Once more Laura’s conscience smote her. Once more she parried the blow. What on earth was the use of playing a practical joke at all, if one was to get more and more remorseful the more successfully it developed? She looked her conscience in the face and dared it to raise its fist again; it retired, abashed. Once more logic triumphed over sickly sentimentality. “Oh, yes,” she said colourlessly. Mr. Priestley was toying with a toast-crumb. “And is it permitted to know what you do, or where you live?” he ventured. “Don’t tell me, if you’d rather not, of course.” “But why shouldn’t I, Mr. Priestley? Especially considering how kind you’ve been to me. I’m a typist, and I live——” She paused. For once circumstances had caught Laura napping; she had no new story ready. The word typist had risen to her lips automatically; in the magazine-stories the distressed maiden is nearly always a typist, or a typist masquerading as somebody else, or somebody else masquerading as a typist. But for the moment her mind was perfectly empty of addresses, “I don’t live anywhere,” she plunged desperately. “You don’t live anywhere?” repeated Mr. Priestley, with not unreasonable surprise. “No,” said Laura, to whom had occurred a certain small light in her darkness. “I—I was a typist, you see, but——” Her voice broke artistically; she bent her dark head over her empty cup. “But I was dismissed.” “Good gracious!” said Mr. Priestley, much concerned. “Why?” The look Laura turned on him was a miracle. “The manager tried to make love to me,” she said in a low, halting voice. Laura was seeing her way more clearly every moment. “He—he tried to kiss me. I wouldn’t let him, so——!” She shrugged her slim shoulders. “I was dismissed, of course.” “Scandalous!” spluttered Mr. Priestley, acutely conscious that he also had tried to kiss this same delectable person, and successfully. Yes, where haughty managers, with the power of doubled salary or dismissal in their hands, had been ignominiously repulsed, he, Mr. Priestley, had succeeded. Involuntarily he drew himself up. “Scandalous!” he repeated. “Outrageous! Who is the scoundrel?” “The man,” said Laura with sudden inspiration, “you shot.” “What!” exclaimed the startled Mr. Priestley. There was a tense pause. Laura broke it. “Oh, why shouldn’t I tell you the truth?” she said in low, bitter tones. “You’ve been kind to me. The only man who ever has.” She hesitated a moment to decide exactly what the truth should be. “Yes, that man was the manager—er—the managing-director of the firm where I worked. I got the post through the influence of an old friend of my father’s. He died shortly afterwards,” she added, neatly polishing off this possibly awkward patron. “Dear, dear!” clucked Mr. Priestley, in respectful tribute to this very short-lived individual.