’s attitude. For Croziers’ he was not much more than a pen; at Hallowells’, if the bashful and deferential manner in which he found himself received meant anything, he would be a Berenson or a Cavalcaselle at the very least, and really well paid for it at that. She was a comely young woman, too, and appeared to know what she was talking about.... Ah! She had been at the McGrath! (Dorothy had negligently dropped the name of Toulouse-Lautrec.) That explained it! Mr. Dix had thought she spoke with some inside knowledge! A good school, the McGrath. Mr. Dix knew Professor Jowett quite well: a capable master, very, but shockingly given over to a habit of cynicism, especially about the poor critics. By the way, had Miss Lennard ever known a Miss Towers there?...
Dorothy had only mentioned the McGrath in order to give Mr. Dix an opportunity of mentioning Miss Towers; but Miss Towers could wait a bit. It would be better to get Mr. Dix to commit himself to magnanimous generalities before coming to a specific case. Therefore as she gave him tea she told him how lucky Hallowells’ thought themselves to be able to get his services. When (she said) Mr. Miller had first asked her whether she thought he would be approachable about mere posters she had shaken her head; but now that she had seen him (Dorothy slowly lifted her great blue eyes) she was glad she had asked him. Wasn’t it odd, how afraid you were of the pretentious and mediocre people, and not at all of the really big men? (At this point Mr. Dix had begun really to bask.) But of course nothing but the best was good enough for Hallowells’. Not (she went on) that they pretended for a moment to be anything but tradespeople, with no views on art at all; but they did believe this, that while an inferior writer might seem to be just as good, only one thing really paid the best, and that was—the best. That was why they had sent for Mr. Dix. They wanted the incorruptible man. As for what Mr. Dix would see fit to do now that they had got him, that rested entirely with Mr. Dix. It was not for Hallowells’ to say what they wanted, but for Mr. Dix to give them what he thought best for them. And as for the posters themselves....
“But suppose we look at them,” said Dorothy.
They looked at the posters, and Dorothy gave Mr. Dix a whisky and soda and a cigar. And at that point the curtain went down, so to speak, on the first act. Mr. Dix declined for the moment to commit himself; with an hour or two in which to think the matter over he might (he said) be able to come to a conclusion. He understood that time pressed; it was half-past five now. Could—could Miss Lennard possibly dine with him at eight o’clock? He might perhaps say at once that he thought the subject a fascinating one. As Miss Lennard had so truly said, only the mediocre mind thought these things beneath its dignity; in fact—— But if Miss Lennard would give him the pleasure, they could talk about that later. She would? That was charming of her. He would be round with a taxi, then, at twenty minutes to eight.