 10 Hilda was the only one of her friends who was coming to the breaking-up party, and Beatrice looked forward with an eager, impersonal pride to the music master's first view of her. Beatrice possessed the impulse of the born giver, who loves to fling all beautiful and goodly things at the feet of the beloved. When she cared for people she had a most impersonal desire to give them pleasure, whether through her own instrumentality or not, and as the sight of Hilda's face was pure joy to her, she would feign charit with the music master. No shadow of disaster was upon her as she met her friend in the perspiring throng of incoming guests, and raised her face with a little nestling movement to Hilda's cool, smooth cheek. "'How nice you look,' Hilda said cordially, and the tone ratified Beatrice's confidence in herself. "'My dear, that white frilliness is most becoming. I thought I was nice till I saw you,' said Beatrice, without flattery, looking up at the grave Greek profile and the rich colors in Hilda's hair and skin. "'No one ever comes quite up to you, Apollo. I am so glad you have come. I want to introduce you.' She looked across the throng of fat parents and thin parents, of overdressed pupils and fagged-looking teachers, to a corner where she had already caught sight of a shorn fair head and an immaculate white collar. The music master was sometimes careless in appearance, but he was never dowdy. Today he was irreproachable and a little overpowering, so that Beatrice, remembering last night, had allowed her shyness to overtake her again and had not yet spoken to him. As she looked, the elation which was keeping her at the fever point of excitement faded a little, and for the first time that day she felt tired. He was talking to a friend of his own, a lady who was not very young, but whose appearance stamped her as of a very different grade to the other guests. She was indeed a private and intimate acquaintance of the music masters, who was present on his account as much as Hilda's on Beatrice, and her quiet, well-cut, down and rather quizzical expression gave Beatrice a sudden feeling of being outside the pail. She had recognized that the music master was by no means the usual type of teacher in a school of this class, but she had not also realized that the women of his world were also a type that had as little affinity with her as with the school. Her expression hardly altered as she looked at the couple across the room. It simply went out of her eyes altogether and left them blank. She knew from the set of his shoulders, though his back was towards her, that the music master was in a black temper, and it was as evident that the lady was rallying him. Beatrice turned rather suddenly to Hilda. Not now, she said. Another time. Come into the refreshment room and have some tea. Hilda followed as if nothing had happened, but the Greek mask rarely betrayed any emotion unless a storm of anger colored it more fiercely. An experience of her own that was even now altering her life had quickened her understanding to a point which seems like some spiritual communication between women. Beatrice's gift was emphatically the social gift above and beyond those artistic qualities which made life a fine torture to her rather than otherwise. Even in such an assembly as the school breaking up, her instinct made her a charming personality which stood out against the drab efforts of other mistresses and the grocery of the guests. There is always pleasure in doing a thing well and being at one's best, and though the material was so poor, she would have got some little enjoyment, which her sense of humor would have helped, upon another occasion merely through talking with the parents of her pupils. But the music master had somehow contrived to throw his shadow upon her even across the room, and though she was still instinctively the born hostess, she made her little success with a pinprick at the heart. She had hoped dimly that he would have sought her, that last night's attraction would have been strong enough to draw him through the prudence of daylight. But the afternoon wore away without their speaking or coming in contact, and he remained by the side of his unknown friend, obviously ill-tempered and out of humor with himself and the world. If he doesn't like being with her, why does he stay? It can't be very pleasant for her. If he is in one of his moods, thought Beatrice innocently. She was standing near the couple at last, though they did not see her, a friendly curtain partially hiding her white figure, and the face that had lost its joy and began to look weary. She had avoided him rather than otherwise up till now, for her pride was a thorny hedge round her. But the rooms were growing empty, and she had drifted into his neighborhood unconsciously, until she was near enough to hear what he and his companion were saying. What a dreadful life, the lady remarked, her glance half amazed and half amused, taking in the exact class of pupils and parents. The surroundings must be impossible. I wonder you have stood it for so long. I am not going to stand it any longer, said the musicmaster savagely. Beatrice recognized his tone, as the one that followed many false notes. I will get out of this next term if I have to break stones by the roadside. Not so bad as that, I hope, said the lady with a tolerant smile. What has made you so desperate? Oh, I've played the fool. What can you expect in such surroundings? They are impossible, as you say. I was driven into the nearest diversion at hand. I must say I was not the only one who was willing to amuse myself. But there is nothing to do now but bolt for it. Unless I want a millstone round my neck for life, Beatrice put a trembling hand up to her lips with a childish idea, that she should find them burnt and seared. Last night's kisses seemed to scorch them so. She had not thought of this. There had been no definite end to the delirium of her happiness. The coarseness of the man's point of view stung and lashed her like a whip. She had turned to the love for which she yearned as simply as a flower to the sun, and her very incapacity to have any further designs, such as being a millstone round a man's neck, for instance, as an undesirable wife, had blinded her to such a conception. The blow hit her as straight and true as if he had planted it between the wounded brown eyes. She held her breath for an instant as she drew herself back, slowly, stealthily, out of reach of their discovery, and turning, slipped through the rooms to Hilda's side. Are you tired? Would you like to go now? She said abruptly. Hilda turned as if to a stranger. Perhaps she did not at the moment recognize the usually musical tone in which Beatrice was voiced for her. But having turned, she drooped her grave face a little in a way that was peculiar to her, bending to Beatrice from the neck but not stooping, and so looked at the white mask presented to her in profile. I thought you wanted to introduce me to someone, she said quietly. Oh, I am sorry. I am afraid I can't. I can leave now if you don't mind coming. I shall be glad. Do I say good-bye to anyone? Only to the headmistress. I must speak to her myself. Please, follow me. The words came as if ground out of some small creature in deadly pain. But Hilda asked no questions. That present experience of hers was teaching her an intuition she could never otherwise have gained. Some women learned to help each other, always through pain. Hilda stalked beside Beatrice in silence when they had left the school, her taller frame swinging along to the younger girl's quick walk, a much quicker walk than Beatrice's usual one. Once Hilda made a passing remark about Nuzotra, and Beatrice answered with sudden savage rudeness. She turned upon her friend with flaming eyes and spoke with curt sarcasm, as though the subject had long been a grievance to her. Yet all she had been asked was whether she had heard when the next meeting was to be. The pain is getting beyond her power to bear, thought Hilda. What shall I do? At Beatrice's door she paused trying to decide what was best to do. In Beatrice's place she would have been better left alone. It would have been the only thing for her. But Hilda was seven times stronger than Beatrice, and a lonelier spirit. She judged by herself and held out her hand to say goodbye. I must be getting home. Goodbye, old girl. Come round and tell me the result of tomorrow's trial, she said. Yes, goodbye. Beatrice still spoke as if the sentences came with a wrench. Then suddenly she put her hands up to her shadowy eyes. Oh, my head! My head, she exclaimed, pressing her fingers to her temples, as Magda did. No, it's nothing. Only a headache. Leave me alone. I shall