"And now," said he, "let's settle the last detail. How much a week? How would five hundred strike you?"
"That's more than twelve times the largest salary I ever got.
It's many times as much as I made in the——"
"No matter," he hastily interposed. "It's the least you can hold down the job on. You've got to spend money—for clothes and so on."
"Two hundred is the most I can take," said she. "It's the outside limit."
He insisted, but she remained firm. "I will not accustom myself to much more than I see any prospect of getting elsewhere," explained she. "Perhaps later on I'll ask for an increase—later on, when I see how things are going and what my prospects elsewhere would be. But I must begin modestly."
"Well, let it go at two hundred for the present. I'll deposit a year's salary in a bank, and you can draw against it. Is that satisfactory? You don't want me to hand you two hundred dollars every Saturday, do you?"
"No. That would get on my nerves," said she.
"Now—it's all settled. When shall we sail?"
"There's a girl I've got to look up before I go."
"Maud? You needn't bother about her. She's married to a piker from up the state—a shoe manufacturer. She's got a baby, and is fat enough to make two or three like what she used to be."