"No, no," repeated Denise.
"Well! you are very foolish. It's inevitable, my dear, we all come to it sooner or later. Look at me, I was a probationer, like you, without a sou. We are boarded and lodged, it's true; but there's our dress; besides, it's impossible to go without a copper in one's pocket and shut oneself up in one's room, watching the flies. So you see girls forcibly drift into it."
She then spoke of her first admirer, a lawyer's clerk whom she had met at a party at Meudon. After him, had come a post-office clerk. And, finally, ever since the autumn, she had been keeping company with a salesman at the Bon Marché, a very nice tall fellow. However, her advice had no effect whatever upon Denise.
"No," the latter replied in a tone of decision; and a fresh silence fell. In the sma
