"You bet I’m French. My mother sent me to a convent in London so as I could learn English properly. It was one of them boarding convents where you’re free to do what you like so long as you’re in by seven o’clock. They wanted a few French girls for the chorus of a revue at the Pavilion. Soon as I got in there I never went back to the convent, and I’ve never seen ma since, either. I was in that chorus for a year. Oh!" She produced an ingenious and costly travelling spirit-case, and then searched for the key of it. "I wish I could speak French half as well as you speak English." "If I had half your face and your figure I’d give all my English to anybody that cared to have it. Oh! Damn the key! Excuse me. Here you are." She offered the disengaged flask. "Now you go along and take what you want, and bring me the flask back." She stood in front of Lilian, who rose. She was as flat as Milly Merrislate, and neither tall nor graceful. Every lineament of the pert face so heavily masked in paint and powder, every gesture, the too bright stockings, the gilded shoes, the impudent coiffure, the huge and flashy rings, the square-dialled wrist-watch--all were crudely symptomatic of an ingrained and unalterable vulgarity. Lilian was absolutely unable to understand how any man, however coarse and cynical, could find any charm of any kind in such a girl. But Lilian did not know that intense vulgarity is in itself irresistible to certain amateurs of women, and she was far too young really to appreciate the sorcery of mere lithe youthfulness. "Why! What is it?" Lilian exclaimed, as she took the flask. Tears were ravaging the cheeks of the benefactress.