Part 29 (1/2)
”But,” said Mr. Miller earnestly, ”give me something to get a hold of, Mrs. Stan. I ain't calling the psychological prapasition down any; a business man has to be psychologist all the time; but he wants it straight. Straight psychology. The feminine point of voo, but practical.
It ain't for Harvard. It's for Hallowell and Smith's.”
”Well,” said Dorothy, ”it's Miss Deedes' idea really--and it would never have occurred to her if it hadn't been for Lady Ups.h.i.+re--would it Katie?”
”No,” said Katie.
”Very well. Suppose Lady Ups.h.i.+re had had the Litmus Layette. All she would have had to do would have been to take the ribbons out--the work of a moment--the pink ribbons--dip them in the preparation--and there they'd have been, ready for immediate use. And blue ones would be dipped in the other solution and of course they'd have turned pink.... You see, you can't alter the baby, but you can alter the ribbons. And it isn't only ribbons. A woolly jacket--or a pram-rug--or socks--or anything--I think it's an exceedingly clever Idea of Miss Deedes!----”
Mr. Miller gave it attention. Then he looked up.
”Would it woik?” he asked.
”Well,” said Dorothy ... ”it works in chemistry. But that's not the princ.i.p.al thing. It's its value as an advertis.e.m.e.nt that's the real thing. Think of the window-dressing!--Blue and pink, changing before people's very eyes!--Just think how--I mean, it interests _every_ woman!
They'd stand in front of the window, and think--but you're a man. Mrs.
Miller would understand.... Anyhow, you would get crowds of people, and that's what you want--crowds of people--that's its advertis.e.m.e.nt-value.--And then when you got them inside it would be like having the hooks at one end of the shop and the eyes at the other--a hook's no good without an eye, so they have to walk past half a mile of counters, and you sell them all sort of things on the way. _I_ think there's a great deal in it!”
”It's a Stunt,” Mr. Miller conceded, as if in spite of himself he must admit thus much. ”It's soitainly a Stunt. But I'm not sure it's a reel Idee.”
”That,” said Dorothy with conviction, ”would depend entirely in your own belief in it. If you did it as thoroughly as you've done lots of other things----”
”It's soitainly a Stunt, Miss Deedes,” Mr. Miller mused....
He was frowningly meditating on the mystic differences between a Stunt and an Idee, and was perhaps wondering how the former would demean itself if he took the risk of promoting it to the dignity of the latter, when the bell was heard to ring. A moment later Ruth opened the door.
”Lady Tasker,” she said.
Lady Tasker entered a little agitatedly, with an early edition of the ”Globe” crumpled in her hand.
II
BY THE WAY
Lady Tasker never missed the ”Globe's” _By the Way_ column, and there was a curious, mocking, unpleasant By-the-Way-ishness about the announcement she made as she entered. There is a special psychological effect, in the Harvard and not in the Hallowell and Smith's sense, when you come unexpectedly in print upon news that affects yourself. The multiplicity of newspapers notwithstanding, revelation still hits the ear less harshly than it does the eye; telling is still private and intimate, type a trumpeting to all the world at once. Dorothy looked at the pink page Lady Tasker had thrust into her hand as if it also, like the Litmus Layette, had turned blue before her eyes.
”_Not_ Sir Benjamin who used to come and see father!” she said, dazed.
Lady Tasker had had time, on her way to the flat, to recover a little.
”There's only one Sir Benjamin Collins that I know of,” she answered curtly.
”But--but--it _can't_ be!----”
Of course there was no reason in the world why it couldn't. Quite on the contrary, there was that best of all reasons why it could--it had happened. Three bullet-wounds are three undeniable reasons. It was the third, the brief account said, that had proved fatal.
”They say the finest view in Asia's Bombay from the stern of a steamer,”
said Lady Tasker, with no expression whatever. ”I think your friend Mr.