stness, simplicity, and solemnity, Steptoe and
Letty stood barely within the door, waiting till someone noticed them.
No one did so till the woman holding open the wardrobe doors closed
them and turned round. She did not come forward at once; she only
stared at them. Still keeping her eye on the newcomers she called the
attention of the ladies occupied with the drawer, who lifted
themselves up. They too stared. The lady at the desk stared also.

It was the lady of the wardrobe who advanced at last, slowly, with
dignity, her hands genteelly clasped in front of her. She seemed to be
saying, "No, we don't want any," or, "I'm sorry we've nothing to give
you," by her very walk. Letty, with her gift for dramatic
interpretation, could see this, though Steptoe, familiar as he was
with ladies whom he would have classed as "'igher," was not daunted.
He too went forward, meeting madam half way.

Of what was said between them Letty could hear nothing, but the
expression on the lady's face was dissuasive. She was telling Steptoe
that he had come to the wrong place, while Steptoe was saying no. From
time to time the lady would send a glance toward Letty, not in
disdain, but in perplexity. It was perplexity which reached its climax
when Steptoe drew from an inside pocket an impressive roll of bills.

The lady looked at the bills, but she also looked at Letty. The honor
of a house like Margot's is not merely in making money; it is in its
clientele. To have a poor little waif step in from the street....

And yet it was because she was a poor little waif that she interested
the ladies looking on. She was so striking an exception to their rule
that her very coming in amazed them. One of the two who had remained
near the open drawer came forward into conference with her colleague,
adding her dissuasions to those which Steptoe had already refused to
listen to.

"There are plenty of other places to which you could go," Letty heard
this second lady say, "and probably do better."

Steptoe smiled, that old man's smile which was rarely ineffective.
"Madam don't 'ave to tell me as there's plenty of other plyces to
which I could go; but there's none where I could do as well."

"What makes you think so?"

"I'm butler to a 'igh gentleman what 'e used to entertyne quite a bit
when 'is mother was alive. I've listened to lydies talkin' at tyble.
No one can't tell me. I _know_."

Both madams smiled. Each shot another glance at Letty. It was pl