low Peacock"; obviously she supplied
excellent material for Jocantha's first experiment in haphazard
benefaction.

Jocantha ordered some tea and a muffin, and then turned a friendly
scrutiny on her neighbour with a view to catching her eye. At that
precise moment the girl's face lit up with sudden pleasure, her eyes
sparkled, a flush came into her cheeks, and she looked almost pretty. A
young man, whom she greeted with an affectionate "Hullo, Bertie," came up
to her table and took his seat in a chair facing her. Jocantha looked
hard at the new-comer; he was in appearance a few years younger than
herself, very much better looking than Gregory, rather better looking, in
fact, than any of the young men of her set. She guessed him to be a well-
mannered young clerk in some wholesale warehouse, existing and amusing
himself as best he might on a tiny salary, and commanding a holiday of
about two weeks in the year. He was aware, of course, of his good looks,
but with the shy self-consciousness of the Anglo-Saxon, not the blatant
complacency of the Latin or Semite. He was obviously on terms of
friendly intimacy with the girl he was talking to, probably they were
drifting towards a formal engagement. Jocantha pictured the boy's home,
in a rather narrow circle, with a tiresome mother who always wanted to
know how and where he spent his evenings. He would exchange that humdrum
thraldom in due course for a home of his own, dominated by a chronic
scarcity of pounds, shillings, and pence, and a dearth of most of the
things that made life attractive or comfortable. Jocantha felt extremely
sorry for him. She wondered if he had seen the "Yellow Peacock"; the
odds were enormously in favour of the supposition that he had not. The
girl had finished her tea and would shortly be going back to her work;
when the boy was alone it would be quite easy for Jocantha to say: "My
husband has made other arrangements for me this evening; would you care
to make use of this ticket, which would otherwise be wasted?" Then she
could come there again one afternoon for tea, and, if she saw him, ask
him how he liked the play. If he was a nice boy and improved on
acquaintance he could be given more theatre tickets, and perhaps asked to
come one Sunday to tea at Chelsea. Jocantha made up her mind that he
would improve on acquaintance, and that Gregory would like him, and that
the Fairy Godmother business would prove far more entertaining than she