Max was earnest, impassioned even. The girl smiled mournfully as she just caught his eyes for a moment, and then looked at the fire again.
"You don't understand," she said, simply. "How should you? I should have had no reference to give if I had wanted another situation. The name of the place where I had been living would have been worse than none."
"But there are lots of places where you could have gone, religious and philanthropic institutions I think they call themselves, where they would have listened to what you had to say, and done their best to help you."
"Are there?" said she. "Well, there may be, of course. But I think not. Plenty of institutions of one sort and another there are, of course. But those for women are generally for one class--a class I don't belong to."
Max shuddered. This matter-of-fact tone jarred upon him. It was not immodest, but it revealed a mind accustomed to view the facts of life, not one nourished on pretty fancies, like those of his sisters.
"And even if," she went on, "there were a home, an institution, a girl like me could go to and obtain employment, it wouldn't be a life one would care for; it would be a sort of workhouse at the best, wouldn't it?"
"I don't even know that. Granny's fond of me in her way. That's the one thing no sort of institution can give you, the feeling that you belong to some one, that you're not just a number."
He was going to say "pretty," but her look stopped him.
"Do you think I'm the only fairly-educated girl in London who doesn't know how to get a living? Haven't you ever found, in poor, wretched little shops, girls who speak well, look different from the others? Don't you know that there are lots of girls like me who are provided for, well provided for at the outset, and then forgotten, or neglected, and left to starve, to drift, to get on the best way they can? Oh, surely you must know that! Only people like you don't care to think about these things. And you are quite right, quite right. Why should you?"
Suddenly the girl sprang up and made a gesture with her hands as if to dismiss the subject. Max, watching her with eager interest, saw pass quickly over her face a look which set him wondering on whose countenance he had seen it before. In an instant it was gone, leaving a look of weariness behind. But it set him wondering. Who was she? Who were the mysterious parents of whom she knew nothing?