Yet, looking now across the table at her, a not unkind curiosity began to prod him. He could easily have left matters where they were, maintained the status quo indefinitely—or as long as he needed her services.
"Outlets are necessary," he said, cautiously. "Otherwise we go to the bow-wows."
"Or—die."
"What?" sharply.
She looked up without a trace of self-consciousness or the least hint of the dramatic:
"I would die unless I had an outlet. This is almost one. At least it gives me something to do with my life."
"Posing?"
"Yes."
"I don't quite understand you."
"Why, I only mean that—the other"—she smiled—"what you call the bow-wows, would not have been an outlet for me…. I was a show-girl for two months last winter; I ought to know. And I'd rather have died than—"