And she, the heartless creature, darkened his day by prattling inconsequently of to-morrow. She hurled at him some saw out of the philosophies: Happiness must be earned to be enjoyed,' a lie on the face of it. Who so happy as children? He wanted to play Paul to her Virginia, to wander hand in hand with her upon the shores of Quiberon's 'sickle-shaped bay,' or some other not too remote strand unfrequented by the ubiquitous tripper.

And afterwards?

She put the question brutally with derisive laughter, and he could never face it-like a paladin. Instead, he evaded it, slinking past the inevitable, actually blushing when she brazenly presented the possibility of children.

But the main issue remained the stage. He heard of the visit to FitzRoy, but not of the walk from St. Martin's Lane to Piccadilly Circus; and he had to smile at Esther's description of Miranda Jagg, turning up his nose at the pink dressing-gown and carpet slippers.

If you had heard her with the star class '

'I don't want to hear her. That you should mix with such people makes me miserable. And I'm astounded that you should have gone alone to see FitzRoy. I told you that would be the last straw.'

'You did. Why are you here to-day? A man of your inches should never threaten what he does not intend to perform.'

'I intended to cut loose, but you're a witch. If I let you try this ridiculous experiment will you marry me in three months?' She hesitated.

Perhaps,' she said gently, but not till I've justified existence by earning my own bread and butter. Meantime, you are free and I am free.'

'I don't want to be free.'

'I know you, Harry, and I know myself. Perhaps I know you better than I know myself, because I have never lived with antimacassars and Berlin wool-work. They are conspicuous in my new lodging, and they are sure to change my point of view.'

And heaps of people want you.'

'For week-end visits.'

He went away grumbling, although they kissed at parting. When he had gone Esther sat frowning and thinking for nearly an hour. Why had this gallant lover shrunk in Cupid's washing? Perhaps offence lay in the humiliating inference that he was

enamoured desperately of her body, while he expressed distrust if not contempt of her intelligence. Instinct told her that Harry Rye would be hard to live with if he discovered that his wife was cleverer than himself.

The conviction stole upon her that she, even as he, had fallen in love with the envelope without waiting to study the document within. His good looks, his pleasant voice, his easy manner, had captivated her. He had that 'little way' with women which

counts for so much. Once she had asked her father what he thought of the young fellow. Mr. Yorke had replied drily that he was decorative.'

Thinking of Harry, another face formed itself in her mindthe face of the doctor who had accosted her in Piccadilly Circus. The incident refused to be banished from memory. She had been weak, abominably weak, at a moment when she should have been strong. And her weakness, not her beauty, such as it was, had appealed to a kindly man. Why had she felt faint? Did the sense of physical incapacity to rise to an emergency foreshadow horrors in the future? Her father, man of iron as she had deemed him to be, had failed in a supreme moment, because he was tired. And that word solved her riddle. Alone in the tremendous crowd, subject to its irresistible force, she had realised her own helplessness. Something more than words had passed between her and the waif of the pavement. If they never met again, they were linked together, because in this unhappy creature Esther recognised a debased resemblance to herself. She knew that the girl had had sunny hours; she knew that the storm must have come suddenly, drenching her to the skin before she was aware of it, deafening her with its thunders, blinding her with its lightning. At the moment when she was engulfed by the crowd she had flung Esther a pathetic smile, half grateful, half derisive. The smile had seemed to say 'I know what you are because I remember what I was. I might be you; you might be me.' And the truth made Esther sick and dizzy.

CHAPTER IV.

IN BLOOMSBURY.

BLOOMSBURY received her and her pretty things in the middle of August. Sabrina had discovered, not without difficulty, two nice

rooms in a dingy street within a stone's throw of Mecklenburgh Square. One of the rooms was glorified by a genuine Adam's chimney-piece upon which stood a frightful ormolu clock under a glass shade and two Bohemian glass vases rising out of mats of purple and green Berlin wool-work. Antimacassars abounded. The installation had its humours.

Sabrina, from the first, opposed the taking of two rooms. And she tried, quite in vain, to persuade Esther to sell her Sheraton bookcase and other 'meubles' of not inconsiderable value.

'I must keep something to remind me of the fat years.'

'That is where you are so unwise. You ought to sell everything, I mean everything, invest the whole of it, and live on the income.' 'Live on a pound a week?

'Certainly.'

'I couldn't.'

'Millions have to do it.'

