‘Do you know of anything I could do? It isn’t so much to earn money, as to—to be occupied, and escape from loneliness. But I must have two afternoons in the week to myself.’
Beatrice nodded and smiled.
‘No,—not for that,’ Nancy added hastily. ‘To see my boy.’
The other appeared to accept this correction.
‘All right. I think I can find you something. We’re opening a branch.’ She mentioned the locality. ‘There’ll be a club-room, like at headquarters, and we shall want some one ladylike to sit there and answer questions. You wouldn’t be likely to see any one that knows you, and you’d get a good deal of fun out of it. Hours from ten to five, but Saturday afternoon off, and Wednesday after three, if that would do?’
‘Yes, that would do very well. Any payment, at first?’
‘Oh, we wouldn’t be so mean as all that. Say ten shillings a week till Christmas, and afterwards we could see’—she laughed—‘whether you’re worth more.’
‘I know nothing about fashions.’
‘You can learn all you need to know in an hour. It’s the ladylike appearance and talk more than anything else.’
Nancy sipped again from her wine-glass.