"Bosh!" cut in the woman, impatiently. "Don't try to flimflam me. Lord knows what kind of game you were working, but you had more nerve than sense. You might have guessed when you tried to put your bare word against Mr. Rose's that they'd make it their business to find out just what your word was worth. Your last employer told them." "Told them what?" blazed Jean. "What do you suppose? That you'd done time in a reformatory, of course." XIV In her dark hour came Paul. "I know," he said, hunting her out in the corner of the melancholy drawing-room where she sat Sunday afternoon with absent eyes upon "The Trial of Effie Deans." "Some of it I guessed, and a little more filtered from Amy _via_ Mrs. St. Aubyn, but I got the finishing touch from a man in the store." "The store!" Jean had a moment of acute dismay; she would fain leave Paul his illusions. "What man?" "A chap in the drug department I do work for now and then. He turned up at the parlors this morning. We're open Sundays from 'leven to one, you know." Then, the refuge spectre had followed here! She could not look him in the face. But Paul's next words reassured. "He didn't mention names, but I put two and two together quick enough when he told me that one of their new girls knocked out a fresh floor-walker the other night. I was proud I knew you." "Did he know of my--my discharge?" "No." "You didn't mention it yourself?" Jean faltered. "Or my name?" Paul's look was sad. "That's a shade lower down than I think I've got," he observed loftily. "A man who'd lug in a lady friend's name under such circumstances wouldn't stop at the few trifles that still faze me. He--why, he'd even gold-crown an anterior tooth!" She hastened to mollify him, relieved beyond measure that his chance informant knew nothing of the real reason for her dismissal. Amy could be trusted to conceal it for her own sake. Then Paul stirred her anxiety afresh with a request. "I want to polish off Mr. Rose," he said, doubling his fist suggestively. "You made a good beginning, but the pup needs a thorough job. I know where he boards--he told me that night he butted in; and if you'll just let me call round as a friend of yours--" "No, no. Promise me you won't!" "But he needs it," argued the dentist, plaintively. "I'd also like, if it could be managed, to say a few things to the head of the firm." "Indeed you mustn't," cried Jean. "Promise me you'll say nothing about it in any way!" "Can't I even _tell_ Rose what I think?" "Never. I've got to accept this thing and make a new start. I must forget it, not brood over it. You mustn't thrash him, you mustn't tell him what you think--above all, you mustn't go to the firm. Promise me you won't!" "All right," he assented, manifestly puzzled. "A girl looks at things differently. I've got another proposition, though, which I hope you won't veto. Any prejudice against dentists, present company excepted?" "No," smiled Jean.