Myrtle Morris introduced her to the profession and to Roy's friend, Billy Izzard, at the same time. This also was in Edith Grove. Billy Izzard, whose large, boyish face and loose, shambling figure somehow gave Louie the impression that he had either grown too quickly or else not yet filled out, was telling Miss Morris, with a candour entirely disarming, that for some purpose or other her own form was no good at all; and Miss Morris asked him why he didn't try the Models' Club. He snorted. "Try it? I have tried it; tried everything. Fact of the matter is, it's like going to a Registry Office for servants; you find the rich people have snapped up all the best before they get there. Old Henson gets 'em. He's got the very girl I want; Miss Gale; but I can't pay what Henson pays. And the rest of you are like that egg--good in parts." Louie wondered whether Billy had ever heard her name before; she found a way of making sure. The talk turned to holiday-places for the coming summer, and Louie contrived to mention the Somerset coast and the Bristol Channel. The unsuspecting Billy told her that he had once been yachting there with a fellow and had had a smash-up. It was amusing. According to Billy, the other fellow had rather fancied himself as a patcher-up of broken centre-boards and suchlike, had put in at some place or other, and had said he'd made the centre-board all right; and he'd come pretty near drowning the pair of them off a place called Combe Martin. Luckily they'd been spied by the coastguard, and a boat had been put out to them. "Rottenest piece of navigation in England," Billy grumbled on; "there's a place called the Boiling Pot----" He described it.... Louie felt a little gush of gratitude towards Roy. He had not chattered. But of course he would not---- She did not offer at once to sit to Billy; it was a fortnight later that she screwed up her courage to do so. During that time she thought the matter out. Perhaps the stark simplicity of the thing attracted her. No acquirement she was ever likely to possess would greatly improve her circumstances; it would probably be the same to the end of the chapter--cash-desk, waitress, Earls Court--Earls Court, mannequin, and a private secretaryship with an offer of double wages. At two colleges she had learned little or nothing; she lacked application; but here was something that quietly brushed acquirements aside--something that went flagrantly by favour. It was femininity reduced to its simplest statement. She had no fear of Billy Izzard. She guessed that to him she would be little more than a more complex whitewashed cube or cone or pyramid. She did not even colour when she made her proposal to him.... "But I expect you'll go off to old Henson or some other swell presently," he sighed, as she stood before him.... And of course Chaff, barring her face that was best suited with a large shady hat, had given her her testimonial long before.