get better. Hilda turned away as the door closed after her, respecting her solitude. Beatrice stumbled up to her rooms, the same rooms she had dressed and dreamed in, not twelve hours since. They looked strange to her, and she wished with a shutter that Hilda had forced herself in and stayed for a little while, talking. I should have been rude to her if she had suggested it. She had to be alone to herself in the same breath, with a panic of fear of her own lack of control. It is a law among Nuzotra that they shall not be rude to each other, hardly even in jest, and if anyone breaks it she is tacitly set outside the pale, until she knows her own enormity. Beatrice did well to be frightened for even the excuses due to ill health or extreme trouble were not extended beyond a certain point. She sat down in the ugly little sitting-room that had suddenly become a dreadful place. Last night the hard black leather that upholstered it had not mattered, and somebody had sat in the armchair who had seemed a friend at least. Her shamed lips said a lover as they burned with remembered velvet touches, and who was suddenly an enemy. I have played the fool. I was driven into the nearest diversion at hand. There is nothing to do but bolt for it, unless I want a millstone hung round my neck for life. She could still hear the cruel, clean-shaven lips and their soft, discontented drawl, while her eyes stared at the empty armchair as if the head of Medusa hung there. It was all so ugly, so sordid. She herself was so cheapened. And last night she had thought it a beautiful and radiant thing, as sweet as sweet carnations, as warm as the touch of living lips and the clasp of masculine arms. There succeeded another sleepless night which she did not remember much. Towards morning she fell into an exhausted unconsciousness, for she had gone to bed supperless, too sick to eat, and the insufficient food and excitement of the past twenty-four hours were treading heavily upon the wear and tear of the term. When she woke up next morning the glass showed her a haggard face with unnatural dark eyes and drawn lips, and she laughed at it hideously. After all, it is not much to attract a man. He had more to offer, she said to the grim reflection. I must say I was not the only one who was willing to amuse myself. That is what he thinks of me. Well, she turned from the glass and began to prepare listlessly for going out. The trial of voices was to come off at the theatre that morning, and she must go, though her body seemed ache for lack of rest and with the mental trouble. She would not look in the glass again before leaving the house, lest it should discourage her. But after swallowing a cup of tea and some bread and butter, she made her way out into the steamy July morning. There was little ozone in the parched streets, but Beatrice, who loved the free sky over her head, lifted her face instinctively to the open air and revived a little. She walked most of the way through a mechanical economy, forgetting that she should save herself for the coming effort. And, like all highly nervous and sensitive people, her mind declined to be detached from the feverish trouble that was consuming her. But with refined self-torture dwelt on each string afresh, the music-masters faced danced before her tired eyes, with its contempt and impatience of his surroundings, of which she had become the greatest drawback. If he had only known that she was going to leave, if she could only convey to him without making the admission pointed, her hurt pride rived as she thought of his own haste to resign his post, to get out of the embarrassment of her presence. He was afraid he should find himself forced to marry her, poor Beatrice, and she had loved him. She got down from the omnibus where she had taken refuge for her tired limbs at Charing Cross and began to thread her way in and out the crowd in the strand. She was beginning to feel faint and speculated as to whether it would not be wise to go into a chemist's and ask for a dose of salvolataly, a remedy known to her in overwrought hysterical attacks. Then a second idea occurred to her. Why not buy the means of escape, even though she had no cause to use them? The very possession of such an infallible remedy would give her a sort of confidence to face life afresh. If she could say, I need not go on with it, she knew she would go on with it, but in any case the impulse to destroy herself was but half-hearted. Beatrice, as the music master had said, had her own instinctive pose, though she was her only audience. In this case she was acting to herself, and by some curious process of mind it was a consolation to her to see herself so desperate that she was actually buying poison to hold and reserve if she found existence unendurable. She was a little afraid of herself as she entered the first chemists, for she had never asked for such a thing as a drug before, but her own composed manner reassured her, and as she only wanted a small quantity the man did not seem suspicious. A little further she turned into a side street and did the same thing, then wants more in the larger thoroughfare, and with the three small files hidden in her breast Beatrice was satisfied. It was a clumsy way of making preparations, certainly, but it answered its object, for it created Beatrice's desired effect. She was by no means amongst the first girls to arrive at the stage door of the Sovereignty Theater, but the manager, who was to hear them sing, had not yet arrived. Beatrice found herself amongst a dozen other aspirants who were standing in the little lobby and the dark passage, and grumbling at being kept on their feet for hours before they sang, there being nowhere to sit. The place was hot and stuffy, and the various scents used by the girls were overpowering. They themselves were of a class that Alma knew well, but which was new to Beatrice, used to the severe neatness of governesses, and unaccustomed to the cheap finery of the stage. Most of the faces around were pretty, but with a prettiness that hurt one at a near view, for the truly effective stage face must be exaggerated to be successful on the other side of the footlights. They were smartly dressed on the whole in an overdose of the prevailing fashion, but the edges of their gowns were mostly soiled and frayed, and they were by no means particular as to the details of their appearance. Nevertheless their chatter distracted an amused Beatrice, and for the first half hour she forgot to be tired, in listening to the language of this new world in which she might find herself. I've been here since ten, two whole hours wasted, and I'm dotty with tire, said a voice next to her with a strong cockney accent. Beatrice shuddered to think what the singing voice must be like. Old Sam is cruel to keep us like this. Cruel. Hello Daisy, dear old girl. How are you? I haven't seen you since the mermaid and the man went out. Are they on the road still, Kitty? Yes, but I left. I couldn't stand fit up. It doesn't pay a bit. It's a frost. They're doing fearful business. Who's trying us today? Moritz? Yes, old Sammy. He's a beast. He's a giddy goat, too. He got virilardi. The voices sank to an ecstatic whisper, and Beatrice received no more hints on the character of the gentleman who was shortly to decide her fate. She could not see the speakers, but a girl with a handsome Jewish type of face, immediately in front of her, spoke next and loudly. I say, Porter, are we never going in? We've been here for the last week. Yes, and you'll be here for another until Mr. Moritz comes, said the doorkeeper, roughly. Who's that trying to pass through? Come back, miss, please. There's no going on till I tells you. The girl who had been venturing too far into the bowels of the pitch-dark theatre was herded back grumbling, and the increasing crowd began to quote a time-honored phrase in pantomime, more particularly when it happens to be Cinderella. There always comes a point in this classic production when the two ugly sisters want to go up the grand staircase to the ballroom, and the powdered footmen stop them on account of their unusual appearance. As they are invariably taken by men in low-necked gowns, there appears some reason for the footman's objection. The girls saw a similarity between their own position and that of the ugly sisters, which tickled them into hilarity. Pa says that we're to go up, quoted someone, and it was taken up across the lobby and passed down the passage. Pa says that we're to go up, up, up, up, up, and then to the tune of the camels are coming, up, up, up, up, up, up, ad libitum, while the doorkeeper fumed and snorted impotently for silence. Beatrice laughed in spite of sore feet for the waiting tried