As if she had been galvanized, Amory looked sharply up.--"How dare----", she began.
But it was only a flash in the pan. Dorothy was looking into her eyes.
"You're telling me the truth?" She hated to ask the question.
"Yes," Amory mumbled, dropping her head again.
"Has--has anybody been unkind to you?" She could not speak of "somebody" by name.
Here Amory hesitated, and finally lied. It was rather a good sign that she did so. It meant returning animation....
"Nothing. That's what I asked myself. That's just it. Nothing. Nothing at all's happened."
Dorothy spoke in a low voice, as if to herself.--"I know," she murmured....
And, on the chance that she really did know, Amory clutched at the sleeve of Dorothy's dressing-gown almost excitedly.
"Yes, that's what I mean ... you do know?" she asked in a quick whisper.
"But you _do_ know that--nothing happening, nothing at all, and everything happening--everything? That's what I mean--that's what I want to know--that's why I came----"
"Don't speak so loudly. Put your hands to the fire; they're like ice. Wait; I'll get you a shawl; you're shivering.... Now I want you to tell me some things...."
And, first wrapping her up and putting Stan's pillow behind her back, she began to question her.
What, again, was the purport of her questions? What of those of her aunt? What of those of a good many others in an age that is producing, and for some mysterious reason or other counts it a sign of progress to produce, innumerable Amorys--so many that, stretch out your hand where you will, and you will touch one?
All is guessing: but it will pass on the time if we hold a Meeting about it now. Everybody is agreed that the way to arrive at the best conclusions is to hold a Meeting, and this will be only one more Meeting added to the cloud of Meetings in which the "Novum" went up and out--the Meeting which, as Edgar Strong had prophesied, the loyal London Indians held (in the Imperial Institute) in order to dissociate themselves from the Collins affair (as Edgar Strong had also prophesied, Mr. Wilkinson moved an amendment, "That this Meeting declines to dissociate itself, etc. etc.")--the numerous secondary Meetings that arose out of that Meeting--the Meetings of the "Novum's" creditors (for Edgar Strong in his haste to be off had omitted to pay all the bills)--the Meetings at which (Cosimo Pratt having withdrawn his support) the Eden and the Suffrage Shop had to be reconstructed--the Meetings convened to talk about this, that and the other--as many of them as you like.