Chapter 2.VIII.

It was better not to inquire, so I never knew to what extent Kauffer
worked upon the vanity of ancient houses the sinful dodge I
suggested to him; but I heard before long that the line of Armour's
rejected efforts had been considerably diminished. Armour told me
himself that Kauffer's attitude had become almost conciliatory, that
Kauffer had even hinted at the acceptance of, and adhesion to,
certain principles which he would lay down as the basis of another
year's contract. In talking to me about it, Armour dwelt on these
absurd stipulations only as the reason why any idea of renewal was
impossible. It was his proud theory with me that to work for a
photographer was just as dignified as to produce under any other
conditions, provided you did not stoop to ideals which for lack of a
better word might be called photographic. How he represented it to
Dora, or permitted Dora to represent it to him, I am not so certain-
-I imagine there may have been admissions and qualifications. Be
that as it may, however, the fact was imperative that only three
months of the hated bond remained, and that some working substitute
for the hated bond would have to be discovered at their expiration.
Simla, in short, must be made to buy Armour's pictures, to
appreciate them, if the days of miracle were not entirely past, but
to buy them any way. On one or two occasions I had already made
Simla buy things. I had cleared out young Ludlow's stables for him
in a week--he had a string of ten--when he played polo in a straw
hat and had to go home with sunstroke; and I once auctioned off all
the property costumes of the Amateur Dramatic Society at astonishing
prices. Pictures presented difficulties which I have hinted at in
an earlier chapter, but I did not despair. I began by hauling old