"Brings us luck with the gentlemen," interrupted Lil.
The subject thus opened, Lil became eloquent upon many aspects of her occupation. Presently she said:
"It isn't always the worst girls who are 'on the game.'"
"Indeed!"
"So many are there through no fault of their own."
"How is that?" asked Mavis.
"They get starved into it. It's all these big shops and places. They pay sweating wages, and to get food the girls pick up men. That's the beginning."
Mavis nodded assent. She remembered all she had heard and seen on this matter when at "Dawes'."
"And the small employers are getting just as bad. And of them the women are the worst. They don't care how much they grind poor girls down. If anything, I b'lieve they enjoy it. And if once a girl goes wrong, they're the ones to see she don't get back. Why is it they hate us so?"
"Give it up," replied Mavis, who added, "I should think it wanted an awful lot of courage."