The stars came out before they had ended dinner. She had made him talk about himself. It was marvellous what he had accomplished with his opportunities. Ten hours a day in the mines had earned for him his living, and the night had given him his leisure. An attic, lighted by a tallow candle, with a shelf of books that left him hardly enough for bread, had been his Alma Mater. History was his chief study. There was hardly an authority Joan could think of with which he was not familiar. Julius Caesar was his favourite play. He seemed to know it by heart. At twenty-three he had been elected a delegate, and had entered Parliament at twenty-eight. It had been a life of hardship, of privation, of constant strain; but she found herself unable to pity him. It was a tale of strength, of struggle, of victory, that he told her. “You will have to imagine yourself my daughter,” she said. “You are taller, but the colouring was the same. You won’t mind, will you?”!

“All right,” he said, “if it had been a queen.” “I took Smedley’s place at the last moment,” he whispered to her. “I’ve never been abroad before. You don’t mind, do you?”

The girl flushed with pleasure. It was a striking face, with intelligent eyes and a mobile, sensitive mouth. “Oh, yes,” she said, “I could act all right. I feel it. But you don’t get out of the chorus. Except at a price.” “But they report his speeches. They are bound to,” explained Joan. The woman made no attempt to deny. Something told her that Joan had learned her secret. She glanced towards the door. Joan had closed it.