Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical offices, dawdling all

day from one to the next, sitting for hours in company with other

aspirants to histrionic honours and wages, gossiping, listening to

stage talk, professional patter, and theatrical scandal until her

pretty ears were buzzing with everything that ought not to concern her

and her moral fastidiousness gradually became less delicate.

Repetition is the great leveller, the great persuader. The greatest

power on earth, for good or evil, is incessant reiteration.

Catharine lost her position, worked at a cheap milliner's for a week,

addressed envelopes for another week, and was again left unemployed.

Athalie accepted several offers; at one place they didn't pay her for

two weeks and then suggested she take half the salary agreed upon; at

another her employer became offensively familiar; at another the

manager made her position unendurable.

By July the financial outlook in the Greensleeve family was becoming

rather serious: Doris threatened gloomily to go into burlesque;

Catharine at first tearful and discouraged, finally grew careless and

made few real efforts to find employment. Also she began to go out

almost every evening, admitting very frankly that the home larder had

become too lean and unattractive to suit her.

[Illustration: "Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical

offices."] Doris always went out more or less; and what troubled Athalie was not

that the girl had opportunities for the decent nourishment she needed,

but that her reticence concerning the people she dined with was

steadily increasing.

"Oh, shut up! I can look out for myself," she always repeated

sullenly. "Anyway, Athalie, you are not the one to bully me. Nobody

ever presented me with a cosy flat and--"

"Doris!"

"Didn't your young man give you this flat?"

"Don't speak of him or of me in that manner," said Athalie, flushing

scarlet.

"Why are you so particular? It's the truth. He's given you about

everything a man can offer a girl, hasn't he?--jewellery, furniture,

clothing--cats--"

"Will you please not say anything more!"

But Doris was still smarting under recent admonition, and she meant to

make an end of Athalie's daily interference: "I will say what I like

when it's the truth," she retorted. "You are very free with your

unsolicited advice. And I'll say this, and it's true, that not one

girl in a thousand who accepts what you have accepted from Clive

Bailey, is straight!"

Athalie's tightening lips quivered: "Do you intimate that I am not

straight?"

"I didn't say that."




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