A hundred pounds, now!---- Almost precipitately Amory accepted. "Bravo!" cried Mr. Dix, as if Amory had performed a deed of bravery. And he bent gallantly over her hand. Amory was beside herself with importance and delight. She had not now a mere promise from Croziers'--she was to have a proper contract, and a cheque for a hundred pounds posted to her the very moment the contract was signed. All that day she could not sit still for a minute in one place, and in the afternoon she suddenly started up, crammed her hat on her head, and ran out to the confectioner's in the King's Road, where the use of a telephone was to be had for twopence. She must tell Dorothy that she particularly wanted to see her at the studio that afternoon--why, she refused to say. Then, treading on air, she returned to the studio again, humming Laura's song "The Trees they do Grow High" as she went. Still singing, she began to potter about among the tins in the little cupboard, to see in which one the tea was kept. Dorothy came running in an hour later, just as Amory sat down before the plate of bread-and-butter and the saucerless cup she had placed on the little gate-legged table. Her eyes were as big as the heads of Amory's hatpins. "What is it?" she cried breathlessly. "Not Cosimo----?" "How Cosimo?" Amory asked, staring a little. "I mean, I thought--I thought perhaps he'd proposed----" Only for a moment or so was Amory a little stiff. "I think Cosimo can be trusted not to do anything quite so obvious," she replied. "You don't seem to understand, Dorothy.... No, it's far more exciting than that----" And she told her. Somehow it struck Amory that Dorothy received the news in an unexpectedly critical spirit. She had expected her to jump up with delight, or at least to say that she was glad. But instead of that Dorothy stared at Amory until Amory felt quite uncomfortable, and had to say "Well?" If this was the way Dorothy took it, she was rather sorry she had rung her up. "Tell me what Mr. Dix said again," said Dorothy, still almost glaring at Amory. Amory did so. "And he's sending for the pictures to-morrow?" "Yes, but you don't understand; this isn't the price of the pictures." "And he doesn't say when the Show will be?" Amory spoke gently; of course it must be difficult for Dorothy to realize that Picture Exhibitions were not Catalogues. "It will be as soon as the market is favourable. They wait for a favourable market and then----" She made an upward gesture with her hands. "And you see, Dorothy," she explained kindly, "pictures aren't much good to a dealer either just to shut up in a cellar and keep. They buy them in order to sell them again. That's their business." But Dorothy hardly seemed to hear. "And they've got thirty pictures?" she asked presently. "Twenty-eight." "And can you exhibit new ones anywhere else?" "They'll take the new ones too, at the same rate." "But can you exhibit them anywhere else if you want?" "Not for two years."