"Why, I only mean that--the other"--she smiled--"what you call the
bow-wows, would not have been an outlet for me.... I was a show-girl for
two months last winter; I ought to know. And I'd rather have died
than--"

"I see," he said; "that outlet was too stupid to have attracted you."

She nodded. "Besides, I have principles," she said, candidly.

"Which effectually blocked that outlet. They sometimes kill, too, as you
say. Youth stifled too long means death--the death of youth at least.
Outlets mean life. The idea is to find a safe one."

She flushed in quick, sensitive response:

"_That_ is it; that is what I meant. Mr. Neville, I am twenty-one; and
do you know I never had a childhood? And I am simply wild for it--for
the girlhood and the playtime that I never had--"

She checked herself, looking across at him uncertainly.

"Go on," he nodded.

"That is all."

"No; tell me the rest."

She sat with head bent, slender fingers picking at her napkin; then,
without raising her troubled eyes: