"How
you came to be doing this." And he added, "Don't think I want to
preach; I'd really like to understand."
"Oh, it's a common story," she said--"nothing especially
romantic. I came to Paris when I was a girl. My parents had
died, and I had no friends, and I didn't know what to do. I got
a place as a nursemaid. I was seventeen years old then, and I
didn't know anything. I believed what I was told, and I believed
my employer. His wife was ill in a hospital, and he said he
wanted to marry me when she died. Well, I liked him, and I was
sorry for him--and then the first thing I knew I had a baby. And
then the wife came back, and I was turned off. I had been a
fool, of course. If I had been in her place should have done
just what she did."
The girl was speaking in a cold, matter-of-fact voice, as of
things about which she was no longer able to suffer. "So, there
I was--on the street," she went on. "You have always had money,
a comfortable home, education, friends to help you--all that.
You can't imagine how it is to be in the world without any of
these things. I lived on my savings as long as I could; then I
had to leave my baby in a foundling's home, and I went out to do
my five hours on the boulevards. You know the game, I have no
doubt."
Yes, George knew the game. Somehow or other he no longer felt
bitter towards this poor creature. She was part of the system of
which he was a victim also. There was nothing to be gained by
hating each other.
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