upplied by Paul,
Miss Winwood, not doubting his gentle birth and breeding, constructed
for him a wholly fictitious set of antecedents. Paul invented as little
as possible and gratefully accepted her suggestions. They worked
together unconsciously. Paul had to give some account of himself. He
had blotted Bludston and his modeldom out of his existence. The
passionate belief in his high and romantic birth was part of his being,
and Miss Winwood's recognition was a splendid confirmation of his
faith. It was rather the suppressio veri of which he was guilty than
the propositio falsi. So between them his childhood was invested with a
vague semblance of reality in which the fact of his isolation stood out
most prominent.

They had many talks together, not only on books and art, but on the
social subjects in which Ursula was so deeply interested. She found him
well informed, with a curiously detailed knowledge of the everyday
lives of the poor. It did not occur to her that this knowledge came
from his personal experience. She attributed it to the many-sided
genius of her paragon.

"When you get well you must help us. There's an infinite amount to be
done."

"I shall be delighted," said Paul politely.

"You'll find I'm a terrible person to deal with when once I've laid my
hands on anybody," she said with a smile. "I drag in all kinds of
people, and they can't escape. I sent young Harry Gostling--Lord
Ruthmere's son, you know--to look into a working girls' club in the
Isle of Dogs that was going wrong. He hated it at first, but now he's
as keen as possible. And you'll be keen too."

It was flattering to be classified with leisured and opulent young
Guardsmen; but what, Paul reflected with a qualm, would the kind lady
say if she learned the real state of his present fortunes? He thought
of the guinea that lay between him and starvation, and was amused by
the irony of her proposition. Miss Winwood evidently took it for
granted that he was in easy circumstances, living on the patrimony
administered during his boyhood by a careless guardian. He shrank from
undeceiving her. His dream was beginning to come true. He was accepted
by one of the high caste as belonging to the world where princes and
princesses dwelt serene. If only he could put the theatre behind him,
as he had put the rest, and make a stepping-stone of his dead actor
self! But that was impossible, or at least the question would have to
be fought out between himself