"But Aunt Caroline will never know," said Bill, who had no scruples on this point. "And you will be able to keep right on in your job."
Again Mary shook her head. She would have risen but for the fear that he would push her back into the chair a second time.
"I would be accepting charity," she declared firmly. "I do not need to do that."
Even her thought of the sick girl in the boarding-house did not prevent her from making this renunciation. Not even to supply Nell Norcross with a doctor, a nurse and medicine would she accept charity.
"I had better go down and explain the situation to Miss Marshall and then go," she added.
When she said that she did not realize how vulnerable was the spot in which she attacked him. Bill sensed the blow instantly.
"No, no!" he almost shouted. "You can't do that. You couldn't explain it to her in a million years."
Bill was worried. He did not know that young women were so difficult to please. He was worried about what Aunt Caroline would say. He knew that she was not only determined he should have a social secretary, but he divined that she wished him to have this particular secretary. More than that, on his own account, he was not yet ready to see the last of this young person. Still further, there was the desirable project of humiliating Pete Stearns in even greater degree.
"Then you may explain it to her," suggested Mary, clinging desperately to her remnant of conscience.