"Why, a week, if you wish; but I hope you’ll come. You’re just the sort of girl we want. We don’t commercialize the thing. We want to keep it _nice_." Angelica smiled again with a dreary sort of triumph. So she had fooled one of the nice ones, anyway! "Of course," went on Miss Devery, "if you’d rather, you could provide a little capital and your own materials, and we’d let you right in with us. Miss Sillon would show you the books and so on." Angelica had risen. She could see her own reflection in one of the long mirrors, and she could not help feeling that she really looked more of a lady than the girl who actually was one. "I’ll let you know," she said, carefully. She was fearfully tempted to try, just for once, to talk as they did. "It’s awfully attractive," she said. "I’d love to go into it with you; but I want to talk it over with mother." It succeeded! Miss Devery noticed nothing at all strange in her tone or her words. "Telephone just as soon as you decide, won’t you?" she said. IV Mrs. Kennedy wasn’t in the flat when Angelica got home. She was up-stairs, cleaning a vacant flat, and thither Angelica followed her. She was scrubbing the pan of a gas-stove--a vilely dirty thing, heavily incrusted with grease and slime, in which were embedded dead matches and bits of food. "Mother!" The unaccustomed word surprised her. She turned to look into Angelica’s face smiling down at her. "Mother, will you support me for a while?" "Why, child, of course! I’ll do whatever I can for you. Have you lost your job?" "No, but I’m going to try something new. It may not bring in anything much for quite a while, but I think after a time it’ll be a regular gold-mine. And it’s very _nice_. I know Eddie would like me to do it!" CHAPTER EIGHT I She hadn’t allowed herself to think about Eddie’s reply. She insisted to herself that it would be, must be, favourable; but when the letter came, when at last she held it in her hand, she was panic-stricken. She reverted. "Oh, Gawd!" she murmured. "What if he’s changed his mind?" This is what she read: MY DEAREST GIRL: