a chaperon
with her; and to her Philip, asked to make a fourth, was instructed to
confine his attentions. He found this easy, since she turned out to be an
agreeable chatterbox with an amusing tongue. She asked Philip to go and
see her; she had rooms in Vincent Square, and was always in to tea at five
o'clock; he went, was delighted with his welcome, and went again. Mrs.
Nesbit was not more than twenty-five, very small, with a pleasant, ugly
face; she had very bright eyes, high cheekbones, and a large mouth: the
excessive contrasts of her colouring reminded one of a portrait by one of
the modern French painters; her skin was very white, her cheeks were very
red, her thick eyebrows, her hair, were very black. The effect was odd, a
little unnatural, but far from unpleasing. She was separated from her
husband and earned her living and her child's by writing penny novelettes.
There were one or two publishers who made a specialty of that sort of
thing, and she had as much work as she could do. It was ill-paid, she
received fifteen pounds for a story of thirty thousand words; but she was
satisfied.

"After all, it only costs the reader twopence," she said, "and they like
the same thing over and over again. I just change the names and that's
all. When I'm bored I think of the washing and the rent and clothes for
baby, and I go on again."

Besides, she walked on at various theatres where they wanted supers and
earned by this when in work from sixteen shillings to a guinea a week. At
the end of her day she was so tired that she slept like a top. She made
the best of her difficult lot. Her keen sense of humour enabled her to get
amusement out of every vexatious circumstance. Sometimes things went
wrong, and she found herself with no money at all; then her trifling
possessions found their way to a pawnshop in the Vauxhall Bridge Road, and
she ate bread and butter till things grew brighter. She never lost her
cheerfulness.

Philip was interested in her shiftless life, and she made him laugh with
the fantastic narration of her struggles. He asked her why she did not try
her hand at literary work of a better sort, but she knew that she had no
talent, and the abominable stuff she turned out by the thousand words was
not only tolerably paid, but was the best she could do. She had nothing to
look forward to but a continuation of the life she led. She seemed to have
no relations, and her friends were as poor as herself.

"I don't thi