"Pros. is right about the stage," said Cadge; "that's the best sort of wholesale business. You sell a chance to look at you to fifteen hundred people at once; and folks can't paw you over to see how your clothes fit, either. I'd like it myself, but I'm too—well, after all, I might do; I'm at least picturesquely ugly."
And so the antiphony of discouragement ended in a laugh.
I wonder—women on the stage do get big sums, and they often graduate from it to society. If even a music hall singer can become a duchess——
Bellmer's father made his money in sugar, they say. If I had it, I could storm any position. I suppose Mrs. Terry has shooed him off on that automobile tour I heard about; but he must come back—and so must Strathay.
I can't wait long, I'm not safe an hour from human vultures hungry for money, though I've none to yield them.
I must do something. No sooner had Mrs. Whitney vanished from the flat in a whirlwind of tears and reproaches than in came the furniture man, as if he had been watching the house, to threaten that, unless I pay at once, he will take away everything. He was not rude in words, but oh, so different from the oily people who sold me the things. His ferret eyes searched the apartment; he seemed counting every article.
"The furniture's safe," I said; "it won't walk away."
"Of course it's safe," he answered with a suspicion of a sneer; "but when'll it be paid for?"
"I don't know; go away!" I said. "I've written to my father."
The fellow looked at me with open admiration.