“I don’t wonder at it. Dear, sweet little thing, freezing to death like that! Why didn’t some one give him a seal-skin jacket? And do you really sing things like that at those dreadful places in Leicester Square?”
Belle began to feel uncomfortable. The patronage it was difficult to resent, but the hinted disparagement roused her courage.
“I am sorry you think them dreadful,” she said, modestly but quite firmly, “because, you know, I have to sing there for my living.”
The marchioness’s determined good-nature was not to be turned aside.
“No, no; of course, I ought not to have called them that before you. But one reads such shocking things about them in the newspapers when they apply for their licenses to the County Council. I’m sure I hope it isn’t half of it true.”
“I hope you won’t be offended if I stand up for them,” Belle persisted, bravely. “I must be loyal to my own profession, mustn’t I?”
“Of course! Of course! Most properly. I hope—in fact, I am sure, that they have done you no harm. But I have heard so much about these places, and the life, that it makes me feel the very gravest doubt. I take an interest in you, Miss Yorke, and I should be so sorry if you were to lower yourself by your connection with the music-halls.”
Still bleeding from the wound dealt her in all respectful kindness by the man who had been with her just before, Belle roused herself to ward off the more envenomed stabs of the woman who was with her now.
“I don’t intend to lower myself, or to let myself be lowered, by any place I may go to,” she said, with dignity, looking the marchioness in the face.
The marchioness smiled on her like a mother.