But she never quite forgot her destination in the pleasures of the wayside. She did a good deal of quiet investigating, in a desultory way. Teachers, librarians, bookkeepers, stenographers, all came under the head of skilled labor, as she soon discovered, and required a course of training--which Joan's step-mother would have to provide. It put these professions out of the question.
There were various small establishments in Louisville conducted by acquaintances of hers, those "ladies in reduced circumstances" of which every Southern town is full; tea-rooms, hat-shops, lingerie-shops, and the like--a state of affairs which gave Major Darcy acute distress.
"Imagine the daughters of my old friend Colonel Dinwiddie selling bibelots to any vulgarian who has the effrontery to purchase them! What can their brothers be thinking of?" he would groan. "Of course you will be careful never to enter the shop, my dears! The poor ladies shall not be embarrassed by having to wait on _my_ wife and daughter, at least."
But aside from her father's peculiar but not unique point of view, these ventures required capital; which again put them out of the question.
She heard now and then of certain well-paid positions in connection with social service of various sorts; but these again seemed to require a special training, or a special aptitude, which Joan did not believe herself to possess. The very words "social service" had to her a chilling, impersonal, busybodyish sound, almost as ugly as "philanthropy." She was not of those to whom a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. "Charity" sounded to her Christian, and warm, and friendly; but she dreaded to offer "philanthropy," or "social service" to the unfortunate almost as much as she would have dreaded to receive such things. She decided that her _metier_ was not good works.
Clerks in stores, she learned, do not for the most part earn a living wage. They are expected evidently to live at home, or to supplement their salary in some other fashion (just how Joan was not sure, but she entertained uneasy suspicions). By the time they become expert--heads of departments, buyers, chief milliners, etc.,--they are of course more than economically independent. But in the meanwhile....