“It seems impossible that _he_ can be in London too. What a place this London is! Such a mixture! Fashion, religion, gaiety, devotion, pride, depravity, wealth, poverty! I find that for a girl to succeed in London her moral colour must be heightened a little. _Pinjane_ [* Manx dish, like Devonshire junket] alone won't do. Give her a slush of _pissaves_ [* Preserves] and she'll go down sweeter. Angels are not wanted here at all. The only angels there are in London are kept framed in the church windows, and I half suspect that even they were women once, and liked bread and butter. And then Nell Gwynne's flag floats from the steeple of St. Martin's in the Fields, and now and again they ring the bells for her!” XI. At eleven o'clock that night Glory was putting on her hat and cloak to return home when the call-boy came to the dressing-room door to say that the stage manager was waiting to see her. With a little catch, in her breath, and then with a tightening of the heart-strings, she followed him to the stage manager's office. It was a stuffy place over the porter's lodge, approached by a flight of circular iron stairs and lumbered with many kinds of theatrical property. “Come in, my dear,” said the stage manager, and pushing away some models of scenery he made room for her on a sofa which stood by a fast-dying fire. Then shutting the door, he bobbed his head at her and winked with both eyes, and said in a familiar whisper: “It's all right, my dear. I've settled that little matter for you.” “Do you mean----” began Glory, and then she waited with parted lips. “It's as good as done, my dear. Sit down.” Glory had risen in her excitement. “Sit down and I'll tell you everything.” He had spoken to his management. “Gentlemen,” he had said, “unless I'm mistaken I've found a prize.” They had laughed. He was always finding prizes. But he knew what he was talking about, and they had given him _carte blanche_. “You think there is really some likelihood, then----” began Glory, with the catch in her breath again, for her throat was thick and her breast was heaving. “Sit down, now do sit down, my dear, and listen.” He was suave, he was flattering, he was intimate, he was, coaxing. She was to leave everything to him. Of course, there was much to be done yet. She had a wonderful voice; it was finer than music. She had style as well; it was astonishing how she had come by it. Only a dresser, too--not even in the chorus. But stars were never turned out by Nature. She had many things to learn, and would have to be coached up carefully before she could be brought out. He had done it for others, though, and he could do it for her; and if---- Glory's eyes were shining and her heart was beating like a drum. “Then you think that eventually--if I work hard--after years perhaps----” “You can't do it on your own, my dear, so leave yourself in my hands entirely, and don't whisper a word about it yet.”