be good, it _makes_ them good, unless they're very bad indeed."

"Perhaps." Stephen would not for a great deal have tried to undermine
her confidence in her fellow beings, and such was the power of the
girl's personality, that for the moment he was half inclined to feel she
might be right. Who could tell? Maybe he had not "believed" enough--in
Margot. He looked with interest at the brooch of which Miss Ray spoke, a
curiously wrought, flattened ring of dull gold, with a pin in the middle
which pierced and fastened her chiffon veil on her breast. Round the
edge, irregularly shaped pearls alternated with roughly cut emeralds,
and there was a barbaric beauty in both workmanship and colour.

"What happened when you got to your journey's end?" he went on, fearing
to go astray on that subject of the world's goodness, which was a sore
point with him lately. "Did you know anybody in New York?"

"Nobody. But I asked the driver of a cab if he could take me to a
respectable theatrical boarding-house, and he said he could, so I told
him to drive me there. I engaged a wee back room at the top of the
house, and paid a week in advance. The boarders weren't very successful
people, poor things, for it was a cheap boarding-house--it had to be,
for me. But they all knew which were the best theatres and managers, and
they were interested when they heard I'd come to try and get a chance to
be a dancer. They were afraid it wasn't much use, but the same evening
they changed their minds, and gave me lots of good advice."

"You danced for them?"

"Yes, in such a stuffy parlour, smelling of gas and dust and there were
holes in the carpet it was difficult not to step into. A dear old man
without any hair, who was on what he called the 'Variety Stage,' advised
me to go and try to see Mr. Charles Norman, a fearfully important
person--so important that even I had heard of him, away out in Indiana.
I did try, day after day, but he was too important to be got at. I
wouldn't be discouraged, though. I knew Mr. Norman must come to the
theatre sometimes, so I bought a photograph in order to recognize him;
and one day when he passed me, going in, I screwed up my courage and
spoke. I said I'd been waiting for days and days. At first he scowled,
and I think meant to be cross, but when he'd given me one long,
terrifying glare, he grumbled out: "Come along with me, then. I'll soon
see what you can do." I went in, and danced on an almost dark stage,
with Mr