the spectral
prophet, a David in fear of Goliath.

'Yes,' she said, 'woman's profession.'

Together they walked away. Farwell was almost soliloquising. 'If she is
brave, life is easier for a woman than a man. She can play on him; but
her head must be cool, her heart silent. Hear this, Victoria. Remember
yours is a trade and needs your application. To win this fight you must
be well equipped. Let your touch be soft as velvet, your grip as hard as
steel. Shrink from nothing, rise to treachery, let the worldly nadir be
your zenith.'

He stopped before a public house and opened the door of the bar a
little.

'Look in here,' he said.

Victoria looked. There were five men, half hidden in smoke; among them
sat one woman clad in vivid colours, her face painted, her hands dirty
and covered with rings. Her yellow hair made a vivid patch against the
brown wall. A yard away, alone at a small table, sat another woman,
covered too with cheap finery, with weary eyes and a smiling mouth, her
figure abandoned on a sofa, lost to the scene, her look fixed on the
side door through which men slink in.

'Remember,' said Farwell, 'give no quarter in the struggle, for you will
get none.'

Victoria shuddered. But the fury was upon her.

'Don't be afraid,' she hissed, 'I'll spare nobody. They've already given
me a taste of the whip. I know, I understand; those girls don't. I see
the goal before me and therefore I will reach it.'

Farwell looked at her again, his eyes full of melancholy.

'Go then, Victoria,' he said, 'and work out your fate.'

PART II

CHAPTER I

VICTORIA turned uneasily on the sofa and stretched her arms. She yawned,
then sat up abruptly. Sudermann's _Katzensteg_ fell to the ground off
her lap. She was in a tiny back room, so overcrowded by the sofa and
easy-chair that she could almost touch a small rosewood bureau opposite.
She looked round the room lazily, then relapsed on the sofa, hugging a
cushion. She snuggled her face into it, voluptuously breathing in its
compactness laden with scent and tobacco smoke. Then, looking up, she
reflected that she was very comfortable.

Victoria's boudoir was the back extension of the dining-room. Shut off
by the folding doors, it contained within its tiny space the comfort
which is only found in small rooms. It was papered red with a flowered
pattern, which she thought ugly, but which had just been imported from
France and was quite the thing. The sofa and e