Sophy Gold was still staring out the open window.
"They don't bother me much, as a rule."
"Max Tack isn't a bad boy. He never wastes much time on me. I don't buy his line. Max is all business. Of course he's something of a smarty, and he does think he's the first verse and chorus of Paris-by-night; but you can't help liking him."
"Well, I can," said Sophy Gold, and her voice was a little bitter, "and without half trying."
"Oh, I don't say you weren't right. I've always made it a rule to steer clear of the ax-grinders myself. There are plenty of girls who take everything they can get. I know that Max Tack is just padded with letters from old girls, beginning 'Dear Kid,' and ending, 'Yours with a world of love!' I don't believe in that kind of thing, or in accepting things. Julia Harris, who buys for three departments in our store, drives up every morning in the French car that Parmentier's gave her when she was here last year. That's bad principle and poor taste. But—Well, you're young; and there ought to be something besides business in your life."
Sophy Gold turned her face from the window toward Miss Morrissey. It served to put a stamp of finality on what she said:
"There never will be. I don't know anything but business. It's the only thing I care about. I'll be earning my ten thousand a year pretty soon."
"Ten thousand a year is a lot; but it isn't everything. Oh, no, it isn't. Look here, dear; nobody knows better than I how this working and being independent and earning your own good money puts the stopper on any sentiment a girl might have in her; but don't let it sour you. You lose your illusions soon enough, goodness knows! There's no use in smashing 'em out of pure meanness."
"I don't see what illusions have got to do with Max Tack," interrupted Sophy Gold.
Miss Morrissey laughed her fat, comfortable chuckle.