Bice looked at her, wondering too. "We do not go to parties. What is a party?" she said. "We go to the rooms--oh yes, and to the great receptions sometimes, and at hotels. Parties? I don't know what that means. Of course, I go with the Contessa to the rooms, and to the tables d'hote. I give her my arm ever since I was tall enough. I carry her fan and her little things. When she sings I am always ready to play. They call me the shadow of the Contessa, for I always wear a black frock, and I never talk except when some one talks to me. It is most amusing how the English look at me. They say, Miss----? and then stop that I may tell them my name." "And don't you?" said Lucy. "Do you know; though it is so strange to say it, I don't even know your name." Bice laughed, but she made no attempt to supply the omission. "The Contessa thinks it is more piquant," she said. "But nothing is decided about me, till it is known how I turn out. If I am beautiful the Contessa will marry me well, and all will be right." "And is that what you--wish?" said Lucy, in a tone of horror. "Monsieur, your brother," said Bice, with a laugh, "says I am not pretty, even. He says it does not matter. How ignorant men are, and stupid! And then suddenly they are old, old, and sour. I do not know which is the worst. I do not like men." "And yet you think of being married, which it is not nice to speak of," said Lucy, with disapproval. "Not--nice? Why is that? Must not girls be married? and if so, why not think of it?" said Bice, gravely. There was not the ghost of a blush upon her cheek. "If you might live without being married that would understand itself; but otherwise----" "Indeed," cried Lucy, "you can, indeed you can! In England, at least. To marry for a living, that is terrible." "Ah!" cried Bice, with interest, drawing her chair nearer, "tell me how that is to be done." There was the seriousness of a practical interest in the girl's manner. The question was very vital to her. There was no other way of existence possible so far as she knew; but if there was it was well worth taking into consideration. Lucy felt the question embarrassing when it was put to her in this very decisive way. "Oh," she cried with an Englishwoman's usual monosyllabic appeal for help to heaven and earth: "there are now a great number of ways. There are so many things that girls can do; there are things open to them that never used to be--they can even be doctors when they are clever. There are many ways in which they can maintain themselves."