After all, the initial step in any career was usually reckoned the worst.

Some day, at the King’s, or the Canary, or the Olive, in the warmth of a stage dressing-room, she would be amused, perhaps, and say:

“I left my father’s roof, Sir, one sweet spring night—without so much as a word!”


V

RAINDROPS were falling although the sky was visibly brightening as Miss Sinquier, tired, and a little uncertain, passed through the main exit of Euston terminus.

She wavered a moment upon the curb.

On a hoarding, as if to welcome her, a dramatic poster of Fan Fisher unexpectedly warmed her heart; it was almost like being met....

There stood Fan, at concert pitch, as Masha Olgaruski in The Spy.

Miss Sinquier tingled.