It was one of those smaller apartment hotels in the West Forties; I was taken up in the elevator without challenge. The coloured maid who cautiously opened the door said she did not know whether her mistress would see me. Something in my manner, however, caused her to stand aside and let me enter. The rooms were tastefully if cheaply furnished. Leila was lying on a couch, propped with pillows and clad in a dainty silk kimono. She was taken by surprise and flushed a little as she extended her hand. The maid placed a chair for me. "I--I thought you had forgotten me," she stammered as I offered the flowers I had brought. "How good of you!" "They're only seconds, Leila, but the best I could afford." And, compared to the big American Beauties reposing in a vase near at hand, they certainly did look shop-worn. "It's a beastly day, isn't it? Let me send for a cup of tea or maybe you'd like a high-ball...." I declined both. The maid disappeared. Leila squirmed about on her pillows.... "I'm sorry to see you ill, Leila," I ventured by way of breaking the ice. "O, I'm not really ill ... only a slight cold. I'm a bit run down and the Judge--that is--the doctor thought I should rest for a while. I'm not going back to the theatre this season.... It's awfully good of you to bother about me...." "Leila?" I said finally.... "Leila, is it worth it?" "Is what worth----".... "All this." I indicated the apartment, the piano, the silk négligée--and the ring on her finger.... "Is it worth the price you are paying?" I asked gently. She lifted her shoulders. "I don't know!" Her tone was half question, half defiance.... "I _do_ know that the other way wasn't worth the sacrifices, the scrimping and mean pinching. I couldn't go on like that--I couldn't! I am young; I want some of the good things of life while I am still young ... and I was lonely. I didn't fit into my environment." "I understand, Leila.... Perhaps I appreciate the loneliness, the rebellion, better than you think.... You see other girls enjoying the good things of life and apparently happy. But, after all, happiness is purely relative, and what makes for their happiness might not make for yours. Leila, dear girl, couldn't you make up your mind to stick it out just a little while longer?... Things were sure to come your way--or, perhaps, you would meet the right man and marry and settle down in the little home of your own which you told me you have always craved." "The right kind of men don't marry chorus girls. The exceptions are rare. And what manner of men are they who _do_ marry a girl out of the chorus? Old worn-out roués, almost senile from the debauched lives they have led. They crave something young and fresh as an elixir of life. Sometimes it's a young blood with money; a black sheep of the family who drinks and sports, and in the end there's divorce if nothing worse.... I couldn't marry a man like either of these.... It's a mistake to be too fastidious...." "Is--is--he married?"