her more than walking, though she began to be conscious also of that false economy of hers in saving the omnibus fair and looked round her as to the new comrades of a new life. It promised to be even less refined than the second-rate schools to which she had grown drearily accustomed, but in her reckless unhappiness she felt she did not much care. It was life and movement anyway, common vulgar vitality and preference to the stagnation and narrowness that had driven her nearly mad. Besides, there was a certain comradeship amongst these girls, a give-and-take, a good-natured rough sympathy that softened their more glaring defects for Beatrice. She did not realize how much she was counting on sharing their novel experience, or how she had taken it for granted that Providence would be merciful and fling open the door for her escape, once she found life insupportable under its present conditions. That there is usually no escape from life, and that the grim prison walls will be the same yesterday and today and forever, with not even a choice of a worse exchange, is a very final knowledge, and seems nearly inconceivable to the young. That last stir amongst the foremost girls showed that something was happening in the theatre. There was a forward pressure, a babble of voices, someone being moved on, but Beatrice hardly heard in detail. She had a general impression of such intense tire as sapped brain power and nerve power alike. She was physically sick, and a band of pain crushed her head just above the brows. But she still thought that she could sing. The girls were moving on now in twos and threes, so that she was herself at last in the passage. And from the unknown beyond, the sound of a piano, lost in space, came wandering up in snapped lines of songs that she knew, to the notes of more or less unequal voices. Lay by my side your bunch of purple heather. Every morn I bring the violets. Where's the music that is half so sweet? Ter-a-ran ta-ta, ter-a-ran ta-ta, ter-a-ran ta-ta-ta. Then the bar seemed invariably and abruptly broken off. How little they were allowed to display of their powers. Yet even now she did not calculate the immense competition implied by that crowd of girls, or the rough lines on which successful candidates were chosen. Only the coarser and very powerful voices could stand the strain of the long wait without food or rest. Those girls who sang with any delicacy, or a better timbre of voice, found that their notes cracked and were briefly dismissed. In a way the management was correct, for such voices as would not stand where and tear, were of no value in chorus. And the sifting of the girls by means of the physical strain to which they were put, was useful in showing who was fitted for the work. When we are married, O what will you do? I'll be as sweet as I can be for you. I will be tender and I will be true when I am married, sweetheart, to you. Ah, there was a better trial. Evidently this girl was more to the judge's taste, as she was allowed to sing through to the end of the verse. There seemed a longer pause than usual after she ceased. And then Beatrice found herself moving on, with two or three others, until she emerged suddenly onto the bare boards of the stage, the sudden light of two or three flaring gas jets making her blink like a young owl after the dark passage. There was a piano standing down by the unlit footlights, and a lean man with flat hair and no chin to speak of was sitting there listlessly, as if weary of hearing the victims ticked off and to playing a bar or so of accompaniment for them. The manager himself, that beast Sammy, was a fat and greasy person whose face made Beatrice shrink a little. It was not that he was obtrusively dangerous. The loose sensual mouth was not very visible under the ragged moustache, but he was so wickedly unclean, both physically and mentally, that it was impossible to forget this characteristic for a moment. She came forward into the glare of gaslight with a sudden sense of inappropriateness, and the manager looked up sharply and stared as if he felt it also. Amongst the overdressed, bare-necked young women with their faces made up to at least a semblance of prettiness, Beatrice's slim dark figure looked like a ghost from another world. It had not occurred to her to wear anything unlike her usual quiet clothes, or to alter her hair or her hat, though had Alma accompanied her, she would have seen that her personal appearance should not at least tell against her. As it was, her dark clothes seemed like a blot against the silks and muslins whose soils did not betray themselves in the theater, and for the rest, her appearance had the ghastly effect of her tire and the treblous events of the last few days. A colorless face wedged in a vast weight of hair that was nothing but dusty shadow, and two eyes a great deal too big for the face. It was no wonder that the manager stared. He seemed indeed so doubtful of her right to be there at all, that Beatrice mechanically held out the cards sent her by the agents, to whom Alma had introduced her, and which requested her to be at the Sovereignty Theater at 12.30 to have her voice tried. It was, by the way, just three hours later than the time specified. All right, said the manager curtly. Have you brought a song? Beatrice opened the rolled music in her hand, but still without speaking. Her silence added to her uncanny appearance, but sudden nervousness had taken her speaking voice away, and though still quite sure she could sing, a panic possessed her lest she should not remember the words of her song. It was a May morning, which News Ultra had unanimously advised as showing her pure, true notes in the upper range of her voice, but her brain teased her instead with scraps of flares verses, so that her hands trembled as she gave the crumpled music to the indifferent accompanist, and watched him roll it out with fascinated eyes. His Majesty's Ship the London was first of the fighting line, ten ships of war where the fast nets are, and thirty feet in the brine, and his Majesty's Ship the London spoke out to the other nine. All the while the verse jigged in her head, the accompanist was playing the introduction, and Beatrice was searching her brain for the right words, literally searching for his Majesty's Ship the London drove everything else triumphantly before it. His Majesty's Ship the London was first of the fighting line, suddenly she heard the accompanist half pause, hang on the bar, and realized that he was waiting for her. Beatrice caught her breath, raised her head mechanically, and began to sing in a husky, flat tone, Come out, come out, my dearest dear, come out and greet the sun. Her voice cracked, and she stopped blankly, even before the manager's modotinous. That will do, thank you. He had said the same to fifteen girls already, who were weeded out by tire and strain. Beatrice turned away in the same mechanical fashion, but as she did so the realization of what this meant struck her with sudden vivid consciousness like a physical blow. Her need for escape seemed to her desperate, and this fat man with the greasy skin was denying it to her, with others to whom it meant no more than a passing disappointment. As if driven by her own necessity she stopped her crushed music in her hot hands, and faced him again like a creature at bay. Would you tell me? She began with stiff, dry lips that she had moistened before she could even go on. Is my voice of any use on the stage? Should I ever get taken on? There was pleading in her heart, but it was her tragic fate that she could not give way to her own emotions at the moment she wished. A long training in self-repression had resulted not in self-control, but in the mere habit of disguising all emotion, had she had real command of herself, she would have been able to convey some hint of what she was feeling in the crises of her life. As it was she merely seemed hard and matter of fact, perhaps a little self-assertive to the manager. No, he returned, with offhand brutality. No chance at all, I should say. You may be able to sing at home, pretty little drawing-room voice, no doubt, but you are no good to me. I want power and some training. It's mere waste of time hearing voices like yours. Next, please. Beatrice walked quietly off the stage and back into the passage again. She intended to pass through the lobby and out into the street, but someone had at last persuaded the porter to put one or two chairs for the weary applicants. And one of these was empty at the moment. Beatrice sat down in it almost without intention on her own part. She did not feel faint, and she was not in the least hungry, though at one time during the standing she had felt that she would drop