Stella's eyebrows went up. Ten pounds were worth so much to that muddled, penurious household standing behind her on the verge of utmost poverty! The man whose place she had taken had been paid three hundred a year; her rise brought up her salary to one third of this amount.
"It is a disability, Mr. Travers," she said gently, "being a woman. I see that it is going to cost me two hundred a year."
Mr. Travers looked at her very hard. He knew that she did her work twice as well as the man she had replaced. That is why she had replaced him. He thought of her market value as a worker, and he knew that he was doing a perfectly correct thing. A hundred a year was a fair wage for a woman secretary. He said:
"You see, Miss Waring, you have not got a family to support."
Stella flushed. She had a family to support, but she did not intend to admit it to Mr. Travers.. She said:
"I beg your pardon. I had not understood that wages were paid according to a worker's needs. I had thought the value of the work settled the rate of payment."
Mr. Travers was astonished. He had never dreamed that Miss Waring would argue with him. He had looked forward to telling her of this unexpected windfall; he had expected a flushed and docile gratitude. She was a little flushed, it is true, but she was neither docile nor grateful, and he did not quite see his way to continuing her line of argument. She had, however, put herself in the wrong, and he pointed this out to her.
"I am afraid I cannot see my way to offering you more than the increase I have suggested," he said; "but as you were apparently satisfied to accept a permanent post at my original offer, I may hope that an extra ten pounds will prove no obstacle to our continuing to work together."
"I do not suppose," said Stella, quietly, "that it will be any obstacle to you that I do not think it fair."
"Really, Miss Waring, really," said Mr. Travers, "I do not think you are quite yourself this morning. The heat, the disquieting news in the papers—Perhaps you had better go on with the correspondence. These questions are not personal ones, you know—they—"