Miss Nippett also gave her a specially taken photograph of herself.

“Where’s your shawl?” asked Mavis, who missed this familiar adjunct from the photograph.

“I took it off to show off me figure.  See?” replied Miss Nippett confidentially.

Mr Poulter asked Mavis if she had further employment in view.  She knew how poor he was; also, that if she told him she was workless, he would probably insist on retaining her services, although he could not afford to do so.  Mavis fibbed to Mr Poulter; she hoped that her consideration for his poverty would atone for the lie.

For five weeks Mavis vainly tried to get work.  She soon discovered how, when possible employers considered her application, the mere mention of her being at “Dawes’” was enough to spoil her chances of securing an engagement.

She had spent all her money; she was now living on the sum she had received from a pawnbroker in exchange for two of her least prized trinkets.  Going out in all weathers to look for employment had not improved her clothes; her best pair of boots let in water; she was jaded, heartsick, dispirited.  As with others in a like plight, she dared not look into the immediate future, this holding only terrifying probabilities of disaster; the present moment was all sufficient; little else mattered, and, although to-morrow promised actual want, there was yet hope that a sudden turn of fortune’s wheel would remove the dread menace of impending ruin.  One evening, Mavis, dazed with disappointment at failing to secure an all but promised berth, wandered aimlessly from the city in a westerly direction.  She scarcely knew where she was going or what quarter of London she had reached.  She was only aware that she was surrounded by every evidence of well-being and riches.  The pallid, worried faces of the frequenters of the city were now succeeded by the well-fed, contented looks of those who appeared as if they did not know the meaning of the word care.  Splendid carriages, costly motor cars passed in never-ending procession.  As Mavis glanced at the expensive dresses of the women, the wind-tanned faces of the men, she thought how, but for a wholly unlooked-for reverse of fortune, these would be the people with whom she would be associating on equal terms.  The thought embittered her; she quickened her steps in order to leave behind her the opulent surroundings so different from her own, A little crowd, consisting of those entering and waiting about the door of a tea-shop, obstructed her.  An idea suddenly possessed her.  Confronted with want, she wondered if she had enough money to snatch a brief half-hour’s respite from her troubles.  She looked in her purse, to find it contained three shillings.  The next moment, she was moving in the direction of the tea-room, her habitual husbandry making a poor fight against the over-mastering desire possessing her.