for want of food. But it seemed suddenly that all power of volition left her. She sat down quietly, unobserved by the girls who were still crowding and chattering, and waited. She realized at last what this meant to her. A closed door shut on her frantic wish to escape, not only now, but forever, for she accepted the manager's fiat as final, and had no spirit at the moment to fight against it. No doubt the lack of food and tire and the reaction from excitement and worry, a dozen physical reasons indeed, were benumbing her mind. But for the moment she was incapable of rising against her troubles, and her recuperative power had gone. All she knew was that there was no escape for her. She must go back to the dead level of the life that had grown intolerable, by reason of the music master. She looked on into the future, and saw a procession of ink-stained tables, underbred boys and girls, herself at the head of them, growing older and less desirable, first youth and its possibilities leaving her, and then health, and then the desire of life, until she was pronounced too old for work, and drifted shabbily along to the workhouse, unless some charitable institution staved it off sufficiently for her to drag out her existence, in one pinched room in a cheap neighborhood. The last was the best that she could hope, unless she were so unspeakably lucky as to die with the blood still beating warmly in her veins, with youth and its stormy pains and pleasures making the world colored instead of drab. Sometimes you see the half-bred hunter looks forward to the knackers' day, as better than the cab sores and the heartbreak. It was twelve when Beatrice entered the stage-door at the sovereignty. It was just on four when she left it. She walked blindly down the strand, keeping her feet mechanically, and crossed Trafalgar Square, drifting along Paul Mall, and making by instinct her waterloo place in Piccadilly. Somewhere west she knew that there were open spaces and green grass where one might lie down and dream of sleep. She turned her face as a thirsty animal will, towards water, to the stretches of the parks, and scented the trees and the quiet earth. The foot-passengers along Piccadilly hardly saw her gliding by, a delirious personality, fever struck with life, and only going towards the healing of the open spaces by the same instinct as the sick animal. As she dragged her feet along the railings of the green park, looking for an entrance, her breath threatened to fail her, as she laid her hand on her breast to still the heart that fluttered there, like an imprisoned bird beating its wings. Then her slight, groping hands, chanced on the little files, thrust under the loose folds of her blouse for safety, and she remembered. Here was the escape, purchased by herself without real intention at the moment, but now become a merciful chance of release. She linked her small hands carelessly before her, dropping them from her breast with the cunning of the maniac who fears to betray a hiding-place, and sauntering in at the open gateway, made her way out of the beaten track, and stepping over the low rail crossed the grass. It swept her ankles cool and soft, and she walked slowly and more slowly, partly for the childish pleasure in feeling it, partly to find the green resting place where she might sleep. Twice she turned to avoid the curious looks of passersby, and finally she sat down at the foot of a wide-branched tree, and resting her back against the trunk listened to the drone of the traffic in Piccadilly. It swept on and on, monotonously carrying with it the lives of such as herself men and women who started, hopefully, meaning to make a good fight of it, but gradually wore down their hopes in the struggle, and were still born on, on the impulse of the tide of life without will or wish of their own. It was drifting past her now, drifting past. She at least had found a green bed where she might sleep. She had taken up her position so that the broad trees stood between her and the graveled walk, but there was no undergrowth to screen her, nothing but the deep rise and fall of the grass slopes, and the elms stretching out wide branches at clear intervals, and though it merely looked as if she had set down to rest on the grass in preference to one of the hard, hot seats on the gravel, still it behooved her to be careful. She opened the little files and drank the contents cautiously when no one was passing by. The sickly taste of the drugs was hard to swallow, but that was all the difficulty. It seemed an easy thing to accomplish her escape after all. I have sent in my resignation, said Beatrice, looking half curiously round her at the world that throbbed with life and light and sound. We are not competent to undertake such a responsible post as God seems to assign us, news-otra. Had Beatrice been older, she might have weathered the storm and drifted into the apathetic acceptance of pain which kept Flare Caldecott alive, but Flare's experiences of a like nature, disappointment, discouragement, weariness, despair, had been a succession of tragedies that followed each other singly through her youth, and with which she fought without hope in turn. Beatrice, perhaps mercifully, came all at once and overwhelmed her with one short unbearable period. She sat quietly on the green grass and listened. Beyond the park railings was the mighty andcessant hum, the swing of London going by and going by, while one of its victims dropped out of the struggle and fell asleep. Yet there was nothing to tell of a tragedy, a long, grassy reach, fretted with dusty sunshine, and the shadows of the burnt trees, a girl resting in the shade with her head leaning against the bark of an old elm, and her dark eyes looking blankly out into the steamy evening. They were blank because Beatrice was not feeling at all just then. She was content to be there, out of pain. She had no desire to struggle for life against the drowsiness creeping over her, for the fear of realizing it all again and waking to that awful, vivid horror kept her very still. She almost held her breath as though it were a material thing that might be roused out of the lethargy into which it had fallen. A policeman passed her and looked with faint disapproval at the slight girlish figure sitting on the grass. She had taken off her hat and the abundance of her dark hair and her shadowy eyes were apparent to him even at the distance of his patrol on the gravel. He did not approve of young women with such faces reclining on the grass. They were inevitably suggestive to the delicacy of a masculine mind, and the morals of the people cannot be too tenderly handled. Nevertheless, as she was respectably dressed, he let her be. Had her skirts been ragged, his duty would probably have pricked him into a gruff demand as to her business there. A space of turf is too luxurious a bed for the end of a tramping life. But during the summer the tendency of the public to sit on the grass has somewhat legitimized it, provided that they look quite as fitted to occupy the seats, besides which Beatrice Youth led his thoughts in a different direction. He passed on and left her. About sunset she died. She had fallen into a dreamless sleep long since, and the only alteration was the ceasing of the faint breath through her parted lips. Her pale face took a firmer mold and slowly set itself of all the responsible agents who had had a part in the making or marring of that sad little life. I doubt if one would have dared to have said a word of reproof then, had they been brought face to face with her marble fairness. But Beatrice's parents and guardians were as far removed from her in-death as in life, farther even than the musicmaster or the theatrical manager, who had brusquely crushed her last hope, the lithe flesh and blood from which she had escaped, lay there on the grass alone, a quiet denial of joy to herself or any human creature in the world. No covetous eye could soil her delicate roundness any more. No man desired that little straight, soft body. Her failure was nothing to a world which only considers such things of importance. As pertaining to a possible after-success, London drifted by beyond the park, moaning to itself. Under the trees one of Nuzotra had done her best to solve the increasing problem of what should be done with superfluous women. Three days afterwards, Flair Caldecott and Hilda Romain identified the body and made the necessary arrangements for its burial. Beatrice's salary for the quarter just covered the funeral expenses, and Flair handed it over to the officials. Then she went home and was very sick. Flair's nerves never answered to the required strain that was put upon them. Hilda did not play well on