Joyce laughed ironically. “You would n’t say that if you knew the posts I have sought after, the advertisements I have answered. It will be a fortune to me.” “And it may lead--how far, you don’t know. Why in two or three years you may be playing a leading part in a West End light opera. Or you may do dramatic business and come to the top. One never can tell. Won’t it be nice when you can command your £40 or £50 a week?” Yvonne was very happy. She had conceived the plan all by herself and had gone off impulsively to Brum to put it into execution. Joyce’s future was assured. His cleverness, of which she used to be a little afraid in earlier years, would soon lift him from the ranks. She was excited over this forecast of his success. But Joyce could not look so far ahead. All he could feel was a wondrous relief to find a door still open for him, gratitude to the woman who had led him to it. His spirit was too shrouded to catch a gleam of her enthusiasm. She strove to brighten him. “You will find Brum all right. He has always been good to me, since I stepped into a gap for him once at a charity matinée---a medley entertainment, you know. When he has a theatre in London he always sends me a box, if there’s one vacant. You see, I knew he was taking out ‘The Diamond Door,’ into the provinces, and he pays pretty high salaries all round--so I did n’t see why you should n’t have a chance in the chorus. Oh, you ’ll like the stage so much. I wish I were on, instead of singing at concerts. I have always hankered after it.” “Why don’t you make the change?” asked Joyce. “I’m not good enough. I am too insignificant. But I don’t really mind. I love singing for singing’s sake, no matter where it is. I only have one great anxiety in life--that I should lose my voice. Then I should put my head under my wing and die, like the _cigale_. That is to say, if the _cigale_ has wings--has she?” “Yes, pretty brown wings--as yours must be. I believe you have them somewhere hidden from us.” “You mustn’t make pretty speeches,” said Yvonne, pleased. “It expresses clumsily what I feel,” said Joyce, with a sudden rush of feeling. “I have been asking myself what are the common grounds on which we can meet--you, a pure, bright, beautiful soul--and I, a mean, degraded man, who knows it to be almost an outrage upon you to cross your threshold. I feel we are not of the same human clay. I wonder how it is that the sight of me does n’t frighten you. Thank God you don’t see me as I see myself.” “Hush!” said Yvonne, gently.