"Why, even the girls who have fairly good positions in stores don't get enough to live on. The girl who shampoos my hair has a sister in Abram's, and she gets seven dollars a week, and has to be nicely dressed. Just fancy that!" said Letitia; and then, in a burst of candor: "Why, I never in this world could dress on that alone, even if I gave up silk stockings and always wore alpaca petticoats like the woman who teaches Maud German." "Nevertheless," said Gault, "it seems to me that a woman who was high-minded and proud and independent would be a shop-girl and live on seven dollars a week rather than--" He stopped. Letitia looked at him interestedly, struck by something in his tone. "Rather than what?" she asked. "Rather than--well, in this story the people who were so poor had friends that were well off, and all that sort of thing, and they borrowed from them, and--I think it's going to turn out that they lived that way." "Did the girl borrow? Wouldn't work and lived on the borrowed money? Oh, that's--!" Letitia raised both hands in the air and let them drop with a gesture that expressed complete finality of interest and approval. "What do you mean by 'oh,' Letitia?" he said, rather sharply. "I never said the girl knew anything about it." "Well, she must have had some curiosity to know where the money came from. When her father or mother came in and said, 'Here's ten dollars to pay the butcher, and here's twenty dollars to pay the grocer,' don't you suppose she wanted to know where it came from? Really, John, considering you're supposed to be so clever, you don't know much about women." He made no answer, and she went on: "Of course she knew all about it. She would have been an idiot if she hadn't. And she doesn't sound at all like an idiot. It's just the other way. She was clever--altogether too clever. I don't like that kind of person at all. I wouldn't trust her from here to the corner. She must have been one of those soft, clinging, gentle creatures who are always turning aside to hide their tears. Was she?" "I dare say. You seem to know more about her than I do." "But it sounds very interesting," said Letitia, coming closer to him. "I'd like to read it. What is the name of the book?" "Oh, I don't remember. It's nonsense, anyway--some stuff not worth talking about." Letitia continued to look at him silently for a moment; then she said slowly: "It's not a book at all. It's a real person. You've been trying to make a fool of me." He looked at her quickly, his eyes, behind the shield of his glasses, narrowed to mere lines. For a moment, as their cold gleam met hers, she shrank, for she thought he was angry, and, like other people, Letitia was afraid of John Gault's anger. Then he smiled at her, and said: "If you ever have to earn _your_ living, Tishy, there'll be no trouble about your vocation. You'd make a fortune as a female detective. I never saw such wonderful ability. Why, Sherlock Holmes isn't in it with you."