that evening, either, and the conductor of the lady's cat-gut band seized the opportunity to vent his wrath upon her. It was seldom that his personal and private grudge against her of not appreciating his admiration had such a chance, and he felt much better for the reprimand he delivered in the face of the whole orchestra. The eyes with which she listened to his upbrading were as dim as fading violets. Beatrice's chair was not set in the usual corner when Nuzotra met. Frank shifted her seat a little that way, and the space was filled as well as possible, unless BA came down and swelled the decreasing number. The discussions lost a note of poetry, and the harmony wanted the silver string of its sweetest voice. Providence, like other governments, sometimes seems to make mistakes, and binds too heavy a burden upon individual members of the community. Under such circumstances the only honest course for those who feel that they cannot meet the responsibility thrust upon them appears to be to resign. Beatrice Barley had sent in her resignation. CHAPTER XI Wherefore on these the fates shall bend, and all old idle things, wherefore on these shall power attend beyond the grasp of kings, each in her place by right, not grace, shall rule her heritage, women who simply do the work for which they draw the wage, Rudyard Kipling. Flair's rooms measured about twelve feet by fourteen, and a good third of the space was choked up with papers, but their owner did not seem to feel that she was crowded out, and fiercely resented any attempt on Mrs. Bonnet's part to keep order for her. A thing that she never seemed to try to do for herself. Papers, as the rest of Neuzotra, told Flair, attract both dust and beetles, but Flair remained unmoved by such warnings. She did not mind dust, and had a cockroach held out any inducement of becoming tame, she would have invited him to tea. Nothing that lived shocked Flair very much in itself, though the conditions of its breeding might strike her as too horrible to be contemplated. Not taking into account possible beetles, however, R.L. was the only person who was licensed to sit on her manuscript or disturb them as he pleased, and with a fine disregard of possible masterpieces he made a bed of Flair's romances and a plaything of her verse. One room, the bedroom, looked out over a sea of houses, the roofs rising and falling like waves, a way to the ugly purple of the London horizon. Overhead the sky was white in fine weather, that smooth, colourless white that one so often sees in England, with a glare of light that is not exactly sunshine. It inspired Flair with two lines that never grew into any consecutive description. White skies of a sunless summer, and the long, straight veil of the rain. Flair knew those high white skies of summer as well as the yellow vapours of winter, for she rarely went out of town. The second room where she ate and wrote, and had her daylight being, looked out onto leads, and by throwing the window up as far as it would go, Flair could scramble out among the blacks and the chimney-pots, and see all London rolling by beneath. For her two attics were six flights up, and the leads of the next house jutted to a corner, and there by a twist of good fortune, Flair could sit on a low parapet, if she did not mind smuts, and see Trafalgar Square through a blinking side street. It was a bird's-eye view, and not a good one at that. A photographer would have scorned it, but it was Nelson's column and one lion, a spray of fountain and a bit of pavement, while all day and far into the street, the flood-tide of existence rolled and rolled and purred in traffic noises. When she was very tired, indeed, nothing rested Flair like creeping through the window and along by the chimneys and so to the parapet, where she put her back against sun-warmed bricks and rested, sublimely indifferent to her old surged skirts and ink-stained blouses. Sometimes she borrowed Henley from a free library and read him there. Trafalgar Square, the fountain's volleying golden glaze, shines like an angel-market, high aloft, over his Couchant lions in a haze, shimmering and bland and soft. A dust of chrysopraise, our sailor takes the golden gaze of the saluting sun and flames superb as once he flamed it on his ocean round. But I doubt if Henley, even, saw Trafalgar Square as Flair saw it. On the day of Beatrice's school-breaking up, Flair went out onto the leds at sunset. It had been an intensely hot day, so that the heat seemed to hang above the earth and obscure the sunlight. But when Flair crawled out of the window among the smuts, the atmosphere had cleared sufficiently to make the Square a dull gold, not the golden glory, long lapsing down a golden-coasted sky, but sunshine filtered through mist. She had had her evening meal, bread and butter and lettuce, chiefly, because it was too hot to eat much, and had come out to allow the room to air. Flair always had a feeling that a room in which one had had food kept the odor of it, even though there was practically none to keep. But as far as her own share of ozone went, she might just as well have stayed inside. A reek of the streets rose slowly, and was composed of stale vegetables and drying flowers, and a horrible disinfectant which the London County Council, or the local vestries, were trying on the wood pavements. Flair sniffed as indifferently as a horse that knows its stable. London was as familiar to her in an old factory sense, as visually she walked across the lads and out of the shadow of the chimney-pots into the pallid sunset, and there below her the carts and carriages swung past in a rhythm to which she wove romances, for it was as easy to flair to endow the occupants of a passing barouche with life and history as to read a novel. They were mere dots from this distance, but so much the more like puppets of which she pulled the strings. After a few minutes she grew tired, Flair's body was generally flaccid and lacked the spring of vitality, and set down on the parapet, one hand dropped against the dirty stucco, and a long lean black tomcat found her there, and after prowling about for some scared minutes, leapt up on her knee and lay down. He had surveyed her as an enemy, but she sat very still, and her eyes were the eyes of a lost friend. So as she did not even make the mistake of holding out her hand, he jumped up as he might have done on the parapet itself, and Flair stroked him gently. They were two strayed personalities, wafes in that London whose very essence seemed embodied in their quiet figures, a shabby girl with a languid face and eyes full of dreadful wisdom, and a shabby cat with every twitching sinew suggesting the life of the Outlaw. He was a most disreputable cat, and the old scar on his nose was probably gained in a past battle with R.L. His very sleep was a wary one, and light enough to enable him to fly before the enemy he had always found to arrive before very long. This was probably the most domesticated hour of his life, and Flair's tired, stained hand, the only one that had ever smoothed his ragged black coat. I often think that Flair must have been trying in a family circle, where she presumably lived at some period before she became a solitary tenant in the rooms off Duncannon Street. For a person who prefers to keep an amateur cat's home upon the windowsill and becomes really ferocious if a single paper in an untidy room is properly dusted and straightened cannot be regarded as a social character. Yet for the moment, dreaming among her chimney-pots above the golden haze of Travolgar Square, there was something quietly home-like about Flair with her stray friend on her knee, and to her as well as to the cat the hour meant something, a pause in an overdriven life, a certain gentle sadness in being glad to rest. She was probably as happy at the minute as she would ever be, for she was in no actual pain of body or mind. She was so often ailing that to be passively well seemed to her a thing for which to be very grateful, and though she had no actual joy of living and no impetus towards activity, she was at least quiescent. An unexpected acceptance of a story also had lifted the worry from her mind secretly caused by her loan to Alma. Flair calculated with a certain margin that one spell of work would last her until another was finished, and to have her calculations thrown out by giving away half of a hard-earned sum shook her nerves for the coming weeks. She was not generous by nature, and to lend was an effort to her. Alma did her an unconscious service by forcing her to a wider virtue than her own prudence, while the knowledge of her debt to Flair kept Alma within bounds and taught her to painfully save. So they helped each other in