“Then--then there is only one explanation, Captain Mauleverer.” She hid her face in her hands for a minute, and then raised it again and looked him bravely in the face. “Is that it? Tell me the truth.” Mauleverer sprang from his seat. “No, I’m damned if I do!” A burst of music and a babble of tongues told them that the door had opened again, and some one else was coming in. It was the Marchioness of Severn, and she was alone. Belle rose from her seat dry-eyed. “Ah, Miss Yorke, they told me I should find you here. That will do, Gerald. Miss Yorke and I are going to have a little talk. Pray sit down again.” Belle resumed her seat in silence, with an inward dread of what was in store for her next, while Captain Mauleverer walked off with the hang-dog air of a man who feels he has made a brute of himself. The marchioness sat down beside her guest. “I have to thank you for a most delightful evening. You sang most charmingly. I almost wish I hadn’t asked you for that one called ‘Little Willy,’ though. I am so sensitive. You almost made me cry--you did, indeed.” Belle stole a timid glance at her. “It is very kind of you to praise me so much. That song of mine has always been a favorite.” “I don’t wonder at it. Dear, sweet little thing, freezing to death like that! Why didn’t some one give him a seal-skin jacket? And do you really sing things like that at those dreadful places in Leicester Square?” Belle began to feel uncomfortable. The patronage it was difficult to resent, but the hinted disparagement roused her courage. “I am sorry you think them dreadful,” she said, modestly but quite firmly, “because, you know, I have to sing there for my living.” The marchioness’s determined good-nature was not to be turned aside. “No, no; of course, I ought not to have called them that before you. But one reads such shocking things about them in the newspapers when they apply for their licenses to the County Council. I’m sure I hope it isn’t half of it true.” “I hope you won’t be offended if I stand up for them,” Belle persisted, bravely. “I must be loyal to my own profession, mustn’t I?” “Of course! Of course! Most properly. I hope--in fact, I am sure, that they have done you no harm. But I have heard so much about these places, and the life, that it makes me feel the very gravest doubt. I take an interest in you, Miss Yorke, and I should be so sorry if you were to lower yourself by your connection with the music-halls.” Still bleeding from the wound dealt her in all respectful kindness by the man who had been with her just before, Belle roused herself to ward off the more envenomed stabs of the woman who was with her now. “I don’t intend to lower myself, or to let myself be lowered, by any place I may go to,” she said, with dignity, looking the marchioness in the face. The marchioness smiled on her like a mother.