But Amory did not speak. She had been about to say, if a thing so obvious needed to be said, that it was ridiculous (to say the least) for people of thirty-eight and forty-three to be thinking about marriage; but that was not all. There were other things, that, since Dorothy could not understand them even if she did say them, were perhaps not worth wasting breath over. Not that Dorothy was actually dull; but for all that Amory had almost ceased to hope that Dorothy would ever grasp her, Amory's, true position. Their circumstances were so very different. Of course Amory was ready to concede that Dorothy, like herself, did contrive to live on what she earned; she earned from thirty to thirty-five shillings a week as a fashion artist; but it was one thing to make do on that, with people behind you to catch you when you stumbled, and quite another to have (as Amory had under her godmother's will) a scanty thirteen pounds a quarter, to sell a sketch or a picture once in a blue moon, and to know that that is all the help you need look forward to. Dorothy would quickly have found out the difference had it been she, Amory, who had had the people with houses in town and places up and down the country, and herself, Dorothy, who had been the daughter of a poor and clever Cambridge practitioner who had died before he had managed to get on his feet, and had left his daughter to live with the only relative she had in the world in a hateful boarding-house in Shepherd's Bush! And it was all very fine for Dorothy to joke about it, and to say that the fewer relatives she had the luckier she was. There was no getting away from it: these things did give a confidence to Dorothy's stride, and an assurance to her glance, and an expectation of success to her eyes. Therefore Amory did not answer when her friend asked her what was the matter. But Dorothy, after a moment's cogitation, contrived, though probably by accident, to hit on what was the matter for herself. "I must write to her at once," she said. "In July--so soon! I _am_ glad! I _do_ hope they'll be happy!... And what'll you do? Go on living at the boarding-house?" Ah! (Amory thought), so Dorothy did see it from somebody's point of view besides Aunt Jerry's! She moved one shoulder petulantly. "Aunt Jerry paid the bills there," she said. "Do you mean that you'll go and live with them when they're married?" Dorothy asked. "No, I don't," said Amory with marked brevity. Dorothy hadn't seen her aunt and Mr. Massey together or she wouldn't have asked that. And one of them was thirty-eight and the other forty-three! Talk about the loves of the valetudinarians! "Well, what will you do?" Dorothy asked again. Again Amory turned to the window. She spoke with her back to Dorothy. "What _can_ I do? What is there left? Come and live here, as far as I can see," she replied. "Oh," cried Dorothy at once, struck with the idea, "that'll be jolly!"