“It’s not, indeed.” Real compassion prompted him to continue: “Have you any—any influence you can count on?”
She gave a somewhat flippant little laugh. “None but my own. I’ve never had any other to count on.”
He passed over the obvious reply. “But have you any idea how the profession is over-crowded? I know I’m trite——”
“I’ve a very clear idea. But I couldn’t go on as I was.”
“Of course not. But since, as you say, you’d stuck it out longer than any of the others, couldn’t you at least have held on till you were sure of some kind of an opening?”
She made no reply for a moment; then she turned a listless glance to the rain-beaten window. “Oughtn’t we be starting?” she asked, with a lofty assumption of indifference that might have been Lady Ulrica’s.
Darrow, surprised by the change, but accepting her rebuff as a phase of what he guessed to be a confused and tormented mood, rose from his seat and lifted her jacket from the chair-back on which she had hung it to dry. As he held it toward her she looked up at him quickly.
“The truth is, we quarrelled,” she broke out, “and I left last night without my dinner—and without my salary.”
“Ah—” he groaned, with a sharp perception of all the sordid dangers that might attend such a break with Mrs. Murrett.
“And without a character!” she added, as she slipped her arms into the jacket. “And without a trunk, as it appears—but didn’t you say that, before going, there’d be time for another look at the station?”
There was time for another look at the station; but the look again resulted in disappointment, since her trunk was nowhere to be found in the huge heap disgorged by the newly-arrived London express. The fact caused Miss Viner a moment’s perturbation; but she promptly adjusted herself to the necessity of proceeding on her journey, and her decision confirmed Darrow’s vague resolve to go to Paris instead of retracing his way to London.
Miss Viner seemed cheered at the prospect of his company, and sustained by his offer to
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