"You've seen her lately."
"She was here the week before last, a wreck, looking ill and poor. I never knew a handsome woman go off so sudden. I saw her in a box at Drury Lane last Christmas, in fine form; but that's all over. She wanted me to get her an engagement—chorus again—she was never up to speaking parts, used to lose her head directly she had to utter. I couldn't do anything for her. We've no use for anything old and faded at the West End theatres. Managers won't consider it."
"Can you give me the lady's address?"
"I think I booked it," said the agent, "just to satisfy her, though I knew it was no use—at any rate not till the pantomime season, when I might get her an engagement for a Flora or a Juno at the back of the stage, or a Queen in a historical procession, perhaps. Yes, here it is: Mrs. Randall, Miss Kate Delmaine, 14, Selburne Street, Chelsea."
"Thank you, Mordaunt," replied Faunce, handing him a sovereign. "I don't want to waste your time for nothing."
"Well, Faunce, time is money, ain't it?" said Mordaunt, pocketing the coin with a pleasant smile.
CHAPTER XI.
"And the Abbé uncrossed his legs,
Took snuff, a reflective pinch.
Broke silence: 'The question begs
Much pondering ere I pronounce. Shall I flinch?
The love which to one and one only has reference
Seems terribly like what perhaps gains God's preference.'"
Faunce ate his modest luncheon at the immemorial Cock; and, after a quarter of an hour's rest and meditation, assisted by tobacco, took a hansom and drove to Selburne Street, which the cabman discovered, after some research, in a labyrinth of shabby streets between the King's Road and the Thames, to the west of the red-brick mansions of Cheyne Walk, and all the pleasantness of fashionable Chelsea—a wilderness of eight-roomed houses, slate roofs, narrow areas, steep steps, dirty windows, and gutters overcharged with small children: one of those depressing neighbourhoods which fill the stranger's mind with a despairing pity, but where, nevertheless, there exist worthy, hard-working people who contrive somehow to be happy, and even comfortable—people who have their Christmas puddings and their household affections, like the Cratchets, and who do not desire to curse God and die.