live or have lived in India. My father was in the army."

"What, an officer?"

"Yes."

Maggy was impressed. She had once met a Sergeant-Major, and, superior being as she thought him, knew that his glory was reflected from the commissioned ranks.

"That's something to be proud of, anyway."

Alexandra's people had been in the Army and Civil Service for generations. It had not occurred to her to think of them unduly on this account. She said as much.

"Well," observed Maggy sententiously, "I should say your father and the rest of your relations must be either dead or dreaming to let you go on the stage."

"Nearly all my near relations are dead. I have an aunt and uncle—"

"What does he do?"

"He's a retired colonel. He—they wanted me to live with them." Alexandra gave the information with a touch of reluctance.

"Why didn't you?"

To give a stranger adequate and convincing reasons why one prefers not to live with uncongenial relations is not always easy. Alexandra put it briefly.

"We have nothing in common," she said.

"And what do you think you have in common with this life and the people you'll meet in it?" propounded Maggy. "If I were you I'd go back and say: 'Nunky old dear, I've changed my mind. I'll come and live with you and be your loving niece, amen.' Fancy! a retired colonel—Anglo-Indian—and you think twice about it!"

"Nothing would induce me to change my mind," said Alexandra with decision. "There are three girls, and they find it a tight fit without me. They're not rich.... When my mother died I had to do something. Besides, I'm really ambitious to get on."

Maggy snapped her fingers.

"Oh, ambition! Do you know what the ambition of every chorus girl is? It isn't to become a star-actress. That's clean beyond her. It's to find a man who'll take her away from a room like this and treat her decently."

Alexandra found it difficult to reconcile such a statement with one so beaming and joyous-looking as Maggy.

"But you—you don't think like that?" she rejoined.

"Sometimes I do. I've kept straight so far because I like being on my own. I hate men, with their nasty thoughts and their prowling ways. But I haven't met any that I liked. If I had, perhaps I shouldn't be here now. If we get taken on at the Pall Mall it'll be nothing but men, men, men. We shall get no peace."

"You paint everything in such somber colors. There must be light as well as shade."

"There's a lot of limelight, if that's what you mean; but the shade's all the darker for it. Oh, I can tell you the stage is a rotten place if you've got no money or no friends or no chap at the back of you. I'm not saying that for the sake of talking. It's good enough for any one like me. But when I see a blind man crossing the road I always wish I could make him see, and as I'm not God Almighty the only thing I can do is to give him a hand. That's how I feel about you. The traffic's dangerous enough when you've got eyes in your head, like I have. It's all traffic on the stage. I suppose you think you'll be able to look after yourself? Well, you wait and see. There'll be Mr. Johnnie at the stage-door asking you to hop into his landaulette because the road's slippery or some such nonsense. But what's the use of trying to convince anybody? I can see I shan't put you off the stage.... I'll help you to look for a room, unless—" Maggy's volubility checked for a moment. "—unless you'd like to chum with me. I'm just what you see. Nothing hidden up my sleeve; no drink and no boy."

She saw Alexandra wince at her plain language, and watched her anxiously. Hardly ever before had she sought the companionship of another girl, nor could she quite understand the motive that was making her do so now.

Her extreme candor certainly had a startling effect on Alexandra. She had never met any one so outspoken. But she put the right construction on Maggy's frankness, recognized it as a manifestation of genuineness and honesty, and succumbed to it as she had to the girl's fascinating vivacity. She was altogether drawn towards her. Again, Maggy stood to her as the personification of the new life she had elected to make her own.

Maggy was looking at her expectantly, looking and smiling. There was something very compelling in her smile.

"I'd like to chum," said Alexandra impulsively.

III

When Maggy spoke of the stage she generally meant the Pall Mall Theater. Just now it was in her thoughts more than any other, perhaps because she had met Alexandra there, but also because she was inclined to think that Alexandra and she had made a favorable impression on its stage-manager.

The Pall Mall, De Freyne, its lessee and manager, and the Pall Mall chorus are a trinity known the world over. Productions at the Pall Mall invariably enjoy success. Long runs prevail there. That was one of the reasons why Maggy looked forward to an engagement at that theater. Another was the pay, rather more than was obtainable elsewhere. In other respects it offered her no advantages and some drawbacks. She had, for instance no aspiration to become one of a chorus whose unrivaled attractions marked it out as a sort of human delicatessen for the consumption of epicurean males. On the other hand, De Freyne was indifferent to expense on the question of costume, and that had had considerable weight with Maggy. Like any other pretty girl she reveled in beautiful clothes, even though they should only be on loan to her for an hour or two out of the twenty-four. On tour the dresses were often effective enough at a distance, but either of inferior material or their pristine freshness considerably depreciated by having seen previous service in a London theater. That militated against the pleasure of wearing them. At the Pall Mall everything would be new and the best that money could buy.

That De Freyne's object in dressing his chorus regardless of cost was a licentious one, the desire to make his two-score of attractive-looking girls still more attractive in the eyes of the jeunesse dorée, who filled his stalls, was no deterrent to Maggy on her own account. She did think of it in regard to Alexandra. She wondered whether Alexandra would be affected by the demoralizing influence of those beautiful clothes which at the Pall Mall were fashioned to display a girl's physical charms to the very limit of decency. It ended in her being almost sorry that Alexandra's innocence and the callousness of an agent should have sent her to the voice trial.

How Alexandra was to make a good impression on the public by posturing in the chorus was not explained to her. It was the expression of an opinion which she could take or leave. In her innocence she made the common error of imagining that the public chooses its plays, its novels, its pictures, its music and its actors and actresses for itself. She did not stop to think that there might be gradations in that public or that