"But fancy you talking like that!"
"If they're pretty, and play their cards properly, they're kept for life. If they're like you, and don't get married, it's a bad look-out. If they're pretty rotten, and have business instincts, they must make hay while the sun shines to keep them when it doesn't."
"And you don't really think the worse of me?"
"I think the more. It's always the good girls who go wrong."
"That means that you will."
"I haven't the chance. When girls are plain, like me, men don't notice them, and if they've no money of their own they have to earn a pittance in Melkbridge boot factories."
"I can't believe it's you, even now."
"I don't mind giving myself away, since you've done the same to me. And it's a relief to let off steam sometimes."
"And you really don't think the worse of me for having—having this?"
"I'd do the same myself to-morrow if I'd the chance and could afford to keep it, and knew it wouldn't curse me when it grew up."