rs. Everybody in Geneva knows it. And here too. And whenever
I try to get away from this"--she stretched out her hands to include
the room about her--"Someone tells! Five times, now." She leaned forward
appealingly, not as though asking pity for herself, but as wishing
him to see her point of view. "I didn't choose this business," she
protested, "I was sort of born in it, and," she broke out loyally,
"I hate to have you call it a mean business; but I can't get into any
other. Whenever I have, some man says, That girl in your front office is
a thief." The restraint she put upon herself, the air of disdain which
at all times she had found the most convenient defense, fell from her.

"It's not fair!" she cried, "it's not fair." To her mortification, the
tears of self-pity sprang to her eyes, and as she fiercely tried to
brush them away, to her greater anger, continued to creep down her
cheeks. "It was nine years ago," she protested, "I was a child. I've
been punished enough." She raised her face frankly to his, speaking
swiftly, bitterly.

"Of course, I want to get away!" she cried. "Of course, I want friends.
I've never had a friend. I've always been alone. I'm tired, tired! I
hate this business. I never know how much I hate it until the chance
comes to get away--and I can't."

She stopped, but without lowering her head or moving her eyes from his.

"This time," said the man quietly, "you're going to get away from it."

"I can't," repeated the girl, "you can't help me!"

Winthrop smiled at her confidently.

"I'm going to try," he said.

"No, please!" begged the girl. Her voice was still shaken with tears.
She motioned with her head toward the room behind her.

"These are my people," she declared defiantly, as though daring him
to contradict her. "And they are good people! They've tried to be good
friends to me, and they've been true to me."

Winthrop came toward her and stood beside her, so close that he could
have placed his hand upon her shoulder. He wondered, whimsically, if she
knew how cruel she seemed in appealing with her tears, her helplessness
and loveliness to what was generous and chivalric in him; and, at the
same time, by her words, treating him as an interloper and an enemy.

"That's all right," he said gently. "But that doesn't prevent my being a
good friend to you, too, does it? Or," he added, his voice growing tense
and conscious--"my being true to you? My sisters will be here tomorrow,"
he an