d her perplexity in her face.

Miss Allen, unaccustomed to such a fallow ear, could not resist giving
further information of a like nature.

"You are green, 'B. C.' I suppose you'll be saying next you don't know
what Mrs Stanley is."

"I don't."

"Go on!"

"What is she?"

"She's awfully well known; she gets hold of pretty young girls new to
London for rich men: that's why she was so keen on you."

As Mavis still did not understand, Miss Allen explained the nature of
the lucrative and time immemorial profession to which Mrs Stanley
belonged.

For the rest of the way, Mavis was so astonished at all she had heard,
that she did not say any more; she scarcely listened to Miss Allen, who
jabbered away at her side.

On the way back, she spoke to Miss Allen upon a more personal matter.

"What did your friend mean last night by saying I'd been through
Orgles's hands?"

"She thought he introduced you here?"

"What's that to do with it?"

"He sees all the young ladies who want rises and most of the young
ladies who want work at 'Dawes'.' If he doesn't fancy them, and they
want 'rises,' he tells them they have their latch-keys; if he fancies
them, he asks what they're prepared to pay for his influence."

"Money?" asked Mavis.

"Money, no," replied Miss Allen scornfully.

"You mean--?" asked Mavis, flushing.

"Of course. He's sent dozens of girls 'on the game.'"

"On the game?"

"On the streets, then."

Mavis's body glowed with the hot blood of righteous anger.

"It can't be," she urged.

"Can't be?"

"It isn't right."

"What's that to do with it?"

"It wouldn't be allowed."

"Who's to stop it?"

"But if it's wrong, it simply can't go on."

"Whose to stop it, I say?"

It was on the tip of Mavis's tongue to urge how He might interfere to
prevent His sparrows being devoured by hawks; but this was not a
subject which she cared to discuss with Miss Allen. This young person,
taking Mavis's silence for the acquiescence of defeat, went on:

"Of course, on the stage or in books something always happens just in
the nick of time to put things right; but that ain't life, or nothing
like it."

"What is life, then?" asked Mavis, curious to hear what the other would
say.

"Money: earning enough to live on and for a bit of a fling now and
then."

"What about love?"

"That's a luxury. If the stage and books was what life really is, we
shop-girls wouldn't like 'em so much."

Mavis relapsed into sil