of her own lowly class--It was such a good joke that he would have
teased Josephine about it but for his knowledge of the world--a
knowledge in whose primer it was taught that teasing is both bad taste
and bad judgment. Also, it was beneath his dignity, it was offense to
his vanity, to couple his name with the name of one so beneath him that
even the matter of sex did not make the coupling less intolerable.

When the curtain fell several people came into the box, and he went to
make a few calls round the parterre. He returned after the second act.
They were again alone--the deaf old aunt did not count. At once
Josephine began upon the same subject. With studied indifference--how
amusing for a woman of her inexperience to try to fool a man of his
experience!--she said:

"Tell me some more about that typewriter girl. Women who work always
interest me."

"She wouldn't," said Norman. The subject had been driven clean out of
his mind, and he didn't wish to return to it. "Some day they will
venture to make judicious long cuts in Wagner's operas, and then they'll
be interesting. It always amuses me, this reverence of little people for
the great ones--as if a great man were always great. No--he _is_ always
great. But often it's in a dull way. And the dull parts ought to be
skipped."

"I don't like the opera this evening," said she. "What you said a while
ago has set me to thinking. Is that girl a lady?"

"She works," laughed he.