Mavis was compelled to acknowledge her sex’s lack of enthusiasm in the condemnation of such malpractices.

“Then why would they hunt you down?” cried Miss Toombs triumphantly.  “Because, in doing as you’ve done, you’ve been a traitress to the economic interests of our sex.  Women have mutually agreed to make marriage the price of their surrender to men.  Girls who don’t insist on this price choke men off marrying, and that’s why they’re never forgiven by other women.”

“Is it you talking?”

“No, my dear Keeves; women, in this world, who look for marriage, have to play up to men and persuade them they’re worth the price of a man losing his liberty.”

“But fancy you talking like that!”

“If they’re pretty, and play their cards properly, they’re kept for life.  If they’re like you, and don’t get married, it’s a bad look-out.  If they’re pretty rotten, and have business instincts, they must make hay while the sun shines to keep them when it doesn’t.”

“And you don’t really think the worse of me?”

“I think the more.  It’s always the good girls who go wrong.”

“That means that you will.”

“I haven’t the chance.  When girls are plain, like me, men don’t notice them, and if they’ve no money of their own they have to earn a pittance in Melkbridge boot factories.”

“I can’t believe it’s you, even now.”

“I don’t mind giving myself away, since you’ve done the same to me.  And it’s a relief to let off steam sometimes.”

“And you really don’t think the worse of me for having—­having this?”

“I’d do the same myself to-morrow if I’d the chance and could afford to keep it, and knew it wouldn’t curse me when it grew up.”

Mavis winced to recover herself and say: 

“But I may be married any day now.”

“Whoever the father is, he seems a bit of a fool,” remarked Miss Toombs, as she took the baby on her knee.

“To love me?”

“In not marrying you and getting you for life.  From a man’s point of view, you’re a find, pretty Mavis.”

“Nonsense!”

“I don’t call it nonsense.  Just look at your figure and your hips and the colour of your hair, your lovely white skin and all, to say nothing of the passion in your eyes.”

“Is it staid Miss Toombs talking?”

“If I’m staid, it’s because I have to be.  No man ’ud ever want me.  As for you, if I were a man, I’d go to hell, if there were such a place, if I could get you for all my very own.”

“Don’t you believe in hell?”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know.  Don’t you?”

“The only hell I know is the jealous anger in a plain woman’s heart.  Of course there are others.  You’ve only to dip into history to read of the hells that kings and priests, mostly priests, have made of this earth.”

“What about Providence?” asked Mavis.

“Don’t talk that ‘tosh’ to me,” cried Miss Toombs vehemently.