Eight o'clock had just struck when Conrad arrived at the slum where he was to spend the evening. The exterior of the hall had no sanguine air. Four opaque gas globes glimmered over a narrow entrance, and, in the obscurity, a written appeal affixed by wafers was barely legible. He made it out to be:
"Help the Poor Kiss-and-Tell Girls.
Stranded in the Town through No Fault of their Own.
Show your Sympathy by Patronising us."
Behind a portière a disreputable-looking man, wearing a queer overcoat, sat at a small table with tickets. He asked, "Sixpence, or a shilling?" and Conrad said, "A shilling," and the man said, "Front row."
There was a piano on a shallow platform. In lieu of footlights, some pots of ferns had been disposed at wide intervals. There was no curtain, but a screen, behind which giggles were audible, turned a corner of the hall into the most limited of artists' rooms. Those artists who were not making their toilettes, sat quietly among the audience. Perhaps two hundred chairs were ranged across the hall, and about fifty of them were occupied. One of them was occupied by Rosalind.
"Good evening," she said.
"Good evening," said Conrad. "May I sit down?"
"These are the shilling ones," said she. "Oh, of course, if you have! I'm afraid we're leading you into awful extravagance? ... It isn't very full?"
"No, I'm sorry. I wish I could have sent some people. Have you got another concert to-morrow?"
"They're talking about it—they've got the hall very cheap."
"I might take some tickets, and see what I can do with them. I suppose that would be a good plan, wouldn't it?"