"You implied it."
There was a silence; Catharine lounged on the sofa, watching and
listening with interest. After a moment Doris shrugged her young
shoulders.
"Does it matter so much, anyway?" she said with a short, unpleasant
laugh.
"Does what matter--you little ninny!"
"Whether a girl is straight."
"Is that the philosophy you learn in your theatrical agencies?"
demanded Athalie fiercely. "What nauseating rot you do talk, Doris!"
"Very well. It may be nauseating. But what is a girl to do in a world
run entirely by men?"
"You know well enough what a girl is not to do, don't you? All right
then,--leave that undone and do what's left."
"What is left?" demanded Doris with a mirthless laugh. "There's
scarcely a job that a girl can hold unless she squares some man to
keep it--and keep--her!"
"Shame on you! I held mine for over five years," said Athalie with hot
contempt.
"Yes, and then along came the junior partner. You wouldn't square him:
you lost your job! There's always a junior partner in every
business--when there isn't a senior. There's nothing to it if you
stand in with the firm. If you don't--good night!"
"You managed to remain at the Egyptian Garden during the entire
season."
"But the fights I had, my dear, and the tricks I employed and the lies
I told and the promises I made! Oh, it's sickening--sickening! But--"
she shrugged--"what are you to do? Thousands of girls go queer
because they're forced to by starvation--"
"Nonsense!" cried Athalie hotly, "that is all stage twaddle and
exaggerated sentimentalism! I don't believe that one girl in a
thousand is forced into a dishonourable life!"
"Then why do girls go queer?"
"Because they want to; that's why! When they don't want to they
don't!"
Catharine, very wide-eyed, said solemnly: "But think of all the white
slaves--"
"They'd be that if they had been born to millions!" retorted Athalie.
"Ignorance and aptitude, that is white slavery. It's absolutely
nothing else. And in cases where the ignorance is absent, the aptitude
is there. If a girl has an aptitude for becoming some man's mistress
she'll probably do it whether she's ignorant or educated."
Doris, who had taken to chewing-gum furtively and in private,
discreetly rolled a morsel under her tongue.
"All I know is that your salary is advanced and you're given a part at
the Egyptian Garden if you stand in with Lewenbein or go to supper
with Shemsky. Of course," she added, "there are theatres where you
don't have to be horrid in order to succeed."