ture, she said, 'I will sit to you one of these days, but
I am too unhappy and frightened now. I don't like saying no; it is
always disagreeable to say no.' And seeing it would give her no
pleasure to sit, I did not ask her again."

"I'm sorry you missed seeing something very beautiful."

"I daresay she'd have sat if I'd have pressed her, but she was under my
protection, and it seemed cowardly to press her, for she could not
refuse. Suddenly we seemed to have nothing more to say to each other,
and I asked her if she'd like to see a manager, and as it seemed a pity
she should waste herself on the Gaiety Theatre I took her to see Sir
Edward Higgins. The mummer was going out to lunch with a lord and could
only think of the people he was going to meet. So we went to Dorking's
Theatre, and we found Dorking with his acting manager. The acting
manager had been listening for a long while and wasn't sorry for the
interruption. But we had not been talking for more than two or three
minutes when the call-boy brought in a bundle of newspaper cuttings,
and the mummer had not the patience to wait until he was alone--one
reads one's cuttings alone--he stuck his knees together and opened the
bundle, columns of print flowed over his knees, and after telling us
what the critics were saying about him, mention was made of Ibsen, and
we wondered if there was any chance of getting the public to come to
see a good play. You know the conversation drifts."

"You couldn't get her an engagement," said Rodney, "I should have
thought she was suited to the stage."

"If there had been time I could have done something for her; she's a
pretty girl, but you see all these things take a long time, and Lucy
wanted an engagement at once. When we left the theatre I began to
realise the absurdity of the adventure, and the danger to which I was
exposing myself. I, a man of over forty, seeking the seduction of a
girl of seventeen--for that is the plain English of it. We walked on
side by side, and I asked myself, 'What am I to her, what is she to me?
But one may argue with one's self forever."

"One may indeed," said Rodney, laughing, "one may argue, but the law
that is over us."

"Well, the law that is over us compelled me to take her to lunch, and
she enjoyed the lunch and the great restaurant. 'What a number of
butlers,' she said. After lunch the same problem confronted me: Was I
or was I not going to pursue the adventure? I only knew for certain
that