“I am.”
Suddenly Gloria seized and hugged her. “If you weren’t, I’d disown you as a recreant to our sex,” she cried.
“Then you’re going to help me?”
“To the bitter end! First let’s take an inventory. Be a lay figure again.”
The girl stiffened to attention. Gloria ticked off the points on her fingers as she talked.
“You’ve got several assets. First, you’re a lady. Nothing to teach there, and it’s the hardest of all lessons. Second, you’ve got a really charming voice if you didn’t whine with it. Third, your hair is nice. But it might as well be stuffing a pillow for all the good you get of it. Fourth, you’ve got eyes that’d be dangerous if the whites weren’t yellow. If you’d try wearing your heart in ’em instead of your liver, they’d do very well. Fifth, the lines of the face—see ‘Life.’ Sixth, you look as if you were built to be light and strong.”
“I rather like being a dummy,” purred Darcy.
“Wait. The other side of the ledger is coming. You’re going to have a bad five minutes. Stand up.”
Darcy obeyed.
“Like a camel,” dispassionately commented the actress. “Look in the glass now,” she ordered.