Victoria took from the table a dirty visiting card. It bore the words
'Louis Carrel, Musical and Theatrical Agent, 5 Soho Place.' She had come
by it in singular manner. Two days before, as she left the offices of
the 'Compleat Governess Agency' after having realised that she could
not qualify in either French, German, Music, Poker work or Swedish
drill, she had paused for a moment on the doorstep, surveying the dingy
court where they were concealed, the dirty panes of an unlet shop
opposite, the strange literature flaunting in the showcase of some
publisher of esoterics. A woman had come up to her, rising like the
loafers from the flagstones. She had realised her as between ages and
between colours. Then the woman had disappeared as suddenly as she came
without having spoken, leaving in Victoria's hand the little square of
pasteboard.

Victoria looked at it meditatively. She would have shrunk from the idea
of the stage a year before, when the tradition of Lympton was still upon
her. But times had changed; a simple philosophy was growing in her; what
did anything matter? would it not be all the same in a hundred years?
The discovery of this philosophy did not strike her as commonplace.
There are but few who know that this is the philosophy of the world.

Victoria put down the card and began to dress. She removed the old black
skirt and ragged lace blouse and, as she stood before the glass in her
short petticoat, patting her hair and setting a comb, she reflected with
satisfaction that her arms were shapely and white. She looked almost
lovingly at the long thin dark hairs, fine as silk, that streaked her
forearms; she kissed them gently, moved to self-adoration by the sweet
scent of femininity that rose from her.

She tore herself away from her self-worship and quickly began to dress.
She put on a light skirt in serge, striped black and white, threading
her head through it with great care for fear she should damage her
fringe net. She drew on a white blouse, simple enough though cheap. As
it fastened along the side she did not have to call in Miss Briggs;
which was fortunate, as this was the time when Miss Briggs carried
coals. Victoria wriggled for a moment to settle the uncomfortable boning
of the neck and, having buckled and belted the skirt over the blouse,
completed her toilet with her little black and white jacket to match the
skirt. A tiny black silk cravat from her neck was discarded, as she
found that the fashi