“And I am powerless to punish him!” whispered Lucy, after a pause.

“It seems to me,” said Montague, “that you are very well out of it.  You will know better next time; and as for punishing him, I fancy that Nature will attend to that.  He is getting old, you know; and they say he is morose and wretched.”

“But, Allan!” protested Lucy.  “I can’t help thinking what would have happened to me if you had not come on board!  I can’t help thinking about other women who must have been caught in such a trap.  Why, Allan, I would have been equally helpless—­no matter what he had done!”

“I am afraid so,” said he, gravely.  “Many a woman has discovered it, I imagine.  I understand how you feel, but what can you do about it?  You can’t punish men like Waterman.  You can’t punish them for anything they do, whether it is monopolising a necessity of life and starving thousands of people to death, or whether it is an attack upon a defenceless woman.  There are rich men in this city who make it their diversion to answer advertisements and decoy young girls.  A stenographer in my office told me that she had had over twenty positions in one year, and that she had left every one because some man in the office had approached her.”

He paused for a moment.  “You see,” he added, “I have been finding out these things.  You thought I was unreasonable, but I know what your dangers are.  You are a stranger here; you have no friends and no influence, and so you will always be the one to suffer.  I don’t mean merely in a case like this, where it comes to the police and the newspapers; I mean in social matters—­where it is a question of your reputation, of the interpretation which people will place upon your actions.  They have their wealth and their prestige and their privileges, and they stand at bay.  They are perfectly willing to give a stranger a good time, if the stranger has a pretty face and a lively wit to entertain them; but when you come to trespass, or to threaten their power, then you find out how they can hate you, and how mercilessly they will slander and ruin you!”

CHAPTER VI

Lucy’s adventure had so taken up the attention of them both that they had forgotten all about the matter of the stock.  Afterwards, however, Montague mentioned it, and Lucy exclaimed indignantly at the smallness of the offer.

“That is only ten cents on the dollar!” she cried.  “You surely would not advise me to sell for that!”

“No, I should not,” he answered.  “I should reject the offer.  It might be well, however, to set a price for them to consider.”

They had talked this matter over before, and had agreed upon a hundred and eighty thousand dollars.  “I think it will be best to state that figure,” he said, “and give them to understand that it is final.  I imagine they would expect to bargain, but I am not much of a hand at that, and would prefer to say what I mean and stick by it.”