about it. I should like to
understand--why did you do it?"

"Why? That's easy enough. I did it because I have to live."

"You live that way?" he exclaimed.

"Why of course. What did you think?"

"I thought you were a--a--" He hesitated.

"You thought I was respectable," laughed Therese. "Well, that's just a
little game I was playing on you."

"But I didn't give you any money!" he argued.

"Not that time," she said, "but I thought you would come back."

He sat gazing at her. "And you earn your living that way still?" he
asked. "When you know what's the matter with you! When you know--"

"What can I do? I have to live, don't I?"

"But don't you even take care of yourself? Surely there must be some
way, some place--"

"The reformatory, perhaps," she sneered. "No, thanks! I'll go there
when the police catch me, not before. I know some girls that have tried
that."

"But aren't you afraid?" cried the man. "And the things that will happen
to you! Have you ever talked to a doctor--or read a book?"

"I know," she said. "I've seen it all. If it comes to me, I'll go over
the side of one of the bridges some dark night."

George sat lost in thought. A strange adventure it seemed to him--to
meet this girl under such different circumstances! It was as if he were
watching a play from behind the scenes instead of in front. If only he
had had this new view in time--how different would have been his life!
And how terrible it was to think of the others who didn't know--the
audience who were still sitting out in front, watching the spectacle,
interested in it!

His thoughts came back to Therese. He was curious about her and the life
she lived. "Tell me a little about it," he said. "How you came to be
doing this." And he added, "Don't think I want to preach; I'd really
like to understand."

"Oh, it's a common story," she said--"nothing especially romantic.
I came to Paris when I was a girl. My parents had died, and I had no
friends, and I didn't know what to do. I got a place as a nursemaid.
I was seventeen years old then, and I didn't know anything. I believed
what I was told, and I believed my employer. His wife was ill in a
hospital, and he said he wanted to marry me when she died. Well, I liked
him, and I was sorry for him--and then the first thing I knew I had a
baby. And then the wife came back, and I was turned off. I had been a
fool, of course. If I had been in her place should have done just what
she did."

T