She grinned. Cadge fancies, I suppose, that by any mail I may get a big check from home.
"You display almost human intelligence," said Pros, admiringly; "stage's better, though."
"Inherited instinct; no more public than--than being a beauty." He gazed at me with mild audacity,--"Money getting's prosaic, off the stage. Most girls who want cash become tiddlety-wink typewriters at eight per; bargain price; fully worth four. Now that isn't your class; if $8 a week would satisfy you, which it wouldn't, do you suppose there's an office in town that'd have you? Men won't subject their clerks to the white light of beauty; wives won't stand for it, either. There are places where no girl can get work unless she's pulchritudinous. Catch the idea? A pretty London barmaid can't draw more beer than an ugly one, but draws more custom. What's a Princess to do with such jobs? You'd be like the man who wouldn't be fool enough to marry any woman who'd be fool enough to have him--in getting work, I mean. This is the other side of all that rot about Woman's Century and Woman's Widening Sphere. Never go into an office, Miss Winship; my wife won't, when we're married."
"'Cause she'll be in one already," interrupted Cadge; "why, if I had to mope 'round all day in a flat, I'd be driven to drink--club tea. Imagine it; Cadge Bryant a clubwoman!"
"Clubwomaning is exciting enough, election time."
"But men get money," I persisted. "Isn't there anything a girl can do?"
"I've a sister," said Reid, "--other sister out in Cincinnati--who wants a profession; law's the one I'm recommending. It's so harmless. Course she'll never have any practice; she won't get out and hustle with the greasy Yahoudis who run the bar now-a-days. No, so long as my sister has the career fever, I say law, every time. Cadge, why don't you study law?"
"The dear boy does so enjoy talking nonsense," Cadge explained indulgently.
"In ordinary business," Reid went on, "pretty women are only employed as lures for men. Swell milliners have 'em to overawe with their great grieving eyes the Hubbies who're inclined to kick at market rates for bonnets. Now there's dry goods, chief theme of half the race. You'd think there'd be a show there for a pretty girl; well, there ain't. It's retail trade; one girl can sell about as many papers of pins in a day as another."