e of these she did not like. In Rigoletto, for instance,
Previtale, the great singer, expressed a wish that she should play the
girl in the sack whom he was to fondle. Jenny did not like being
fondled. Other girls would have loved the conspicuous attractions of
Previtale, but Jenny thought his breath was awful, as indeed it was.

Her principal friend at Covent Garden was a girl called Irene, or rather
spelled Irene, for she was always called Ireen. Irene Dale was a mixture
of the odd and the ordinary in her appearance. At first glance she
seemed the commonplace type produced in hundreds by English _coulisses_.
Perhaps the expression of her face in repose first suggested a
possibility of distinction. The intensely blue eyes in that circumstance
had a strange, listless ardor, as if she were dreaming of fiery moments
fled long ago. The blue eyes were enhanced by hair, richly brown as
drifted leaves under the sunlight. Her mouth was prettiest when she was
being pleasantly teased. Her nose came to an end, and then began again.
Her chin was deeply cleft and her complexion full of real roses. In the
company of Jenny, Irene gave an impression of slowness; not that Jenny,
except when late for rehearsal, ever seemed in a hurry, but with her
there was always the suggestion of a tremulous agility. Irene had been
at Madame Aldavini's school, where she and Jenny in their childhood had
wasted a considerable amount of time in romping, but, since they never
happened to go on tour together, they never achieved a girlish
friendship until at Covent Garden they found themselves dressing next to
each other.

Jenny tried to inspire Irene with the hostility to men felt by herself.
But Irene, although she enjoyed the lark, had a respect for men at the
bottom of it all, and would not always support Jenny in the latter's
freely expressed contempt. While she was at Covent Garden, Irene met a
young man, unhealthily tall, who made much of her and gave her expensive
rings, and for a fancy of his own took her to a fashionable milliner's
and dressed her in short skirts. Jenny had heard something of Irene's
Danby and was greatly annoyed by the latter's unsympathetic influence.

"Your Danby," she would protest. "Whatever can you see in him? Long
idiot!"

"My Danby's a gentleman," said Irene.

"Well, I think he looks terrible. Why, he wears his teeth outside."

Then Jenny, meeting Irene and her Danby in Leicester Square, beheld her
friend in the chi