There was a piano on a shallow platform. In lieu of footlights, some pots of ferns had been disposed at wide intervals. There was no curtain, but a screen, behind which giggles were audible, turned a corner of the hall into the most limited of artists' rooms. Those artists who were not making their toilettes, sat quietly among the audience. Perhaps two hundred chairs were ranged across the hall, and about fifty of them were occupied. One of them was occupied by Rosalind. "Good evening," she said. "Good evening," said Conrad. "May I sit down?" "These are the shilling ones," said she. "Oh, of course, if you _have_! I'm afraid we're leading you into awful extravagance? ... It isn't very full?" "No, I'm sorry. I wish I could have sent some people. Have you got another concert to-morrow?" "They're talking about it--they've got the hall very cheap." "I might take some tickets, and see what I can do with them. I suppose that would be a good plan, wouldn't it?" "Perhaps," said Rosalind, doubtfully. "Why 'perhaps?' I thought it was to help you all?" "Yes," she answered. "Oh, it's meant to." "There's a reservation in your manner," he said, "that-- What's the use of our being such old friends if you don't confide in me?" "Ah, I didn't think of that," she laughed. "Well, did you see the man with a coat?" "I saw him with aversion." "I thought it would please you! That's the manager, Mr. Quisby." "Your manager, do you mean?" "I'm telling you--the manager of the Company that came to grief. The girls are supposed to have got this up for themselves; but you may have noticed that you paid your shilling to Mr. Quisby." "A--ah!" said Conrad. "There seems a weak spot in the business arrangements. Well, what do you propose?" A youth in a very shabby tweed suit came on to the platform. He sat down at the piano, and rattled the introduction to the well-known music hall song entitled _My Little Baby Boy_. On bounced the golden-haired brunette. She wore a skirt to the knees, and had made up her face as if for the glare of a theatre. Her appearance lowered the concert to the level of a penny gaff. Several women of the shop-keeping class, hitherto sympathetic, murmured "Oh!" and tightened their mouths. "Isn't the costume a mistake?" whispered Conrad. "Do you think so? How would you have dressed her?" "Well," said Conrad, "a long frock." "Mm. What sort of frock?" "Well, I should have made her look quiet, and very--er----" "Respectable. I know! ... Go on." "I should have said, 'Be pale, and pathetic!' "That's right, I wanted them to; but they've all got themselves up wrong, except my friend Miss Lascelles. Sh!" The vocalist's blackened eyelids drooped to the paper that she held;--