And when Mumdear protested that really Gina was too young to talk like that, Gina took no notice. “Fourteen is as fourteen does, Mumdear; and what I don’t know about things a girl ought to know has been torn out of the book. I’ve been through things with a small tooth-comb, and I know what’s there. I know the words _and_ the music. I’ve read the book and seen the pictures. I’ve got perfect control of the ball. Brace up, old darling, and watch your Gina. It’s a wise mother who knows more than her own daughter.” Thereafter there were no more newspapers for tablecloths; no more scramble suppers; no more slovenliness; no more cheap and nasty food; no more stodgy teas. The art of the Bertello home at that time was represented by oleographs after originals of Marcus Stone and the Hon. John Collier. Gina burnt them, and hung up cheap but serviceable reproductions of Whistler, Manet and Renoir. She taught Mumdear to be truly Bohemian and to entertain the boys from the profession. Mumdear blossomed anew. One final protest she ventured. “But, Gina, duckie, we can’t afford to be ikey.” “Ikey?” snapped Gina. “Who’s going to be ikey, my lamb? It isn’t a question of affording or of being ikey. It’s a question of being comfortable. It won’t cost any more to have flowers on the table and to eat something besides beef and mutton—probably less. And as for being ikey—well, when you catch me going up in the air I’ll be much obliged if you’ll stick pins in me so’s I can explode.” As she ruled Mumdear, so did she rule others. At fourteen she had the mature carriage of womanhood—a very valuable asset in her profession. She could hold her own everywhere in the matter of back-chat, and there were none who attempted liberties a second time. It is doubtful if she had ever, at any age, had a period of innocence, using the word in the sense of ignorance. She had that curious genius for life by which the chosen divine its mysteries immediately where others perforce wait on long years of experience. As she herself expressed it, she knew her way about all the streets and wasn’t going to be driven down the wrong one by any son of a gun. She might not be clever, but she thanked God she was clean. Thus for twelve months she scattered laughter and love and kindness around Poplar, Shadwell, Limehouse and Blackwall, carolling along her amiable way, joy as her counsellor, courage as her guide. Her curl-clad face at this time carried the marks of the fatigue peculiar to those temperamental subjects who spend themselves to the last ounce in whatever they set their hearts to—be it amusement, or love, or work. They live at top pitch because nothing else is possible to them. Gina’s face, drawn though it was, and permanently flushed, danced always with elfin lights, and never were her limbs in repose. Even in sleep she was strangely alive, with the hectic, self-consuming energy of the precocious.