Esther made a grimace, and Sabrina laughed, shrugging her shoulders. Already she divined obstinacy in this new friend and the determination to go free. Mrs. Willet, the landlady, removed the antimacassars and wool-work and most of her furniture, not, however, without protest and affirmation of respectability. Miss Yorke, so she told her husband, was quite the lady; but she looked at Sabrina with wide-eyed interrogation. A play-actress! That's what they called 'emselves! Sabrina, it is true, had introduced Esther, who seemed to have come to stay; but Sabrina also had lowered the rent of the rooms to the irreducible minimum.

'I can't sleep when I think of that,' Mrs. Willet said to Willet. Within a week two long boxes filled with scarlet geraniums adorned the second floor front. Number 11 became conspicuous in the dingy street.

'Who pays?' asked Willet.

'She does cash on the nail for everything. You don't supdoes-cash pose

??

'Never saw a Jill like this without her Jack,' said Willet.

'I'll have no Jacks, nor Toms either, taking away the character of my house,' declared Mrs. Willet.

'What you've got to do,' said the cautious Willet, is to see that the rent's paid. If Jack drops in to tea it is none o' your business.'

'I say nothing against tea, Willet. But if any young man drops in to supper, why, I'll drop on to him. I'm not a whited sepulchre like others in this street.'

Nobody came to tea or supper except Sabrina.

A month passed before Sabrina heard of Harry. Indeed, all mention of our paladin might have been suppressed had he not written a letter in which, for the fifth and last time, he proposed marriage.

of me.

'I have reason to believe' (he wrote) that my uncle might increase my allowance. The twins have not had even measles, and they tell me babies die like flies in the dog-days. But I want your authority to write to Camber, and lay the facts before him. He's not a bad sort, and he must feel rather cheap when he thinks He was fifty-eight when he married that designing woman! 'I've had no fun here because of your obstinacy. It drives me wild to think of you stewing in Bloomsbury when we might be together listening to a ripping band. I suppose you're living on buns and milk. Anyway, I want to tell Camber that we are engaged and going to get married at once. Then he can do the square thing if he means to behave decently. It might burke the affair to make our marriage provisional on his doubling my allowance, because it wouldn't surprise me a little bit if the Mater had got at him. They met at Cowes, where people have absolutely nothing to do except to prattle about other people's business.

And now, at the risk of your calling me a beast, I'm going to say frankly that if you say "No," I shall take it that things are at an end between us. I want you as you are, dearest, not as you will be three years hence if you do succeed, which you admit is doubtful. Why rub off the bloom scrimmaging about with these confounded mummers?'

A postscript followed :

'I've lost a stone over this job.'

The postscript nearly melted Esther. Her Harry thin and pale, wandering alone upon the sands of Ostend, brought tears to the heart if not to the eyes. And his letter came pat to a moment when the excitement of a great change had died a natural death. For several days Miranda had been sharper in word and manner. Slowly but unmistakably our heroine was beginning to grasp the fundamental difference between the gifted amateur and the professional, and to see clearly the nature of the road which she had elected to travel : a road lined with despairing ranks of unemployed. Sabrina, with her undoubted talent, remained without an autumn

engagement. She wrote innumerable letters to dramatists and actor-managers, she advertised in The Era,' she wore out shoeleather flitting from agency to agency, but she was not wanted.

By this time Esther had learned to admire in Sabrina qualities lacking in herself. Sabrina's commonsense cooled not unpleasantly perfervid sensibilities. Esther herself, not infelicitously, called this taking a dip in the Severn.' But she had never plunged to the depths. Each girl had little more than a surface knowledge of the other.

'Miranda has been awfully cross lately. What am I to infer from that?'

'She will drink stout when the thermometer is seventy in the shade.'

'Sabrina-she thinks me a duffer.'

"Are you fishing? You've not done badly.'

"I read "chuck it!" in her funny little beady eyes.' ‘Well, if anything else turned up, I'd say "chuck it" too." Something has turned up. A man wants to marry me. I've said "no" four times.'

Esther poured out the story curled up at ease on her divan amongst the big soft cushions. Sabrina sat bolt upright in a straight-backed chair.

'Why have you told me this?'

'I want your advice.'

'I don't believe it. You want my experience. I don't see why I should give it to you. If I had asked for your confidenceI have been afraid of this. Perhaps we're going too fast. I like you. I like you better every time we meet, but can I trust you? Why do you trust me?'

She shot the question at Esther. 'How funny you are!'

'Funny?' Sabrina scowled. What an idiotic expression! You raise a tremendous issue. I say tremendous, because it is so to me. It may not be so to you. Why should you trust me? We have known each other a few weeks.'

'I wanted to tell you the first day we met.'

Thank the Lord you didn't! I dislike women who gush without encouragement. And yet I like you. I believe I could love you. And, for my life, I can't analyse the why and wherefore."