Miss Constance Damer was the exact opposite of Miss Beverley, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Miss Beverley was tall, dark, and stately; Miss Damer small, fair, and vivacious. Miss Beverley was patronising and gracious in her manner; Miss Damer’s prevailing note was unaffected bonhomie. But where Miss Beverley slew her thousands, Miss Damer slew her tens of thousands; for she possessed what the other did not, that supreme gift of the gods--charm--magnetism--personality--whatever you like to call it. In all my life I have never known a human being who attracted her fellow-creatures with so little effort and so little intention, and who inspired love and affection so readily and lastingly, as Constance Damer. She never angled for admiration; she bestowed no favours; she responded to no advances; but she drew all the world after her like Orpheus with his lute. That is all I need say about Miss Damer. This narrative concerns itself with the career of my good friend The Freak, Dicky Mainwaring; and the persevering reader will ultimately discover (if he has not already guessed) that Fate had arranged The Freak’s future on a basis which did not include the lady whom I have just described. With masculine admiration Miss Damer did not concern herself overmuch. We all think lightly of what can be had in abundance. Not that she did not take a most healthy interest in noting what mankind thought of her; but her interest would undoubtedly have been heightened if she could have felt less certain what the verdict was going to be. I honestly believe she would have been thrilled and gratified if some one had passed an unfavourable opinion upon her. But no one ever did. She had no sisters of her own, so large families of girls were an abiding joy to her. These received her with rapture--especially the shy and gawky members thereof--and made much of her, sunning themselves in the unaffected kindliness of her nature and gloating over her clothes for as long as they could keep her. She was greatly in request, too, among small boys, for purposes of football and the like; but her chief passion in life, as I discovered one afternoon when Dicky and I surprised her at tea with the coachman’s family, was a fat, good-tempered, accommodating, responsive baby.