An oldish woman had come to see the grey-eyed girl home, and when I offered to accompany them to their door, the oldish woman refused in peremptory tones. In fact, you might almost have thought she regarded me as a shady character. It transpired that she was the cook of the grey-eyed girl’s mother, and had been told off to the service of seeing the pupil to and from the classes at the Dramatic School. Before the cook’s rebuff I had, of course, to explain that I was also a pupil at the school, and a person of the most honourable behaviour where the fair sex is concerned; but the cook was not prepared to argue, and hurried away her charge without more words. I met the grey-eyed girl again, however, the very next evening—at a first-night—and we enjoyed an uninterrupted conversation of three hours before the doors opened. Thus a friendship was established of the most interesting character; for we found that we had much in common, and I was able to tell her several things which she did not know. She was not a happy girl, for her parents only allowed her to study for the stage under protest, and her family was entirely against her and of a very unsympathetic turn of mind; but she felt that, sooner or later, she would triumph. She indicated by certain allusions to my necktie and hands that I interested her. She considered that I had artist’s hands, which in its turn interested me a great deal, because my aunt had noticed it as well as this penetrating, grey-eyed girl; and in return I ventured to tell her that her eyes were exceedingly remarkable. I hinted that I wrote poetry as well as acted, and, getting rather above myself, as we say, told her that a poem of mine would probably be appearing in a well-known theatrical journal called _Thespis_ at no distant date. I’m afraid in my excitement I even hinted I should be paid for it, which was going too far. She said: “Lor! Fancy!” Then, after a pause, she remarked, looking at me sideways under her eyelids, that perhaps I should be making poems to her eyes next, since I seemed to think they were “a bit of all right.” The idea had not occurred to me; but now, of course, my chivalric instincts, hitherto somewhat dormant, came to my aid, and I assured her that the poem was only a question of time. In fact, we may be said rather to have gone it, and when the doors were open and we entered the theatre, I sat beside her. I may state here that I had no objection to girls as a class, or in a general way—in fact, rather the contrary, if anything. But they were not so interesting to me as men; and I also understood that there is not a rose without a thorn, as the poet says. There are nocturnal girls in London known, generally speaking, as “light.” They are as common as blackberries in the Sacred Writings, and Shakespeare and the classics generally; and I may say that they have often linked their arms in mine, when I have been returning home after nightfall through some of the main London thoroughfares.