ence, at which Miss Allen said:

"Of course, in my heart, dear, I think just as you do and would like to
have no 'truck' with Ada Potter or Rose Impett; but one has to know
which side one's bread is buttered. See?"

Later, when talking over Mavis with the girls she had disparaged, Miss
Allen was equally emphatic in her condemnation of "that stuck-up 'B.
C.,'" as she called the one-time teacher of Brandenburg College.

Mavis's anger, once urged to boiling point by what she had learned of
old Orgles's practices, did not easily cool; it remained at a high
temperature, and called into being all the feeling of revolt, of which
she was capable, against the hideous injustice and the infamous wrongs
to which girls were exposed who sought employment at "Dawes'," or who,
having got this, wished for promotion. Luckily, or unluckily for her,
the course of this story will tell which, the Marquis de Raffini,
accompanied by a new "Madame the Marquise," came into the shop directly
she came up from dinner on the same day, and made for where she was
standing. Two or three of the "young ladies" pressed forward, but the
Marquis was attracted by Mavis; he showed in an unmistakable manner
that he preferred her services.

He wanted a trousseau for "Madame the Marquise." He--ahem!--she was
very particular, very, very particular about her lingerie; would Mavis
show "Madame" "Dawes'" most dainty and elaborate specimens?

Mavis was no prude; but this request, coming on top of all she had
learned from Miss Allen, fanned the embers of resentment against the
conditions under which girls, helpless as she, worked. The Marquis's
demand, the circumstances in which it was made, seemed part and parcel
of a system of oppression, of which old Orgles's sending dozens of
girls "on the game," who might otherwise have kept straight, was
another portion. The realisation of this fact awoke in Mavis a burning
sense of injustice; it only needed a spark to cause an explosion. This
was not long in coming. The Marquis examined the things that she set
before him with critical eye; his eagerness to handle them did not
prevent his often looking admiringly at Mavis, a proceeding that did
not please "Madame the Marquise," who felt resentful against Mavis for
marring her transient triumph. "Madame the Marquise" pouted and
fretted, but without effect; when her "husband" presently put his mouth
distressingly near Mavis's ear, "Madame's" feelings got the better of
her; sh