this also. But the unexpected acceptance of a manuscript and the following check had enabled Flair to see her way clearly again for three months, and she thanked God without words, for she prayed as naturally as she breathed. Beatrice being at the breaking-up party, and Hilda with her, Flair had not looked for a gathering of the clans. But through a series of chances Nuzltra had in a regular meeting that night all the same. Flair was still sitting on the parapet when the black cat jumped down and vanished like a shadow. And guided by his finer hearing, she got up and walked leisurely back to the window. When she reached it she found Frank, smiling rather comically from the sitting-room, and evidently undecided as to whether anyone could be out there on the leds. Hello, she said cheerfully. Mrs. Bonnet said you were here. But I thought you must have gone out unbeknownst. So I had, said Flair, standing outside the open window to chat. Yes, but I did not mean in the soot-fields. Flair, you will be perfectly black. I daresay, said Flair carelessly. Shall I come in? As you are obviously afraid of smuts on your nose. I came in reality rather to clean myself than to get dirtier. May I borrow a bath? Certainly. Go into my room and take what towels you want. And the rest of the paraphernalia. The towels are in the cupboard which I use as a linen-chest. I shan't come in for half an hour more if you are going down to the bathroom. I know you will lie in the soak. I'll meet you in the committee-room by and by. Do you want something to eat, incidentally? No, dearie. I have had a non-descript tea with a plate of ham. I shall do very well till I get home, and Mother will keep some supper for me anyway. The bright face vanished, and Flair went back to the parapet. But the black cat did not reappear. And after a time the light faded out of the sky, and there was less to distract her thoughts. Flair never allowed her mind to dwell on the life she led, or those of her friends. She had a suspicion that if she did she would go mad. She had some vague ambitions for the future, and a store of splendid memories. And on these she lived. By the time she had washed off the smuts and changed to a cleaner blouse, Frank had come out of the bathroom and was talking to another visitor of whose arrival Flair had not known. It was magda, and the reason for her appearance was as much of a chance as Frank's, for she had been reporting at lords all day, and was in need of comfort. The authorities at lords do not give seats to women reporters on small papers. Magda was taking a chance order from a lady's weekly to review and sketch the dresses, who nevertheless are bound to do their work thoroughly and see the match through. But they allowed magda a pass at the gates, which saved her a shilling each day. And she sat in the freestand, between a curate and a working man, and learned more about the game than she would have done on one of the coaches drawn up against the rails. Both men were enthusiasts and knew their subject, and magda was friendly. They told her so much that her account was surprisingly sporting, and the dresses took a second place in the letterpress. Nevertheless she went into the enclosure at the interval, and made shorthand notes in line which no mortal being could understand but herself, but which eventually emerged into finished black and whites of no mean quality. To watch magda work was a gasping education, and destroyed the most sacred convictions of the unalterable methods of a journalist. Free scrawled lines, a few cabalistic words appended, as to frills and furvillows, and a memory beyond the price of rubies made the foundation for a realistic representation of a fancy fate or Messer's so-and-so's spring goods. When she had finished with the promenade at Lord's, she rushed off to get a bun in a glass of lemonade at the buffet under the stand, where she was half afraid to remain because of the company. It was the third day, and magda stayed till stumps were drawn, because she had a chance of a second paragraph in a special edition, and dared not risk inaccuracy. The sun had beat on her head all day, and in spite of the parasol, which other spectators good-naturedly allowed her, because she had an end seat, and as she left the stand with a word of thanks to her two friends, she realized that she had been on duty for seven hours. Good-bye, said the curate, lifting his sunburnt straw hat. It was a splendid game. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Good evening, Miss, said the workman. I'm glad to stretch my legs a bit. It's a long sit, ain't it? Good night, said magda, meeting the shrewd kindly eyes. Thank you so much for all you have told me. Oh, I didn't tell you nothing, said the workman, with a shyly pleased laugh. He hesitated a moment, and then looked at magda, without the barrier of class. You look fagged out, he said. I have a daughter about your age, and I'd be sorry to see her sit in the eat all day to write for some bloomin' rag. We use his girl's cruel art nowadays, it seems to me. Your daughter has something to be glad of, anyhow. The good father, said April's lady, with the quick tears in her blue eyes at the hint of kindness. She turned away quickly, and ran down the steps, hurrying to get through the crowd. At the gate, however, she chanced on a man she had known during the office life in which her editor was a standing personality, a man who was reporting on a Sunday paper, and was hotfoot for Fleet Street to get his copy in. Magda spoke to him at once, and asked him to take the brief notice she had written, and leave it at the office whence the special would be issued, as he passed, and which would save her the necessity of a cab. He took it good-naturedly, asked her even as they parted how she was getting on, and left her free to go home and rest herself, as she stood hesitating on the pavement, wondering if train or omnibus would be the cooler this breathless evening. A gentleman came leisurely out past her, inhaled a handsome, evidently engaged for him. He was lighting a cigarette and pausing on the curb before entering the cab. His eyes fell on Magda, pausing also for other reasons. He looked at her for a minute beneath rather cynically lowered lids. At the flushed tire of her face, the notebook in her pretty hands, she had not waited to put on her gloves. The fountain pen hanging in its leather case amongst the laces of her blouse. He saw the English blue eyes looking wistfully at the cabs and carriages carrying off their fortunate owners, and perhaps he guessed at her hesitation. Anyhow he turned round and raised his hat. Are you by chance going south? He said easily. I am driving to Paul Mall, and I should be very glad to offer you a seat if you would like it. Magda looked up in amazement, hardly knowing how to deal with the invitation. It was pleasantly spoken, and he was not dangerous in appearance. A man who was not very young, either, with a rather weary face, and quiet air of good living, and good breeding about him. She remembered, with the faithfulness of a journalistic memory, seeing him in conversation with one of the coach parties, and wondering who he was. There was nothing offensive to take hold of in his manner, but there was a certain leisureliness, almost a langer in both his voice and his movements. For a minute she was going to accept, the rest and ease of the cab would have been merciful to her after the heat and tire, and she could ask him to put her down at Piccadilly Circus, and go on from there to some friends whom she wanted to see. Why should she refuse a good offer? There was nothing against it. Nothing. Except, Magda had learned that no sermon is so well preached as an example. She had certain principles which she had found necessary in life, and the rest of her friends knew that she held them and kept to them. There might be no harm in accepting a stranger's invitation to drive with him. Winnie would have done so for the devilment of the thing. Alma likewise. Beatrice might have consented for the mere hint of romance, and something out of the common in it. To frank and flair it would probably not have been offered. Hilda would have refused. But the point in Magda's mind was not that her friends would have condemned it in her, but that it was a concession to license. Nuzotra do not preach to each other, flair's sermon being only gained by mutual demand. But they claim to be women who walk with clean feet through the streets of experience. The one who had said good-bye to them was Winnie. Winnie was the first who had occurred to Magda's mind as sharing this stranger's handsome. No thanks, she said quietly, the eyes that were still a little moist from the workman's