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Things were going well now with Florence Aylmer. She was earning money, and it was unnecessary for her to live any longer in the top attic of Prince's Mansions. She had got over her first discomfort; her conscience no longer pricked her; she took an interest in the situation, and sometimes laughed softly to herself. She knew that she was losing a good deal: that the worth and stability of her character were being slowly undermined. But she was winning success: the world was smiling at her just because she was successful, and she resolved to go on now, defying fate.
She wrote often to her mother and to Kitty Sharston, and told both her mother and Kitty of her successes. She never wrote to Bertha except about business. Bertha as a rule, enclosed directed envelopes to herself, so that Florence's writing should not be seen by Mrs. Aylmer or Trevor or any guests who might be staying in the house. Bertha was very wise in her generation, and when she did a wrong thing she knew at least how to do that wrong thing cleverly.