She nodded.
“Yes. I am an independent sort of person,” she continued, “and I am engaged in an attempt to earn my own living. You don’t happen to know of any one, I suppose, who wants a nursery governess, or a clerk—without shorthand—or a tryer-on, or a copyist, or——”
“For Heaven’s sake stop, Miss Pellissier,” he interrupted. “What a hideous repertoire! If you are in earnest about wanting to earn money, why on earth don’t you accept an engagement here?”
“An engagement?” she queried.
“On the stage? Yes. You would not have the slightest difficulty.”
She laughed softly to herself.
“Do you know,” she confessed, “I never thought of that?”
He looked at her as though doubting even now whether she could possibly be in earnest.
“I cannot conceive,” he said, “how any other occupation could ever have occurred to you. You do not need me to remind you of your success at Paris. The papers are continually wondering what has become of ‘Alcide.’ Your name alone would fill any music hall in London.”
Again that curious smile which puzzled him so much parted her lips for a moment.