She disappeared down the stairs. When Joyce turned round, he discovered that Miss Stevens had walked off, perhaps in dudgeon at having been neglected. Joyce felt sorry. She was the only girl with whom he cared to be on friendly terms outside the theatre, and who, accordingly, had manifested any interest in his doings. It would be a misfortune if she were offended. Meanwhile the late unexpected chat about Yvonne had been very pleasant. Miss Verrinder had been nice and frank, assuming from the first that he was a gentleman, and could be spoken to without restraint. Joyce felt the fillip to his spirits during the rest of the performance. When it was over, he dressed as quickly as the crowded confusion of the dressing-room rendered possible, and refusing an invitation on the part of McKay to drink at the adjoining public-house, went down the short street that led to the Parade, where he had arranged to meet Miss Stevens. She did not keep him long waiting. He relieved her of a bulky parcel she was carrying, and, holding it under his arm, walked gravely by her side. “I thought you said you were n’t an amateur,” she said suddenly. “Neither am I. It’s my livelihood.” “Oh, yes--between you and starvation, I suppose.” “Just so,” said Joyce. “Could n’t you do anything else?” “I can’t get anything else to do.” “Then how did you manage to come down in the world?” “How do you know I have come down?” asked Joyce, amused at the catechism. “Can’t I see you were up once? Miss Verrinder would n’t have talked to you like that if you had n’t belonged to her set. And I have heard of Yvonne Latour. She does n’t make friends with the likes of McKay and me and the rest of us. So you’re either an amateur come for the practice or the fun of the thing, or--” “It’s hugely funny, I assure you,” he interrupted, “to live in a back-street bedroom--‘lodgings for respectable men’--on thirty shillings a week, and save out of that.” “Well, then you’ve come a cropper.” “Really, Miss Stevens,” he replied drily, “it would be rather embarrassing to have to account to you for all my misdeeds.” “Oh, I don’t want to hear ’em. Not I--I’m not that sort But when I like a man, I like to know just what he is. That’s all. Now my father was a butler, and my mother a housekeeper, and they used to let lodgings in Yarmouth. And they’re dead now, and I shift for myself. Now you know all about me. I think I’d better carry that parcel.” She was rather defiant. Joyce could not understand her. Surely something more than inconsequent bad taste had prompted her to draw this distinction between their respective origins. But he was too self-centred to speculate deeply upon feminine problems. He hugged the parcel closer, and said:-- “Nonsense. The paper is torn and all the stuff will drop out.” “Oh, then I must carry it,” she cried, in quite a different tone. But he refused gallantly. “What’s inside it?” he asked, glad to divert the conversation into less perplexing channels.