“And would you not be?” replied Miette, a strange confidence stealing into her manner.
“Indeed I would not!” declared Dorothy, in unmistakable tones. “Some of my very best friends work.”
“And would you—like—me just as well if—I worked?”
“Why, certainly I should. It takes a clever girl to earn money.”
“Then—perhaps—I should tell you. But you see I have been forbidden—”
“You must not tell me anything now, Miette, that you might regret after. I only want to help you, not to bring you into more trouble.”
“But if you knew it you could help me,” she said with sudden determination. “You see in France if a girl works she is—bourgeois.”
“We have no such distinction of classes here,” replied Dorothy proudly. “Of course, there are always rich and poor, proud and humble, but among the cultured classes there is absolute respect for honest labor.”
“That sounds like a meeting,” remarked Miette with a smile. “I went to a meeting with mother once, and a lady talked exactly like that.”
“Was she an American?” asked Dorothy, good humoredly.