"You are very pretty," the Baroness repeated with conviction; "and I
am sure you would make a good wife."

"I am afraid not!" Sabina laughed. "We are none of us good, you know.
Why should I be?"

The Baroness disapproved.

"That is a flippant speech," she said severely.

"I do not feel flippant at all. I am very serious. I wish to earn my
living."

"But you cannot--"

"But I wish to," answered Sabina, as if that settled the question.

"Have you always done what you wished?" asked the Baroness wisely.

"No, never. That is why I mean to begin at once. I am sure I can learn
to be a maid, or to make hats, or feed babies with bottles. Many girls
of eighteen can."

The Baroness shrugged her shoulders in a decidedly plebeian way.
Sabina's talk seemed very silly to her, no doubt, but she felt
slightly foolish herself just then. At close quarters and in the
relative intimacy that had grown up between them, the descendant of
all the Conti had turned out to be very different from what the
financier's wife had expected, and it was not easy to understand her.
Sometimes the girl talked like a woman of the world, and sometimes