"No stage experience?"
"No."
"Well—what do you say, Miss Greensleeve?"
Athalie coloured and laughed: "Thank you, but I had rather work at stenography."
Mrs. Bellmore said: "I certainly hate to admit it, and knock my own profession, but any good stenographer in a year makes more than many a star you read about.... Unless there's men putting up for her."
Athalie nodded gravely.
"All the same you'd make a peach of a show-girl," added Mrs. Bellmore regretfully. And, after a rather intent interval of silent scrutiny: "You're a good girl, too.... Say, you do get pretty lonely sometimes, don't you, dear?"
Athalie flushed and shook her head. Mrs. Bellmore lighted another cigarette from the smouldering remnant of the previous one, and flung the gilt-tipped remains through the window.
"Ten to one it hits a crook if it hits anybody," she remarked. "This is a fierce neighbourhood,—all sorts of joints, and then some. But I like my rooms. I don't guess you'll be bothered. A girl is more likely to get spoken to in the swell part of town. Well,—" she struggled to her fat feet—"I'll be going. If you're lonely, drop in during the evening. I'm at the office all day except Sundays and holidays."