She repeated the obnoxious noun, continuing to walk on.
"But I thought you were a stenographer."
"That's part of it. I'm deceiving poor Miss Averill. She's my dupe. I make use of people in that way—and throw them aside."
"But doing the work for Doctor Averill in the mean time."
"Oh, that's just a pretext."
"A pretext for what?"
"For being an adventuress. Goodness knows what evil I shall do in that family before I get out of it."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Oh, well, you'll see. If you're born baleful—well, you've just got to be baleful; that's all. Did you ever hear of an adventuress who didn't wreck homes?"
I said I had not much experience with adventuresses, and didn't quite know the point of their occupation.