“Your brother is in Australia?”
“Never mind where he is. If he keeps his promise to you I must never see him again; he must never come back to England. But listen; this has nothing to do with my brother—it has to do with me. I could scarcely live on less than two shillings a day, which means that I have exactly a week in which to spend my money. At the end of that time where am I?”
She stood up and held out her empty palms.
“Now listen, Leslie. I know Mr. Parker does not like me, and he never liked Rupert. It is true he was kind to me, for he helped to pay for my education at St. Wode’s. If I had taken a first-class at my final I could have got a good situation as a teacher, although I hate teaching, for I am too impatient and too dreamy; but as I have only barely taken an ordinary, all that sort of thing is hopeless. Besides, even if it were not hopeless, there
is nothing vacant. I must live while I am waiting for a situation. Now, Mr. Parker wants a secretary. He wants a girl to come to his office every day to write his letters and to attend generally to his correspondence, and I intend to secure that post. I am told that he offers his secretary two guineas a week. I mean to be that secretary: I mean to earn that money. He won’t give me the post, though, because he does not like me well enough; but if you come with me and plead for me, just because he likes you, because he loves you, he will give the post to me. Can you come now, at once? I was at his office this morning. I did not say who I was; and, do you know, there were twenty girls waiting to see him for this one situation. They all looked capable and clever, the sort who would write his letters and attend to his correspondence, and keep things going for him. But every one of those twenty girls are to be disappointed, for I am to be the successful one. I shall be, if you will speak a good word for me. Come, Leslie, will you do this for me?”
“But do you quite realize what you are asking?” said Leslie; “to demand a favor of Mr. Parker? Annie, you cannot know what this means. I will speak to you frankly. My heart has been cold as a stone to you. You have made my life all gall and bitterness.”
“Oh, folly!” said Annie. “Remember, I shall starve. Only fourteen shillings between me and the world!”
“But Mr. Parker will not give you the situation if I ask him,” continued Leslie. “He scarcely speaks to me now if we meet. How can I ask him to do me a favor? Annie, you expect too much.”
Annie stared very hard at Leslie; then she rose to her feet. There was a look of despair in her eyes; her cheeks were ghastly white.
“Fourteen shillings,” she said in a whisper.