retched couple was just coming out, a
man and a woman, sad with a humility accustomed to rebuffs; and the agent
drove them toward the door, with his voice:

"Eccentric mashers? No opening for you. Call again."

Lily got a good reception, in the agent's room; but there was nothing for
her. And the agent saw her to the door, with a satisfied air and a knowing
wink, as though to make the others believe ... Lily didn't like that
kind--her short-sightedness did not prevent her noticing it and blushing
at it--but she was very pleased, all the same, to be seen to the door,
before those small turns who were received like dogs....

On the pavement outside, the wretched couple came up to her shyly:

"Don't you know us, Miss Lily? The Para-Paras."

She had to listen to a pitiful tale. She heard nothing but that, when she
went on her rounds of visits to the agents. Oh, the distress which she
beheld there! It made Lily feel quite ill at night. A little more and she
would have said her prayers, before getting into bed, to thank God that
she hadn't come to that. Poor Paras! Starving, no doubt, remaining for
weeks in their garret, pretending that they had been performing in the
provinces ... abroad.... Lily pictured them passing the stage-doorkeepers
to whom they had sold their parrots and being greeted with a "What's for
breakfast, Polly?"

"Miss Lily," they confessed, in a whisper, "you know such a lot of people:
if ever you hear of anything for us, never mind where ..."

"Poor beggars!" thought Lily.

And her Ma had prophesied to her that, one day, she would be worse off
than they! No, she would never be half so badly off! Why, she could have
had anything she wanted, motor-cars, Paris gowns, for the asking.

[Illustration: THE PARA-PARAS]

"Glass-Eye, my bag!" And, handing a small gold coin to the wretched
couple, "There ... between artistes, you know ... give it back when you
can; good-by. Did you notice, Glass-Eye," asked Lily, as she walked away,
"how flattered they were when I said, 'Between artistes?' They looked
quite touched."

But there was no time to waste in nonsense, on a day when she was calling
on the agents. The thing was to get there first; and Lily consulted her
addresses....

She was exasperated at being obliged, with her talent, to climb all those
stairs, to hang about in the waiting-room, she, Lily Clifton! And it
reeked of vice, stunk with the trashy scent of the "not-up-to-muches:"
merely to look a