With one accord, all eyes left the plates and settled on her. A woman who earned eighteen hundred dollars a year was worth looking at. Wolf Larsen was undisguised in his admiration.
“Salary, or piece-work?” he asked.
“Piece-work,” she answered promptly.
“Eighteen hundred,” he calculated. “That’s a hundred and fifty dollars a month. Well, Miss Brewster, there is nothing small about the Ghost. Consider yourself on salary during the time you remain with us.”
She made no acknowledgment. She was too unused as yet to the whims of the man to accept them with equanimity.
“I forgot to inquire,” he went on suavely, “as to the nature of your occupation. What commodities do you turn out? What tools and materials do you require?”
“Paper and ink,” she laughed. “And, oh! also a typewriter.”
“You are Maud Brewster,” I said slowly and with certainty, almost as though I were charging her with a crime.
Her eyes lifted curiously to mine. “How do you know?”
“Aren’t you?” I demanded.