Caro had worked for about a week in the employ of Madam Beryl (the kind woman who had agreed to employ her as a sales girl in her shop) and she had met and was still living with Hannah, Beryl's niece who was only a few years older than her but had completely alienated her, hardly ever talking to her except when utterly necessary.

Caro believed the girl felt that they were in different classes of society and she couldn't agree more. She was the partying type, moving with high-class friends and hardly having time for her studies while Caro was more the workaholic, always planning and strategizing for the...