"He wrote that he was coming home this week," said Pennoyer.
"Did he?" asked Florinda indifferently.
"Yes. Aren't you glad?"
They were still watching her face.
"Yes, of course I'm glad. Why shouldn't I be glad?" cried the girl with
defiance.
They grinned.
"Oh, certainly. Billie Hawker is a good fellow, Splutter. You have a
particular right to be glad."
"You people make me tired," Florinda retorted. "Billie Hawker doesn't
give a rap about me, and he never tried to make out that he did."
"No," said Grief. "But that isn't saying that you don't care a rap about
Billie Hawker. Ah, Florinda!"
It seemed that the girl's throat suffered a slight contraction. "Well,
and what if I do?" she demanded finally.
"Have a cigarette?" answered Grief.
Florinda took a cigarette, lit it, and, perching herself on a divan,
which was secretly a coal box, she smoked fiercely.
"What if I do?" she again demanded. "It's better than liking one of you
dubs, anyhow."
"Oh, Splutter, you poor little outspoken kid!" said Wrinkle in a sad
voice.
Grief searched among the pipes until he found the best one. "Yes,
Splutter, don't you know that when you are so frank you defy every law
of your sex, and wild eyes will take your trail?"
"Oh, you talk through your hat," replied Florinda. "Billie don't care
whether I like him or whether I don't. And if he should hear me now, he
wouldn't be glad or give a hang, either way. I know that." The girl
paused and looked at the row of plaster casts. "Still, you needn't be
throwing it at me all the time."
"We didn't," said Wrinkles indignantly. "You threw it at yourself."
"Well," continued Florinda, "it's better than liking one of you dubs,
anyhow. He makes money and----"
"There," said Grief, "now you've hit it! Bedad, you've reached a point
in eulogy where if you move again you will have to go backward."
"Of course I don't care anything about a fellow's having money----"
"No, indeed you don't, Splutter," said Pennoyer.
"But then, you know what I mean. A fellow isn't a man and doesn't stand
up straight unless he has some money. And Billie Hawker makes enough so
that you feel that nobody could walk over him, don't you know? And there
isn't anything jay about him, either. He's a thoroughbred, don't you
know?"
After reflection, Pennoyer said, "It's pretty hard on the rest of us,
Splutter."
"Well, of course I like him, but--but----"
"What?" said Pennoyer.
"I don't know," said Florinda.
Purple Sanderson lived in this room, but he usually dined out. At a
certain time in his life, before he came to be a great artist, he had
learned the gas-fitter's trade, and when his opinions were not identical
with the opinions of the art managers of the greater number of New York
publications he went to see a friend who was a plumber, and the opinions
of this man he was thereafter said to respect. He frequented a very neat
restaurant on Twenty-third Street. It was known that on Saturday nights
Wrinkles, Grief, and Pennoyer frequently quarreled with him.
As Florinda ceased speaking Purple entered. "Hello, there, Splutter!" As
he was neatly hanging up his coat, he said to the others, "Well, the
rent will be due in four days."
"Will it?" asked Pennoyer, astounded.
"Certainly it will," responded Purple, with the air of a superior
financial man.
"My soul!" said Wrinkles.
"Oh, shut up, Purple!" said Grief. "You make me weary, coming around
here with your chin about rent. I was just getting happy."
"Well, how are we going to pay it? That's the point," said Sanderson.
Wrinkles sank deeper in his chair and played despondently on his
guitar. Grief cast a look of rage at Sanderson, and then stared at the
wall. Pennoyer said, "Well, we might borrow it from Billie Hawker."
Florinda laughed then.
"Oh," continued Pennoyer hastily, "if those Amazement people pay me when
they said they would I'll have the money."
"So you will," said Grief. "You will have money to burn. Did the
Amazement people ever pay you when they said they would? You are
wonderfully important all of a sudden, it seems to me. You talk like an
artist."
Wrinkles, too, smiled at Pennoyer. "The Eminent Magazine people wanted
Penny to hire models and make a try for them, too. It would only cost
him a stack of blues. By the time he has invested all his money he
hasn't got, and the rent is three weeks overdue, he will be able to tell
the landlord to wait seven months until the Monday morning after the day
of publication. Go ahead, Penny."
After a period of silence, Sanderson, in an obstinate manner, said,
"Well, what's to be done? The rent has got to be paid."
Wrinkles played more sad music. Grief frowned deeper. Pennoyer was
evidently searching his mind for a plan.
Florinda took the cigarette from between her lips that she might grin
with greater freedom.
"We might throw Purple out," said Grief, with an inspired air. "That
would stop all this discussion."
"You!" said Sanderson furiously. "You can't keep serious a minute. If
you didn't have us to take care of you, you wouldn't even know when they
threw you out into the street."
"Wouldn't I?" said Grief.
"Well, look here," interposed Florinda, "I'm going home unless you can
be more interesting. I am dead sorry about the rent, but I can't help
it, and----"
"Here! Sit down! Hold on, Splutter!" they shouted. Grief turned to
Sanderson: "Purple, you shut up!"
Florinda curled again on the divan and lit another cigarette. The talk
waged about the names of other and more successful painters, whose work
they usually pronounced "rotten."