a little. _Pinjane_ [* Manx dish,
like Devonshire junket] alone won't do. Give her a slush of _pissaves_ [*
Preserves] and she'll go down sweeter. Angels are not wanted here at all.
The only angels there are in London are kept framed in the church
windows, and I half suspect that even they were women once, and liked
bread and butter. And then Nell Gwynne's flag floats from the steeple of
St. Martin's in the Fields, and now and again they ring the bells for
her!"

XI.

At eleven o'clock that night Glory was putting on her hat and cloak to
return home when the call-boy came to the dressing-room door to say that
the stage manager was waiting to see her. With a little catch, in her
breath, and then with a tightening of the heart-strings, she followed him
to the stage manager's office. It was a stuffy place over the porter's
lodge, approached by a flight of circular iron stairs and lumbered with
many kinds of theatrical property.

"Come in, my dear," said the stage manager, and pushing away some models
of scenery he made room for her on a sofa which stood by a fast-dying
fire. Then shutting the door, he bobbed his head at her and winked with
both eyes, and said in a familiar whisper:

"It's all right, my dear. I've settled that little matter for you."

"Do you mean----" began Glory, and then she waited with parted lips.

"It's as good as done, my dear. Sit down." Glory had risen in her
excitement. "Sit down and I'll tell you everything."

He had spoken to his management. "Gentlemen," he had said, "unless I'm
mistaken I've found a prize." They had laughed. He was always finding
prizes. But he knew what he was talking about, and they had given him
_carte blanche_.

"You think there is really some likelihood, then----" began Glory, with
the catch in her breath again, for her throat was thick and her breast
was heaving.

"Sit down, now do sit down, my dear, and listen."

He was suave, he was flattering, he was intimate, he was, coaxing. She
was to leave everything to him. Of course, there was much to be done yet.
She had a wonderful voice; it was finer than music. She had style as
well; it was astonishing how she had come by it. Only a dresser, too--not
even in the chorus. But stars were never turned out by Nature. She had
many things to learn, and would have to be coached up carefully before
she could be brought out. He had done it for others, though, and he could
do it for her; and if----

Glory's eyes wer