I was standing still, after we had got through some perfunctory civilities, for I thought he would want me to act for him--but I found afterward that he had trusted Mr. Eversley for my capacity--and I had a feeling of being able to meet the situation better on my feet. I caught him looking at me with an irritating impersonality. "Jalowaski shall make your corsets," he affirmed; "he makes 'em for Eames and Gadski--a little more off there, a little longer here ... so...." He did not touch me, he was not even within touching distance, but he followed the outline of my figure with his thumb, flourishing out the alterations which made it more to his mind. "Jalowaski would fix you so you wouldn't believe it was you," he concluded. He appeared so well satisfied with his inspection that he expanded graciously. "And there is one thing you have which there is lots of actresses would give half they got for it. You have got imagination in the way you dress your hair. It is a wonder how some of them can act and yet ain't got no imagination at all about the way they look, only so it is stylish. For an actress it is all right for her to look stylish on the street, but there are times when she has to look otherways on the stage; y'understand me." I slid somehow into a chair; I don't know exactly what I expected, but it certainly hadn't been this appraisement, which I had the sense to see was favourable and yet resented. "The first thing we will see to yet, is some clothes; for you will excuse me, Miss Lattimore, but what you are wearing don't show you off at all. You don't need to wear black. Of course I know you are a widow, Mr. Eversley was telling me, but there are some actresses what make out like they was, because they think it becomes them, y' understand, but there is no need for you to wear it, for Mr. Eversley is telling me that your husband is dead more than two years already." He had loosened his coat to display an appropriate amount of gold fob dependent over a small balloon in the process of being inflated; now from somewhere in his inner recess he produced a folded paper. "It is better we have a contract from the start. Though of course it is all right if Mr. Eversley recommends you, but it is better we don't have misunderstandings." He spread the paper out and weighted it with one of his pudgy hands. "So you are going to take me ... you haven't seen me act yet." "Eversley has." "Well ... if you want to take his judgment ... but he hasn't told me anything about _you_ yet. What do you want of me; what are you going to do for me?" If Eversley had told him how desperate my situation was, it wasn't a good move to try to hold out against him now, it might have given him the idea that I was ungrateful, but I couldn't stand for being handed about this way like a female chattel. That Eversley had told him, I saw by the expression of astonishment on his face which slowly changed to one of amusement.