night to the morning, when there would
be the office again, and Barry.

Sometimes Barry took her out to dinner and a theatre. They went to the
"Beggar's Opera," "The Grain of Mustard Seed," "Mary Rose" (which they
found sentimental), and to the "Beggar's Opera" again Gerda had her own
ideas, very definite and critical, about dramatic merit. Barry enjoyed
discussing the plays with her, listening to her clear little silver voice
pronouncing judgment. Gerda might be forever mediocre in any form of
artistic expression, but she was an artist, with the artist's love of
merit and scorn of the second-rate.

They went to "Mary Rose" with some girl cousins of Barry's, two jolly
girls from Girton. Against their undiscriminating enthusiasm, Gerda and
her fastidious distaste stood out sharp and clear, like some delicate
etching among flamboyant pictures. That fastidiousness she had from both
her parents, with something of her own added.

Barry went home with her. He wondered how her fastidiousness stood the
grimy house in Magpie Alley and its ramshackle habit of life, after the
distinctions and beauty of Windover, but he thought it was probably very
good for her, part of the experience which should mould the citizen.
Gerda shrank from no experience. At the corner of Bouverie Street they
met a painted girl out for hire, strayed for some reason into this
unpropitious locality. For the moment Gerda had fallen behind and Barry
seemed alone. The girl stopped in his path, looked up in his face
enquiringly, and he pushed his way, not urgently, past her. The next
moment Gerda's hand caught his arm.

"Stop, Barry, stop."

"Stop? What for?"

"The woman. Didn't you see?"

"My dear child, I can't do anything for her."

Like the others of her generation, Gerda was interested in persons of
that profession; he knew that already; only they saw them through a
distorting mist.

"We can find out where she works, what wages she gets, why she's on the
streets. She's probably working for sweated wages somewhere. We _ought_
to find out."

"We can't find out about every woman of that kind we meet. The thing is
to attack the general principle behind the thing, not each individual
case.... Besides, it would be so frightfully impertinent of us. How
would you like it if someone stopped you in the street and asked you
where you worked and whether you were sweated or not, and why you were
out so late?"

"I shouldn't mind, if they wanted to know fo