"Well, here's the key to the box of tricks. I'll hand it to you now. Athalie has turned into a regular, genuine, out and out clairvoyant, trade-marked patented. And society with a big S and science with a little s are fighting to take her up and make a plaything of her. And the girl is making all kinds of money.
"Of course her beauty and pretty manners are doing most of it for her, but here's another point: rumour has it that she's perfectly sincere and honest in her business.
"How can she be, Clive? I ask you. Also I hand it to her press-agent. He's got every simp in town on the run. He knows his public.
"Well, the first time I met her she was dining with Dane again at the Arabesque. She seemed really glad to see me. There's a girl who remains unaffected and apparently unspoiled by her success. And she certainly has delightful manners. Dane glowered at me but Athalie made me sit down for a few minutes. Gad! I was that flattered to be seen with such a looker!
"She told me how it began—she couldn't secure a decent position, and all her money was gone, when in came an old guy who had patronised the medium whose rooms she was living in.
"That started it. The doddering old rube insisted
that Athalie take a crack at the crystal business; she took one, and landed him. And when he went out he left a hundred bones in his wake and a puddle of tears on the rug.
"She didn't tell it to me like this: she really fell for the old gentleman. But I could size him up for a come-on. The rural districts crawl with that species. Now what gets me, Clive, is this: Athalie seems to me to be one of the straightest ever. Of course she has changed a lot. She's cleverer, livelier, gayer, more engaging and bewitching than ever—and believe me she's some flirt, in a sweet, bewildering sort of way—so that you'd give your head to know how much is innocence and how much is art of a most delicious—and, sometimes, malicious kind.
"That's the girl. And that's all she is, just a girl, with all the softness and freshness and fragrance of youth still clinging to her. She's some peach-blossom, take it from uncle! And she is straight; or I'm a million miles away in the lockup.
"And now, granted she's morally straight, how can she be square in business? Do you get me? It's past me. All I can think of is that, being straight, the girl feels herself that she's also square.