fficulty. I imagine that girls on twopence a week have to
consider the price of boiling a kettle. Their hot water is not `laid
on'. Moreover, the poor dears must be `dead tired,' in a way which you
and I cannot even imagine."

"It is their life," Charmion said loftily.

"Excuse me--I mean to _live_! That's why I am thankful to have money,
because it gives me more scope to live thoroughly."

"Poor innocent! What a delusion. Money shuts the door of your cage. A
golden cage, excellently padded, but--_its bars shut out all the best
things of life_!"

I laughed again, for the statement was so opposed to all accepted
theories.

"_What_ best things, for example?"

"Confidence," said Charmion solemnly. "Trust in one's
fellow-creatures." She lifted her heavy lids as she spoke, and her eyes
looked into mine. In their grey depths was a blank, empty expression,
which once seen is never forgotten, for it speaks of a hurt so deep and
keen that the memory of it breaks the heart. I leapt from my seat and
wrapped Charmion in my arms.

"Oh, my dear, my dear, there is one person you can trust! Whatever
happens, Charmion, you can count on me! Darling! I know you have had
troubles. I don't ask to hear about them. I only want to be allowed to
love you, and to do all I can to help and to comfort. Never, never be
afraid to ask for anything I can do. I would put you before myself,
Charmion, if it ever came to a choice between our different interests--I
would indeed! Don't you believe it is true?"

She laid her two hands on my shoulders and smiled.

"You dear thing! I believe it is. You would sacrifice yourself for me,
and I should accept the sacrifice. It is the way we are made. You to
give, and I to demand. Let us pray, my dear, that the day may never
come when our interests do clash. Of a certainty, poor Evelyn, you
would come off worse!"

CHAPTER FIVE.

PASTIMES--AND MR MAPLESTONE.

The next morning, bright and early, we called on the house-agent to sign
and seal the agreement which should make us the happy owners of Pastimes
for a term of years agreeably elastic.

Mr Edwards was a small, dapper little man, typically house-agenty in
manner, even to the point of assuring us gravely that another tenant was
urgently in the field, and that we had secured our lease by the very
skin of our teeth.

Charmion lifted incredulous eyebrows.

"But, Mr Edwards, you wrote to me a second time, only a fortnigh