first of hints, half
signs, brilliant bits of by-play, and Glory rose to it like a fish to the
May-fly. Then it fell upon bicycling and the costumes ladies wore for it.
The languid one commented upon the female fetich, the skirt, and
condemned "bloomers," whereupon Glory declared that they were just
charming, and being challenged (by a gentleman) for her reasons she
said, "Because when a girl's got them on she feels as if she's an
understudy for a man, and may even have a chance of playing the part
itself in another and a better world."

Then there was general laughter, and the gentleman said, "You're in the
profession yourself now, aren't you?"

"Just a stranger within your gates," she answered; and when the talk
turned on a recent lawsuit, and the languid one said it was inconceivable
that the woman concerned could have been such a coward in relation to the
man, Glory protested that it was just as natural for a woman to be in
fear of a man (if she loved him) as to be afraid of a mouse or to look
under the bed.

"_Ma chere_," said a dainty little lady sitting next but one (she had
come to London to perform in a silent play), "they tells me you's half my
countrywoman. All right. Will you not speak de French to poor me?" And
when Glory did so the little one clapped her hands and declared she had
never heard the English speak French before.

"Say French-cum-Irish," said Glory, "or, rather, French which begat
Irish, which begat Manx!"

"Original, isn't she?" said somebody who was laughing.

"Like a sea-gull among so many pigeons!" said somebody else, and the
hothouse airs of the languid lady were lost as in a fresh gust from the
salt sea.

But her spirits subsided the moment she had recrossed the threshold. As
they were going home in the cab, past the hospital and down Piccadilly.
Rosa, who was proud and happy, said: "There! All society isn't stupid and
insipid, you see; and there are members of your own profession who try to
live up to the ideal of moral character attainable by a gentleman in
England even yet."

"Yes, no doubt... But, Rosa, there's another kind of man altogether,
whose love has the reverence of a religion, and if I ever meet a man like
that--one who is ready to trample all the world under his feet for me--I
think--yes, I really think I shall leave everything behind and follow
him."

"Leave everything behind, indeed! That _would_ be pretty! When everything
yields before you, too, and all the wo