“‘Pussy, look here--I’m ... well, I’m not rich, but I want to do something for you. I want to--may I give you an allowance of two pounds a week?’ “I sat back on my chair flabergasted, absolutely. It was five years since anyone had made me that sort of offer. “‘Well,’ I said, ‘the old lady’s a bit weatherbeaten, but what there is of her is good.’ “He shook his hand; quite a stage gesture, quietly in front of me. “‘Oh, no, no, no,’ he said. ‘Please don’t misunderstand me. I didn’t mean anything like that--as a present, simply.’ “I tried him with a dead straight glance. “‘Now, look here, my lad,’ I said, ‘cough it up. What’s it all about? People don’t give things for nothing--not in this world, any way.’ “He nodded. ‘That’s why I want to do something for you. You’ve done me the greatest service that anyone has ever done me. I have a very happy home and three very happy children, and but for you I don’t think I should have ever married.’ “That made me laugh. ‘So you heard me sing: “Love me in a cottage by the sea,” and caught the next train to Margate?’ “‘Oh, no, no! Something--something perhaps you’d rather not be reminded of. But, do you remember when “The Eastern Princess” was running at the Clarion, and you flung up your part at a moment’s notice and weren’t seen again in London for six months?’ “I nodded. One of the landmarks in my life, that show was. “‘Well,’ he said, ‘I was twenty-seven then. I’d just passed my first medical exam. in Ireland and had come up to London to open a practice in Richmond. I wasn’t badly off. I had good prospects. I was a sportsman. For eight years, ever since I had gone up to Oxford, I had been working really hard. All my friends told me that my innings was just going to begin. “You’ll have a wonderful time,” they said; “there’s no place like London.”’ “‘And then I fell in love with a very young and very unsophisticated girl, the daughter of a country parson whom I had got to know during a cricket tour. My friends did their very best to dissuade me. “It’s perfect madness,” they said, “you’re going to chuck your life away before you’ve started it. You could have a wonderful time. My dear chap, don’t be an ass!” And they took me to dancing clubs, and the heat and colour mounted to my brain. I began to agree with them: marriage was a fetter, a prison house. One didn’t chuck one’s life away. “‘And then I heard a rumour about you. They were saying that you had gone away because--well, your name was coupled with the producer’s there. What was his name? Ah, yes, Clive Ferguson,--and they said that you were--well--er--very ill.