The singularity of the request did not seem to occur to Lizzie. The reply came as promptly as if the question had been a commonplace.
"Friends? Do you mean fellows? The only fellow that ever was a friend to me, and he's only a sort of a one, is Joe Mason, what's carpenter up at the theatre; he's no earl. Ask yourself the question--do I look the sort of girl an earl would take up with?"
Miss Graham felt that she did not--had felt so all along; not although the earl was possessed of such peculiar tastes as was the one in question.
"You might look different on the stage--one can make oneself look like anything there."
"I might and I mightn't. As far as I know no one ever took me for a beauty even on the stage, not even Joe Mason."
The girl's eyes twinkled with laughter, as if the bare possibility of such a thing struck her as comical. Her visitor returned to the fireplace. She made a little troubled movement with her hands.
"I wish you would be frank with me. You must know something of him, even if you don't know him, else how came your name and address to be in his pocket, and why should he claim your acquaintance?"
"It beats me fair, it does. I never gave it him, that's certain. There's a muddle somewhere."
"Is there anyone else of your name at the theatre?"
"If there is I never heard of it, and I've been there now getting on for two years. There's no one else of that name in the ballet, that I do know."