Valerie smiled a little bitterly. "I have not very much to tell. I expect my lot has been like that of many thousands in this delightful world. I am a child of the gutter. My father and mother beat and starved me, and sold me for a paltry sum to the proprietor of a travelling circus. It wasn't exactly a rosy life then, but it was paradise to where I had been. He died; I was thrown on my beam ends. I can't tell you what I have been through for the last few years. I couldn't bear to talk of it--I have suffered everything that the poor have to suffer in such profusion--cold, hunger, the most absolute misery. And, at last," she looked round at the luxurious appointments of the restaurant a little disdainfully, "I find myself in receipt of a decent salary, and the guest of a rich man who has pressed upon me every dainty. And I have so often wanted a meal!" Varenne was a very kindly man, in spite of his somewhat sharp ways in business. Those last few pathetic words had gone straight to his heart. She had often wanted a meal, and she was a most attractive girl! Many would have called her beautiful. "It is a sad history, my poor child," he said sympathetically. He paused a moment before he put the delicate question. "And during those terrible years, when you suffered hunger and privation, you kept yourself straight? It would have been so easy to go wrong, so excusable under the circumstances." "Of course," she answered, and there was a note of wounded pride, of indignation, in her voice. "I am not that sort of woman--better the river than that. I might give myself to a man out of love or gratitude, but never merely for money." It was a new experience for the wealthy financier. Here was a girl who had just stepped off the platform of a music hall, where she was, no doubt, earning a very modest salary, who had grit and backbone in her, and, moreover, a proper pride and self-respect. He had, of course, with the easy confidence of a man of the world, imagined the usual termination to such an adventure. But he recognised at once that he could not make any proposition of the kind he meditated. He pressed her hand tenderly at parting, and arranged a further meeting. They met several times, and Varenne went through agonies of indecision. But the attraction was too strong, and at last he asked her to marry him. It was that or losing her altogether. And did it matter much? His world would laugh at him as a matter of course, say he had got into his dotage. And a girl who was young enough to be his daughter! There is no fool like an old fool, he told himself rather ruefully. But she had so subjugated him that he was quite a humble wooer in spite of the enormous advantages he was offering her. "Of course I am an old man, I cannot expect you to have any real affection for me," he said.