"Are you interested in working girls, Mr. Brent?" she inquired presently.
Honora, in spite of her discomfort, had an insane desire to giggle. She did not dare to raise her eyes.
"I can't say that I've had much experience with them, Mrs. Holt," he replied, with a gravity little short of sublime.
"Naturally you wouldn't have had," said Mrs. Holt. "What I meant was, are you interested in the problems they have to face?"
"Extremely," said he, so unexpectedly that Honora choked. "I can't say that I've given as many hours as I should have liked to a study of the subject, but I don't know of any class that has a harder time. As a rule, they're underpaid and overworked, and when night comes they are either tired to death or bored to death, and the good-looking ones are subject to temptations which some of them find impossible to resist, in a natural desire for some excitement to vary the routine of their lives."
"It seems to me," said Mrs. Holt, "that you are fairly conversant with the subject. I don't think I ever heard the problem stated so succinctly and so well. Perhaps," she added, "it might interest you to attend one of our meetings next month. Indeed, you might be willing to say a few words."
"I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, Mrs. Holt. I'm a rather busy man, and nothing of a public speaker, and it is rarely I get off in the daytime."
"How about automobiling?" asked Mrs. Holt, with a smile.
"Well," said Trixton Brent, laughing in spite of himself, "I like the working girls, I have to have a little excitement occasionally. And I find it easier to get off in the summer than in the winter."
"Men cover a multitude of sins under the plea of business," said Mrs. Holt, shaking her head. I can't say I think much of your method of distraction. Why any one desires to get into an automobile, I don't see."