Читать книгу A Town Like Alice онлайн

38 страница из 48

"I don't," she laughed. "Except for one thing. I don't believe you'd be wasting so much time on my affairs unless there was something in it."

"It's true enough for that." I paused, and then I said, "Have you thought yet what you are going to do in a month or two when the income from the trust begins? Your monthly cheque, after the tax has been deducted, will be about seventy-five pounds. I take it that you will hardly wish to go on with your present employment when those cheques begin to come in?"

"No..." She sat staring for a minute at the smoke rising from her cigarette. "I don't want to stop working. I wouldn't mind a bit going on with Pack and Levy just as if nothing had happened, if it was a job worth doing," she said. "But--well, it's not. We make ladies' shoes and handbags, Mr. Strachan, and small ornamental attaché cases for the high-class trade--the sort that sells for thirty guineas in a Bond Street shop to stupid women with more money than sense. Fitted vanity cases in rare leathers, and all that sort of thing. It's all right if you've got to earn your living, working in that sort of place. And it's been interesting, too, learning all about that trade."