He judged that whatever her business was she must be well paid for it, or must possess means of her own; nobody, man or woman, could possibly live at that boarding-house, or private hotel, as its proprietors preferred to call it, for anything less than four guineas a week.

Well--here was the explanation of Miss Slade's business; she was evidently private secretary to Mr.Franklin Fullaway, and competent to do business at a place like Rothschild's.

And why not ?--yet ...

why did she call herself Miss Slade at the boarding-house and Mrs.Marlow in her business capacity?
"And yet why shouldn't she ?" asked Appleyard of himself.

"A woman's a right to do what she likes in that way, and she isn't necessarily deceitful because she passes as a single woman in one place and a widow in another.