He is still having his “fling.” But he has been from the first most obedient and unquestioning to his benefactress. He goes nowhere, does nothing, without previously obtaining permission from her. She is proud of the advancement that he has accomplished already, and she is determined to make him a conspicuous figure upon the stage. What is it that actuates this girl in her endeavour to elevate this boy in the world? What the mystery that brought to the gamin this guardian angel in the form of a variety actress who mingles bright sayings with lack of grammar, who tells Rabelaisian anecdotes in one minute and philosophizes in slang about the issues of life the next? “You're in love with him, aren't you?” I said, as the train plunged on through the darkness. “I don't know whether I am or not. He's just a kid, you know. I suppose the proper end of such a romance is that we should marry. But then I wouldn't be married to a man that I couldn't look up to.” “But women don't invariably love that way. I'm sure you're in love with the boy. Have you never thought as to whether you were or not?” “Have I? I should smile! I thought of it even on the first night, after I picked him up, when I locked him in his room. But I have always regarded him in a sort of motherly way, although only a year older. It seems kind of unnatural for me to love him as a woman loves a man. If he was only older!” “Ah, that wish is sure evidence that you love him!” “One thing I do know is that, though he always obeys me, he doesn't care as much for me as I do for him.” “How do you know that?” “He wouldn't think so much of other girls if he did. He doesn't look upon me as a woman for him to fall in love with. He regards me as an older sister. Why, he never even takes a girl to supper after the performance without asking my permission.” “And you give it?” “Yes; but he never knows how I feel when I do.” “And how do you feel then?” “The first time he asked me, it was like a knife going through me. I haven't got used to it yet.” She paused for a time before adding: “But, anyhow, he's going to make a name for himself some day. He has it in him. I'm not the only one that thinks so. I'm trying now to get him to go to a school of acting, but he thinks variety is good enough for him. He'll get over that, though.” She spoke so tenderly and yet so proudly of him, that I could not without a pang of pity meditate upon the probable outcome of this attachment, which, according to the logic of realists, will be the boy's eventual success in life, long after he will have forgotten the hand that lifted him out of the depth in which he first opened his eyes. He knows nothing of his parentage. His benefactress once sought, by means of Inspector Byrnes's penetrating eye, to pierce the clouds surrounding his origin, but the inspector smiled at the hopelessness of the attempt. “Where is he now?” I asked.