kindness, threatening to fill again, half with the physical disappointment born of her tire, half because she felt the sharp contrast of the workman's daughter to herself. What would the father, who would not let his daughter overtax her womanhood even, have said to her, being offered a ride because she was alone? I am going home, she said desperately, and walk swiftly away, leaving the stranger to think what he pleased. It is probable that he meant no harm by his offer, though he might have thought that there would be a certain novelty and amusement in the passing companionship of the girl to whom he had offered a lift. But supposing Alma or Beatrice or Frank should have passed and seen Magda driving with him, at first she could have said he was a friend, but it was not her fashion to speak in generalities or to lie. So Magda went home by train, but halfway there she altered her mind, and feeling the need of comfort changed for Charing Cross. She had a much longer, hotter journey than she would have done had she gone straight home. But her housemate Deb was out tonight, had Magda was a gregarious animal, and feared empty rooms. Flair at least would be at home. Newzotra could generally calculate on that in the evenings, for Flair had no social life, and went nowhere, saved to an occasional theatre. She had discovered that a general acquaintance is a handicapped to work, and that if she visited it meant not only the expense of better clothes, but took up time and was a hindrance. You cannot serve art and society. Flair worked really hard and faithfully. The only drawback to her plan being that to write one must first live, and she was simply drawing on her store of splendid memories, and absorbing no new experience. By degrees her copy would become lifeless and not worth the paper it was written on, save from those living touches taken from her friends, as she hated the effort of going out, however, and found that it paid her best for the moment to stop at home and write, or read for the sake of writing, Flair was to be counted upon in her rooms, and Magda was not disappointed. More she found Frank there, and rejoiced in the extra company. I'm expecting Alma, too, said Flair, as she dropped into the deck chair which she had brought down, and mutely invited R.L. to join her. She is off on Friday with a Cotsmore crowd, and is coming to say good-bye. Dined Magda? No, I'm starving. Flair, may I go up and find something to eat and bring down a chair? Do, I'll stay and entertain the clean and shining Frank. I can see soap and water glistening in every pore. That's because you are enviously dirty, said Frank, settling herself in the only other chair that Flair had listlessly dragged down the many flights of stairs. She was sitting on the ledge, Magda, with so many blacks on her face that I thought at first it was the sweep, taking a rest from labor among the chimney-pots. Someone else was taking a rest, too, said Flair lazily. R.L. can send him now. There was a most disreputable old Tom who came and talked to me. Don't be silly, R.L. I have no doubt he is an intimate friend of yours. It's absurd to pretend I have consorted with strangers. But R.L. with a ringed paw on her knee, sniffed fastidiously. In spite of the summer, his own coat was watered satin compared with the black cats. I don't like the smell of him, he said plainly, and dropped his paw from Flair's knee without jumping up. We have to pay by our established loves for following wandering fires. I call that mean, said Flair, lighting a cigarette to console herself. And you scratched him on the nose. You know you did. Vulgar Beast said R.L. and went and sat on the bare table in the window, lashing his tail. He was always haunted by a dread which besets an adopted pet. That Flair would take another stray into her capacious heart, and he should be ousted. Had he been a pampered kitten and owned by an adorer from the first, he would have had no doubts. One knows the heir of a cat or dog who has been taught his own value from birth as well as the converted strays. But R.L. had had buffets in his life which had built him up a noble constitution and spoiled his assurance. It was an anxiety of Flair's lest he should ever come to Ishmael's portion again, and she did not see how to guard against it. As long as she lived, she knew that R.L. Stevenson, of the black tabby coat, was sure of half her worldly goods. But no life insurance office would have given Flair a policy for which very reason she was not insured. By the way, said Magda, pausing on the threshold to watch the altercation with R.L., what am I to eat, or to leave alone, Flair? There is half a loaf of bread and some butter, said Flair thoughtfully. Leave me enough for tomorrow's breakfast, that's all. And potted meat. And I don't think I finished the lettuce. You will find two or three eggs and the saucepan and spirit-stove all in the right hand covered. Don't forget the water. Alma nearly burned the bottom out of the saucepan last time she honored me by dining here. And you can have marmalade if you want sweets. Do? Beautifully. Oh, and Flair looked at Magda's face with keen sleepy eyes. Kindly oblige me by helping yourself to whisk in soda, and bring the rest down here. Tumblers are in the left hand covered. Magda departed, laughing, to refresh, and came back after some twenty minutes to find that Alma had arrived in the meanwhile. It was a scratch meeting, but they threw open the window and forbore to light up on account of the heat, and so smoked and gasped in the hot darkness for lack of better entertainment. Shall I send you a jar of potted meat, Flair, or will you come and meal with me, and take it all out together? said Magda practically. I believe I have borrowed two meals of you. Do you mean to tell me that you have eaten six penny worth of potted meat, said Flair solemnly? Because if so, I am afraid serious consequences will ensue. What have you been doing all day? Reporting at Lord's. Don't be silly. I must pay you back, and I can't send less than a jar. But how will you manage about the rest of it? said Flair teasingly. You owe me at least three lettuce leaves, two slices of bread. If I know anything of your appetite, a penny worth of butter, and one of marmalade, the whiskey and soda doesn't count, because you stood me some horrible drink the other day when we met at a report on that sale of Irish lace. It was an ice cream soda, and I will never give you another. It is base in gratitude to forget anything so divine. I don't forget the consequences anyway. I went to see my doctor promptly next day. Then you owe me a debt of obligation. You know you adore your doctor, and would do anything for an excuse to go and see him. He and my publisher are the only gentlemen whom I know, said Flair amicably. When I feel doubtful of the term, I go and call on one or the other, lest I should forget that such a thing exists. All the rest are if-baphs. It's because you never go out. Why don't you make your own circle? It is dreadfully bad for you, living in yourself as you do. Because I hate the people I should have to know. The people in much the same class as myself. Only a little better off, perhaps. And if I could meet those who do interest me, they would be in an entirely different position to myself. And that is an insuperable barrier. It is a great mistake to go out of your sphere. I don't see that you can go out of your sphere if you go into a better class of society, said Frank, as abruptly as if she spoke with an effort. You are simply educating yourself up to something above you. It's when you associate with a class below that the pinch comes. Dick, you see, had left his indelible mark of humiliation, if not of remorse. I agree with you, Frank. I don't mind knowing anyone who is above me in station, so called. But I very much object to its being the other way. This was Magda, of course. That is personal prejudice, but so long as I am a lady I see nothing to prevent my mixing with any class. And it's doing me no harm. Well, I do, said Flair with obstinate dryness, for my own comfort, at least. If you married a man who was well off and well connected to Maro Magda, I should drop out of your life. I can't afford the luxury of a social acquaintance. Flair, well then, I should be very hurt and very angry. Why should you hold my friendship so cheaply? Not cheaply, my dear, Flair answered a little sadly, only inevitably removed under such circumstances by the unwritten laws of civilization. We are outside the pale, Nuzotra, and as long as we remain Nuzotra, we have no affinity with the men and women who make the world of the real girls. If you made such a marriage, as I said, you would have different interests and a