"Have you forgotten the 'Rhyme of the Three Sealers'? 'There's never a law of God or man runs north of fifty-three'! Well, the age of twenty-seven is a woman's fifty-three, north latitude--at least, it is if she's unmarried--time to jettison scruples, morals, regard for the conventions, and hoist the black flag of social piracy!" "In plain language, you think the hour has struck to doll yourself up like a man-trap. What?" "Yes--and hang the expense!" "By all means, hang it. But where? It's a case of cash or credit; the first you haven't got, and I don't see your visible means of supporting a charge-account at Altman's." "There are ways," Sally insisted darkly. "You can't mean you'd do anything dishonest--" "I'd do _anything_. Look at all the people in high places who began as nothing more nor less than adventurers. Nobody's fussing about how they got their money. It's a sin to be poor nowadays, but the sin of sins is to stay poor!" A moment of silence followed this pronouncement; then Miss Spode observed pensively: "Something's happened to you to-day, Sally. What is it? You haven't been--" "Fired again'? Not exactly. Just laid off indefinitely--that's all. With good luck I may get my job back next September." "Oh, but honey!" Lucy exclaimed, crossing to drop a hand on Sally's shoulder: "I am sorry!" "Of course you are," Sally returned stonily. "But you needn't be. I'm not going to let this make things any harder for you and Mary Warden." "How perfectly mean! You know I wasn't thinking anything like that!" "Yes, dear, I do know it." In sudden contrition, Sally caught the other girl's hand and laid her cheek transiently against it. "What I meant to make clear was"--she faltered momentarily--"I've made up my mind I'm a Jonah, and the only decent thing for me to do is to quit you both, Lucy, my dear!" She ended on a round note of determination rather than of defiance, and endured calmly, if with a slightly self-conscious smile, the distressed look of her companion. "Don't be silly!" this last retorted, pulling herself together. "You know you're welcome--" "Of course I do. All the same, I'm not taking any more, thanks." "But it's only a question of time. If you can't wait for Huckster's to take you on again, Mary and I can easily keep things going until you find another job." "But that wouldn't be fair!" "What wouldn't be fair?" "To sponge on you two under false pretences." "False pretences!" Lucy iterated blankly. "I was laid off last Saturday. I didn't say anything, but I've been looking for something else ever since--and this is Wednesday, and I'm through. I'm sick and tired. I've got just as much right as anybody to live on society, and that's what I'm going to do from now on!" Miss Spode lowered a cloth skirt over her head and blouse before pursuing. "But what I can't understand is how--assuming you're in earnest--" "Deadly earnest!" Sally declared.