"Lord, madam, if it's the purse of that vapouring young spark you're after, you'll be wasting your labour. You'll find it as empty as yonder bottle. I'll swear now that you set greater store by his heart." Rofflash glanced shrewdly at Sally's face. Her lips were working convulsively. He knew he was right. "You're a cunning devil, captain. You've the wheedling tongue of Satan himself and his black soul, too, I doubt not. You're all ears and eyes when money's to be picked up. Take that for what you did for me to-night." Sally drew five guineas from her pocket and flung them on the table. A couple would have rolled on to the floor, but Rofflash grabbed them in time. Sally burst into one of her hard, mirthless laughs. "Trust you for looking after coin. See here, you Judas. Vane promised to meet me at Spring Gardens to-morrow night. When I see him I shall believe him, not before. You must work it so that he comes." "Hang me, Sally, but that's a hard nut to crack." "Not too hard for your tiger's teeth. I'll double those five guineas if you bring it off." Rofflash relished the proposition, but he pretended to find difficulties and held out for higher pay. To Sally money was as water. She agreed to make the ten into fifteen. Rofflash swearing that he'd do his best, took his departure and left the lady, like Archibald Dorrimore, to drink herself into insensibility. "The devil looks after his own," chuckled Rofflash as he swaggered down the Strand. "It'll go hard if I don't squeeze fifty guineas out of that idiot Dorrimore over to-morrow night's work! He'd give that to have the pleasure of running the scribbler through the body. Lord, if I'd breathed a word of _that_ to Sally! No fool like an old fool, they say. Bah! The foolishest thing in Christendom is a woman when she's in love." And Captain Jeremy Rofflash plodded on, well pleased with himself. He took the road which would lead him to Moorfields and Grub Street. CHAPTER XX "WHAT DID I TELL THEE, POLLY?" Lavinia went to her first rehearsal in a strange confusion of spirits, but came through the ordeal successfully. She was letter perfect, and she remembered all Spiller's instructions. Mr. Huddy was pleased to say that he thought she would do. She left the theatre for her lodgings in Little Queen Street in a flutter of excitement. Otway's "Orphan" might be dull and lachrymose, the part of Serina might be insignificant, but to Lavinia the play was the most wonderful thing. It meant a beginning. She had got the chance she had longed for. She saw herself in imagination a leading lady.