By nature I am as soft as a man about good-looking women. This girl was beautiful. She said she felt sure that I would be able to help her. Odd how one could always recognize a congenial person, she added. And the smile with which she made this assertion was a poem, and the glance of her wonderful slumberous eyes might have made any man feel sure that he could write an epic. Of course had she not wished my services she would never have wasted either on—a woman. Her husband, poor dear boy, wished to go to the front. She had coaxed him not to enlist, even gone so far as to say that if he did not enlist and should be drafted, she would raise no objection. It seemed so certain that he would not be caught, so many men were not, you know. Of course a promise given under such circumstances could not be binding. She had had her lawyer draw up the necessary papers asking her husband’s exemption. “We wives do have some rights, you know!” she exclaimed, at the end of her story. “You have been married five years and your husband’s salary is ten thousand dollars a year—surely you have saved enough to supplement the government’s allowance to the wife of a soldier,” I told her, for I longed to help the man in his determination to fight for his country, yet at the same time, I did not wish in any way to mar the dainty perfection of this beautiful creature. “Saved!” Another slow smile as her body swayed gracefully. “You have never lived in a hotel, my dear. Saving is impossible. What they don’t take from you on your bills they do in tips. It is terrible! Why—” She paused, glanced me over as though taking my measure, then bent toward me and lowered her voice to a confiding lower tone. “Even the clothes on my back are not paid for.” “But your children?” I demanded, for I was shocked, and my voice showed it. “Surely you should save for your children.” Her eyes flashed out at me—two sharp rays of amber flame between slitted lids. “Children?” she purred. “I’ve too much sense for that, to destroy my best asset—my figure.” Among the many wives-have-their-rights individuals who paid us personal calls was one who waddled in at the lunch-hour, when Miss Sneezet and I chanced to be the only ones in the department. She was short, plump, and wore expensive clothes. She had come to find out what she could do about her husband, she explained to Miss Sneezet. He’d been drafted, and she wanted to make sure that he would pay her the alimony awarded her by the courts.