different atmosphere, and we should drift apart. That is all. I know that many women who may be classed among Nuzotra lead a very busy social life, and know a great number of people. But there is always a certain bohemianism on the underside of it, and their hostesses, I believe, hesitate every time they add their names to a guest list. Well, what can you expect, said Alma, with a gay shrug of her shoulders. You ask a girl to your house when you give a respectable dinner party, and you send her down with a man who, last night, saw her having supper at Prince's about two o'clock in the morning. You must own that the situation has its charms. That is just why I don't go out to supper unless I have an older woman with me, said Magda practically. But I grant that many women do it, and they are none the worse. No, but the fact remains that they are taking a liberty with social laws. If you think the game is worth the candle, and like such amusements better than the respectable dinner party, then I think you are quite right to choose for yourself. But I agree with Flair so far that I don't think you can quite combine the two lives. Personally, I prefer my liberty, said Alma, with a little laugh that bubbled like champagne. But Flair doesn't go to suppers, and yet she will not try to get into the conventional groove she approves. Magda protested in aggravated tones. Her attitude seems to be this. I am one of Nuzotra, therefore I am a Bohemian, an unfit for society. But I hate Bohemianism, and so I shan't be even that. Flair was saved defending herself by the arrival of another unexpected member, Hilda Romain, who had come on from her experience at Beatrice breaking up and dined on her way at the Roche. It had been a hot meal and the atmosphere had offended her. But it was not only that that shadowed her beautiful face. You are just in time, Frank said gaily. Magda and Flair are about to tear each other to pieces, because they cannot agree about our social position. I'll run upstairs and get you a chair, shall I, old lady? Come and sit in mine, meanwhile, and pass judgment on the combatants. Don't trouble. The packing case is good enough for me, said Hilda, seating herself thereon. It is late, my children, and I am only shedding the passing light of my countenance upon you. I came in for five minutes to chat with Flair. What is the meaning of this conclave? It's a scratch, Flair explained briefly. We didn't mean to meet. Frank came round to borrow a bath, and Magda dropped in because she wanted to quarrel with someone. Magda shook her fist. And Alma came to say good-bye. She goes to-morrow for three months. Flair sighed below her breath. Good luck, Alma, Hilda said kindly. I hope you'll have a good time. What is the discussion on tonight? We were talking about going out of our spear, said Frank. Flair says that if Magda married and went up in the social scale, she should drop her. There was a pause because they were all waiting for a comment from Hilda. And for the moment she made none. Instead her eyes turned to the dark of the open window, through which one could hear the occasional patter of feet belonging to some chance passerby, and a sudden reserve seemed to have fallen like a veil upon her face. I do not think, she said at last, with an abrupt bitterness that vaguely startled her hearers, that it is a subject that need trouble us, for none of us are ever likely to be asked to better ourselves by marriage, as they so honestly say in the servant class. No man in a desirable position could want us for wives with all our imperfections on our heads. It is much more likely that the office boy or the lift man would make us an offer. From the point of view that he was perhaps bettering himself, she added with a withering sense of humor that seemed to scorch her as much as any of her hearers. And I am not sure under the circumstances that it would not be incumbent on us to take him. For the benefit of humanity and socialism, said Flair, laughing, surely you are not going, Hilda, why you have only just come. Tell us about Beatrice's party. There is nothing to tell. It smelt of draper's shops, and was cheap even down to the cakes, which had been made with saffron. Beatrice was the only thing there worth looking at. And when the butchers and bakers did not obscure my view, I refreshed myself with her. The frock was a success, then? Beatrice was a success. The social instinct is so strong in Beatrice that even with such poor material as a breaking-up party of that description, she molded it with the instinct of the perfect hostess. Wherever she was in the room, the people about her felt pleased with themselves and their entertainment. I wish Beatrice could marry a duke and live in Park Lane, said Alma regretfully. She was emitting radiance tonight from the irrepressible joy in her heart at the prospect of being on the road again, since her illness Alma had only been doing desultory work, special weeks and such like, and she pined for the swing of a long-settled tour, three months at least stretched before her now, and in the glamour of her profession. The very baggage-man and dresser seemed like friends to her. She was itching to be off, and already the smell of the road was in her nostrils, the dear, irrelevant life with its movement and sense of adventure, even the narrowness of the crowd which would bound her social horizon, that subtle world in itself which is stage-land, and sets its votaries apart from any other. Some sense of this binds expression in the illimitable slang which makes the theatrical profession less understandable than any other, for they must have a language of their own, to denote them a peculiar people, and no dictionary standard will serve their necessity. Alma's only regret was that she should be away from her friends, and beyond recall of them, more especially of flair, until her contract ended, and in the fullness of her heart she would feign have endowed them all with impossible happiness like a fairy godmother. Even if Beatrice married a duke, she would never forget such an experience as today's, for instance, said Hilda slowly, her eyes on the memory of Beatrice's white face and voice. At the end she was tired, I think, or something went wrong. Oh, girls, sometimes I feel that though I were left a fortune, it would be no real good to me now. I should never get the chill of poverty out of my bones, as Magda says. No, we were born to attics, and it's better to keep to your sphere, said Frank, in a dispirited tone. The weather is making us all feel low, except Alma. Let's break up. Do you come my way, Magda? They one and all hugged Alma before they left, however, and placed most of their possessions at her disposal, if she found she wanted them for the part. Flair walked down the passage with her to the hall door, and stood there for wants to see them all depart, fearing half curiously into the warm, flat darkness of the night. What are you looking at? Alma said, following her eyes. Is there an enemy round the corner? One never knows, said Flair dryly. I wondered if I had been indiscreet, and someone were sitting on the doorstep until you came out. How's the big man, Alma? Very beautiful, said Alma, with the simplest paganism. He is coming to see me off tomorrow morning. Hmph! Just as well I'm not. Supposing he had turned up tonight, and the others had had escorts as well, I conclude you would have had to sort yourselves out before you started. There is generally some man hanging round Magda, and Frank has many friends. Hilda stands as aloof as you do, said Alma. Not quite, said Flair dryly. The old fear dawned in her eyes. She shuddered and backed against the doorpost, glancing round as if the shadow had suddenly come into view, even as Alma called a last good night and trotted after the others, who were in advance. The girl standing on the doorstep was looking, with watchful, furtive eyes, to right and left, as if some dreadful danger threatened her from the quiet night. When I come back again, Alma was saying to Frank, it will be autumn. Perhaps it may be winter. I wonder if anything will have happened. And Frank answered, No, nothing. We shall just go on being news-ultra to the end of the chapter, and living the same life. It is only in books that women like ourselves come suddenly into a change of circumstances. Name and fame and fortune, in real life the girls who work, simply go on working. But there is an end, even to our chapter, said Magda. And things do sometimes happen, said Hilda, unknowing herself a prophetess. There is my omni, said Alma. Good night, girls. Right and tell me if things do happen. Address to Alma Craig, the diamond merchant company, On the Road. Don't forget. End of Chapter 11