And she said: "Girls, I will tell you an awful secret. I never would have consented to this, but as long as Lee and Gay have gone and done it, I'm—glad."
"The only thing I mind," said Eve, "is Arthur. He'll take it hard."
"We can't help that," said Maud. "Business is business. And this wretched, shocking piece of mischief spells success. I feel it in my bones. There's no use being silly about ourselves. We've got our way to make in the world—and, as a sextet——"
She lingered over the picture.
"As a sextet, there's no use denying that we are rather lovely to look at."
Phyllis put in a word blindly.
"Maud," she said, "among the applications you have received, how many are from women?"
Maud laughed aloud.
"None," she said.