h a
scared shrewdness.

Annette smiled, letting her hand lie where it was. She was not in the
least afraid; she had forgotten for the moment the barrenness of the
streets that awaited her outside, and the fact that she had come to
the end of her hopes.

"And they objected to that?" she inquired sweetly.

"Ah, but you." He was making ready to hitch closer along the seat,
and she was prepared for him.

"Oh, I'd let you hold them both if that were all," she replied. "But
it isn't all, is it?"

She smiled again at the perplexity in his face; his hands slackened
and withdrew slowly. "You haven't told me what salary you are
offering," she reminded him.

"Mademoiselle you, too?"

She nodded. "I, too," she said, and rose. The man on the settee
groaned and heaved his shoulders theatrically; she stood, viewing in
quiet curiosity that countenance of impotent vileness. Other failures
had left her with a sense of defenselessness in a world so largely
populated by men who glanced up from their desks to refuse her plea
for work. But now she had resources of power over fate and
circumstance; the streets, the night, the river, whatever of fear and
destruction the future held, could neither daunt nor compel her. She
could go out to meet them, free and victorious.

"Mademoiselle!" The man on the settee bleated at her.

She shook her head at him. It was not worth while to speak. She went
to the door and opened it for herself; the smooth manservant was
deprived of the spectacle of her departure.

She went slowly down the wide stairs. "Nine of us," she was thinking.
"Nine girls, and not one of us was what did he call it? plastic. I'm
not really alone in the world, after all."

But it was very like being alone in the world to go slowly, with
tired feet, along the perspectives of the streets, to turn corners
aimlessly, to wander on with no destination or purpose. There was yet
money in the old purse a single broad five-franc piece; it would
linger out her troubles for her till to-morrow.

She would need to eat, and her room at Madame Mardel's would come to
three francs; she did not mean to occupy it any longer than she could
pay for it. And then the morning would find her penniless in
actuality.

Her last turning brought her out to the arches of the Rue de Rivoli;
across the way the trees of the Tuileries Gardens lifted their green
to the afternoon sunlight. She hesitated; then crossed the wide road
towards the gardens, her