Having won her consent--an easy matter, not lasting more than five minutes--Jill began gently, unobtrusively, to speak of the work of an author called John Grey. Mrs. Crossthwaite had read one of the books, thought it distinctly above the average, but very sad. She did not like sad books. There was quite enough sadness in real life, and so on. All of which is very, very true, if people would only realise it, as well as say it. From there, with that adroitness which only women have the fine fingers for, Jill led on the conversation to her acquaintance with John. Oh, it was all very difficult to do, for a school-friend, once she has married, may have become a very different sort of person from the girl who was ready to swarm down the drain-pipe to meet the boy with the fair hair and the cap far on the back of his head, who passed her a note concealed between the pages of the Burial Service in the Prayer-book. Marriage is apt to rob your school-friend of this courage; for, though she never did climb down the drain-pipe, she made you think she was going to. She had one leg on the window-sill and would soon have been outside, only that she heard the voice of the mistress in the corridor just in time. And she sometimes loses this courage when she marries. Jill, therefore, had to proceed with caution. They merely talked about his work. He was very interesting. His ideas were strange. Of course, it was a terrible pity that he would not say where he lived, but Mrs. Crossthwaite did not seem to consider that. For a moment, she had expressed surprise and approval of Mrs. Dealtry’s action; but he was a member of the Martyrs’ Club, and Mr. Crossthwaite’s greatest friend was a member there as well, and Mr. Crossthwaite’s greatest friend was naturally nearly as wonderful a person as Mr. Crossthwaite himself. So what did it really matter where he lived? The position of man was his club. She even had no curiosity about his residence. Again, Jill had never seen _Bohème_. Her people were not musical. They hated it. She loved it. This was the opportunity of her life. He would bring her back to the dance, of course, and no one need ever know that she had not been there all the time. And in the intervals of the opera they would talk about his work. That was all they ever did talk about. She knew all his ambitions, all his hopes. Once or twice he had accepted her suggestions, when really she knew nothing about it. It was only what she felt; but he had felt it too, and the alteration had been made. He said she helped him, and that was all that was between them. The main fact of importance was that she had never seen _La Bohème_, and might never see it, if she refused this opportunity.