"Mine’s Liss Lyle. (It’s Elizabeth Leek really, but in the profession one has to think of something better than that.) There’s the Imperial there. Just shake me off at the front entrance, and I’ll slip round to the stage door." "Oh, but I want to drive you right up to the stage door!" said Marjorie frankly. "It will be wonderful!" The little woman of the world at her side smiled indulgently. "Very well then, dear, you shall! Round that corner, and then round again." Marjorie set down her passenger with a genuine pang. She was certain now what was wrong in her life. She had no one to gossip with. The two girls shook hands. "Thanks awfully!" said Liss. "Also for Little Willie Waterproof." She took off the raincoat. "Stick to it just now," said Marjorie: "it may be raining when you come out." "Can I? I love you for that. I’ll come round and leave it for you somewhere, shall I?" Marjorie dived impulsively into the opening offered. "Come to-night!" she said. "We might go and have some dinner somewhere. I can always get off for an hour—sometimes for the whole evening. I have a lot of evenings to myself," she added. Ultimately the pair dined together, _chez_ Lyons, and Marjorie spent her happiest hour since her invasion of London. She found her little friend a characteristic medley of childishness and maturity—featherheaded, affectionate, naïve, with far more worldly wisdom than herself, yet with all a child’s dread of being laughed at for ignorance. She came from Finchley—and apologised for doing so. She had no mother, and her father, overburdened, it seemed, with daughters, had raised no particular objection to Miss Elizabeth’s theatrical predilections. She was at present living at a boarding-house near Paddington. Did not like it much. Said so—apparently to every one, including the other boarders. But nothing troubled her long. Her thoughts, birdlike, hopped to another twig, and her cheery little song of life was resumed. She was not deeply concerned with how and why. She pecked carelessly here and there at what fortune offered, without pausing to reason why or count the cost; but so far appeared instinctively to have avoided what was unwholesome. Her chief passions were dress, gossip, and expensive confectionery. Her conversation was a blend of theatrical shop and military slang—including many parrot-phrases which could have conveyed no meaning to her whatever—and was chiefly remarkable for a certain confiding frankness and a glorious contempt for what Mr. Mantalini would have called "demnition details." "You must meet my boy," she said to Marjorie, as they walked homeward. "You’d love him. He’s a _pukka sahib_!" "What is his name?" asked Marjorie.