"But you can't afford to do that."
The restaurant girl's mind was aroused, was working fast and well. "You can help in the restaurant of evenings," she promptly replied. "I'll tell ma you're so pretty you'll draw trade. And I'll explain that you used to go to school with me—and have lost your father and mother. My name's Etta Brashear."
"Mine's—Lorna Sackville," said Susan, blushing. "I'll come after a while, and we'll talk about what to do. I may not get a place."
"Oh, you'll get it. He has hard work finding girls. Factories usually pay more than stores, because the work's more looked down on—though Lord knows it's hard to think how anything could be more looked down on than a saleslady."
"I don't see why you bother about those things. What do they matter?"
"Why, everybody bothers about them. But you don't understand. You were born a lady, and you'll always feel you've got social standing, and people'll feel that way too."
"But I wasn't," said Susan earnestly. "Indeed, I wasn't. I was born—a—a nobody. I can't tell you, but I'm just nobody. I haven't even got a name."
Etta, as romantic as the next young girl, was only the more fascinated by the now thrillingly mysterious stranger—so pretty, so sweet, with such beautiful manners and strangely outcast no doubt from some family of "high folks." "You'll be sure to come? You won't disappoint me?"
Susan kissed Etta. Etta embraced Susan, her cheeks flushed, her eyes brilliant. "'I've taken an awful fancy to you," she said. "I haven't ever had an intimate lady friend. I don't care for the girls round here. They're so fresh and common. Ma brought me up refined; she's not like the ordinary working-class woman."
It hurt Susan deeply—why, she could not have quite explained—to hear Etta talk in this fashion. And in spite of herself her tone was less friendly as she said, "I'll come when I find out."