"Well," said Dorothy, more defensively still, "everybody isn't trying to do nothing but the greatest things all the time, after all." "Oh, ça se voit!" Amory returned, rippling outright into a laugh. "And," Dorothy continued, hating herself because Amory seemed to be driving her into a defence even of the absurd and solemn Miller, "we're only a business concern, not an Exhibition, you know." "Oh? The wonderful thing isn't for sale, then?" "No; and anyway, Mr. Dix didn't laugh at it." (This was true. Mr. Dix did not laugh at his bread when Hallowells' spread it with an extra thick helping of butter.) Amory kept a straight face.--"Dorothy," she said, "what's happened to you?" "How, happened to me?" Dorothy returned, a little tartly. That confounded "Barrage" had put her into an altogether false position. "Nothing's happened to me. Never mind me; tell me what's fresh with you. Has anything happened about your own picture yet?" The fact that Dorothy was evidently rather cross was enough to make Amory aware of the superiority of cheerfulness. Besides, it might not be amiss to show Dorothy that, high and ideal as the Cause was, it was not quite without its mundane and practical side. That at any rate would not be beyond Dorothy's comprehension. Therefore Amory told Dorothy how the negotiations stood between herself and the Manumission League for the purchase of "Barrage." Dorothy listened attentively. When Amory had finished she paused.... "Two hundred pounds, you say? Would that be for a sale outright?" "Yes." "And they'd be able to do whatever they liked with it--reproduce it or anything?" "I suppose so. Do you mean it isn't enough?" "I wasn't thinking of that so much. I was thinking--but of course I don't know all the circumstances." "I'm not keeping anything back from you, Dorothy," said Amory. Indeed she wasn't. She knew that Dorothy's advice on such a point would be well worth having. "Oh, I don't mean that at all," Dorothy hastened to say. "I only mean that it's hard to form a judgment without having seen for yourself. I don't like the idea of selling anything outright. If it was only a nominal royalty, in case they wanted to reproduce or anything of that sort----" "Oh, that! As for that, I should be only too glad to let them reproduce if they wanted." "Of course you would get the advertisement, but I don't see why you shouldn't have a small royalty too." Amory smiled. The advertisement! Wasn't that just like dear old Dorothy! As if all the costly things that had gone to the making of "Barrage" could be valued and bartered like that! Amory explained gently.