a gasp and a sigh. "They 're making
the most of me while I last," said Annette aloud.

Her purse was under her pillow, an old and baggy affair of shagreen,
whose torn lining had to be explored with a forefinger for the coins
it swallowed. She emptied it now upon the bed. The light of a Paris
summer morning, golden and serene, flowed in at the window, visiting
the poverty of the little room with its barren benediction and
shining upon the figure of Annette as she bent above her money and
counted it She was a slender girl of some three-and-twenty years,
with hair and eyes of a somber brown; six weeks of searching for
employment in Paris and economizing in food, of spurring herself each
morning to the tone of hope and resolution, of returning each evening
footsore and dispirited, had a little blanched and touched with
tenseness a face in which there yet lingered some of the soft
contours of childhood.

She sat down beside the money on the bed, her ankles crossed below
her petticoat; her accounts were made up. After paying the bill and
bestowing one franc in the unavoidable tip, there would remain to her
exactly eight francs for her whole resources. It was the edge of the
precipice at last. It was that precipice, overhanging depths unseen
and terrible, which she was contemplating as she sat, feet swinging
gently in the rhythm of meditation, her face serious and quiet. For
six weeks she had seen it afar off; now it was at hand and immediate.

"Well," said Annette slowly; she had already the habit of talking
aloud to herself which comes to lonely people. She paused. "It just
means that today I've got to get some work. I've got to."

She rose, forcing herself to be brisk and energetic. The Journal,
with its advertisements of work to be had for the asking, had come to
her door with the glass of milk and the roll which formed her
breakfast, and she had already made a selection of its more humble
possibilities. She ran them over in her mind as she finished
dressing. Two offices required typists; she would go to both. A
cashier in a shop and an English governess were wanted. "Why
shouldn't I be a governess?" said Annette. And finally, somebody in
the Rue St. Honore required a young lady of good figure and pleasant
manner for "reception." There were others, too, but it was upon these
five that Annette decided to concentrate.

She put on her hat, took her money and her Journal, and turned to the
door. A curious impulse checked