"Some pretty cloak and suit models get big wages," said Cadge. "Yes, in the jobbing houses. That's wholesale trade, and every dicker counts. Have to corset themselves to death, though." "It's a fact," Cadge put in. "Many's the filler I've written about it. Girl has to destroy her beauty to get a living by her beauty." "Sure! Fashions not made to fit women, but women to fit fashions. Then those girls have an awful time, if they're careful about their associates. Why, it's getting so a model is expected to sell goods herself--held responsible if she doesn't. No sale, no job next week. See the situation," Pros. added, "--on the one hand the buyer, a vain man away from home, with thousands to invest; on the other a girl who must get that money for her firm. Well, of course it's not so bad as that, but----" "But _I_ wouldn't corset myself Redfern shape and go into such horrid places for the world," I cried. No more than Judge Baker, or Father, or any one else, could Reid see my situation. What do I care about earning $8 a week--or $80? I must have a great deal of money, at once; to pay my debts and to live upon. Men get money quickly--in Wall Street or by inventions or---- "Course not," said Pros. "You're the Princess; and Princesses may be Honorary Presidents and ask questions and take an interest, but they don't do things." "Pros. is right about the stage," said Cadge; "that's the best sort of wholesale business. You sell a chance to look at you to fifteen hundred people at once; and folks can't paw you over to see how your clothes fit, either. I'd like it myself, but I'm too--well, after all, I might do; I'm at least picturesquely ugly." And so the antiphony of discouragement ended in a laugh. I wonder--women on the stage do get big sums, and they often graduate from it to society. If even a music hall singer can become a duchess---- Bellmer's father made his money in sugar, they say. If I had it, I could storm any position. I suppose Mrs. Terry has shooed him off on that automobile tour I heard about; but he must come back--and so must Strathay. I can't wait long, I'm not safe an hour from human vultures hungry for money, though I've none to yield them. I must do something. No sooner had Mrs. Whitney vanished from the flat in a whirlwind of tears and reproaches than in came the furniture man, as if he had been watching the house, to threaten that, unless I pay at once, he will take away everything. He was not rude in words, but oh, so different from the oily people who sold me the things. His ferret eyes searched the apartment; he seemed counting every article. "The furniture's safe," I said; "it won't walk away." "Of course it's safe," he answered with a suspicion of a sneer; "but when'll it be paid for?" "I don't know; go away!" I said. "I've written to my father." The fellow looked at me with open admiration.