Blanche kept her work as a thing apart from her life--that is to say, she did not join the rest of the company at supper at the pothouse opposite, nor acknowledge the attentions of the mashers from the front row who waited at the shabby little stage door of a night. She was very charming to the other members of the company, especially the women, and the fact that she had enemies there was easily explained on the ground of her aloofness. She told Ishmael very little with all her frankness of address, but one night as he was seeing her home she asked him to come and have tea with her next day, which happened to be a Sunday, and Ishmael accepted eagerly; it was the first time she had actually asked him to the house. When he arrived, clasping a bouquet he had bought overnight and nursed in his bedroom water-jug, he found that she had begged the loan of the ground-floor sitting-room, which was unlet, from her landlady, and was awaiting him there, wearing her grey dress and a rose pinned by the little white muslin collar that spanned the base of her throat. She was not looking her best, but somehow that made her all the more appealing to Ishmael; the sudden heat had made dark shadows under her eyes, and her movements were more languid even than usual. It was an ugly room, like all its kind; but Blanche had the triumphant quality of rising superior to her background, which is one of the most valuable a woman can possess. Against the hot, hideous red of the wall-paper and the mass of tawdry ornaments she seemed to gain in simplicity, and that peculiar clearness of hers was intensified. She was grave, and only gave Ishmael the ghost of a little wan smile on his entry over his tendered bouquet. She dispensed tea with her firm, rather square hands, hands with short, blunt-tipped fingers that yet were not without the beauty of fitting in with her puma-like solidity of frame; while the way in which she used them was grace itself. They were the typical hands of a courtesan, but neither she nor Ishmael knew that, though Carminow had marvelled to himself at the fact. Ishmael was silent, falling in with her mood, and suddenly she fixed her limpid eyes upon him and asked with disconcerting directness: "What are you thinking of!" "I was thinking about you," he was startled into saying; "I was wondering if it's true you're insincere...." "Who says so ...? Mr. Killigrew? He doesn't like me; I knew it from the first. I'm sorry; I think he's rather fine, though I'm not sure I think he's good for you. He guesses that, and that's why he doesn't like me." "Oh, I'm sure he couldn't be such an ass as to think that," protested Ishmael. "Besides, surely I am capable of looking after myself!" "You're capable of a good deal, I believe. You could look after yourself and other people too. You're strong, you know. I suppose you don't know, or you wouldn't be you. But I'm sorry you think like that about me."