"Pooh!" said madame, airily. "I'm not hurt. I don't care what the little bounder says. It's rather a good sign, in fact, that he should lose his temper. That type always does when they see you've the whip hand."
"How have we the whip hand?" Fenella never questioned the implied association of interest.
"My dear, because we're not dependent on Joe's say-so for a living. We're not a bankrupt solicitor's daughter with a mother and young sisters to support. We're not poor."
This was about the time that doubts were beginning to assail Fenella.
"Oh, but I am really," she persisted, rather ruefully.
"Well, you're not to all appearance, and it's appearances that count. Look at where you live! look at your relations! Oh, I've rubbed that all in; trust me."
Fenella sighed. A home in which strangers gave orders; relations under whose roof she would never be tempted again—for that chapter in her life was closed definitely. She had answered one incoherent, penitent letter, and sent back two more unopened.
"My dear Nellikins," said the kind-hearted dame, "have some more tea and don't look so worried. I know we're rather a sham, but try to feel the part. Be a winner!" She patted the slim hand held out for the teacup. "You do look one so, my dear. Once you admit," she went on, in a voice slightly veiled by buttered toast, "once you admit, even to yourself, that you're not doing a thing for fun and because you like it, the game's up. Because it's this sort of people who are coming to the front everywhere now—in books, and pictures, and music, and the stage—and everything."
"I've always heard that dabblers never did anything!"
"My dear, who said 'dabblers'? And besides"—impatiently—"a lot of that musty, fusty old wisdom wants tearing up and writing over again. How can any one who has to worry do the work that pays. Clever! Oh, yes, they may be very clever, but all they succeed in doing with their cleverness is in making the people who matter—the rich, important people—uncomfortable. And they will—not—be—made—uncomfortable, my dear. Besides, they never last long. Worry kills them off like the cold kills the flies."