"What do you suppose?"
"Now, my experience of what is called a gentleman in England is, that so long as he has got plenty of money to spend, and everything's made smooth for him, he may be quite a decent sort; but he's the most helpless creature on God's earth when his pockets are empty and he has to trust to himself to fill them. So long as he has friends to give him a lift he may manage somehow, but when his only friend is himself he's scrambling for crusts in the gutter almost before he himself knows it. To one who has had to earn his bread all his life by the sweat of his brow it's nothing less than amazing how soon he gets there. Mr. Sydney Beaton was in the gutter, and worse than the gutter, when I first met him."
At last Miss Forster did turn, and looked the speaker in the face.
"Where did you first meet him?"
Miss Spurrier was settling her beautiful hat upon her well-groomed head.
"It's not a pretty story--not very much to his credit or mine. You don't know how little of a hero a man can be when his stomach's empty and he has nothing to put into it, especially when he's a gentleman."
Apparently the visitor got her hat all right. She rested both hands on the handle of her parasol and she smiled.
"I want to slur over the disagreeable places in my story, Miss Forster--I always do like to avoid as much as possible what is unpleasant--and I don't want to keep you any longer than I can help. I want to get to what I'm after by the shortest possible way. You know what my profession is?"
"I can form a shrewd guess."
"I shouldn't be surprised; circumstances have helped you. But the world in general, Miss Forster, treats me as in every respect your equal. I was on my beam ends when I adopted it. I dare say you don't know what it is to be on your beam ends."