usement Lucy's countenance of
perplexity, and laughed again.

"I've had ten years of independence; and what has it brought me? The
reward of virtue: that swaybacked couch for my bed, Uneeda biscuit for
my bread, and for salt--tears of envy!"

"Virtue is its own reward," Lucy enunciated severely.

"Virtue is its only reward, you mean!"

"You don't talk fit to eat."

"You know what I mean. Only mental bankrupts go to the devil because
they're hungry. I'm less bothered about keeping body and soul together
--Huckster's seven a week does that after a fashion--than about
keeping soul and mind together."

"It sounds reasonable."

"I'm desperate, I tell you! And there's more than one resort of
desperation for a girl of intelligence."

"As, for instance-"

"Well--you've named one."

"Man?"

"That's the animal's first name."

"But you've just pointed out, a successful campaign demands a
wardrobe."

"Even that can be had if one's unscrupulous enough."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"To seek happiness where I can find it. I'm game for anything. I'm
'north of fifty-three'!"

"You're _what_?"

"Have you forgotten the 'Rhyme of the Three Sealers'? 'There's never a
law of God or man runs north of fifty-three'! Well, the age of
twenty-seven is a woman's fifty-three, north latitude--at least, it is
if she's unmarried--time to jettison scruples, morals, regard for the
conventions, and hoist the black flag of social piracy!"

"In plain language, you think the hour has struck to doll yourself up
like a man-trap. What?"

"Yes--and hang the expense!"

"By all means, hang it. But where? It's a case of cash or credit; the
first you haven't got, and I don't see your visible means of
supporting a charge-account at Altman's."

"There are ways," Sally insisted darkly.

"You can't mean you'd do anything dishonest--"

"I'd do _anything_. Look at all the people in high places who began as
nothing more nor less than adventurers. Nobody's fussing about how
they got their money. It's a sin to be poor nowadays, but the sin of
sins is to stay poor!"

A moment of silence followed this pronouncement; then Miss Spode
observed pensively:

"Something's happened to you to-day, Sally. What is it? You haven't
been--"

"Fired again'? Not exactly. Just laid off indefinitely--that's all.
With good luck I may get my job back next September."

"Oh, but honey!" Lucy exclaimed, crossing to drop a hand on Sally's
shoulder: "I am sorry!"