“But Mr. Conrad offered to relieve you from all anxiety about your future. Why did you not accept his offer?”
“I will never be dependent upon any one but myself,” Brownie said, haughtily.
“But you will lose caste.”
“Perhaps; but I shall not lose my character nor my self-respect,” was the very quiet though cold reply.
“Your friends will forsake you.”
“They are not worthy the name, then, nor a regret,” and the delicate red lips curled with infinite scorn, yet there was the faintest perceptible quiver upon them, and a wistful look in the dark, beautiful eyes.
Would Aspasia go with the rest?
“Do you not care if you lose them?” Aspasia asked eagerly.
“I have had many kind and dear ones, but if they have loved my prospective fortune more than they have loved me, the sooner I find it out the better. At all events, this calamity, if it can be so termed, will show me the true and the false.”
“And you will not feel degraded to go out and earn your pittance, perhaps a dollar a day, with your own hands?”