derision, and fooled them as Hera fooled the passionate Titan.

In winter-time the balls at Covent Garden gave Jenny some of the
happiest hours of her life. Every Tuesday fortnight, tickets were sent
round to the stage-door of the Orient, and it was very seldom indeed
that she did not manage to secure one. On the first occasion she went
dressed as a little girl in muslin, with a white baby hat and white
shoes and socks, and, wherever they might attract a glance, bows of pink
silk. When the janitors saw her first, they nearly refused to admit
such youthfulness; could not believe she was really grown up; consulted
anxiously together while Jenny's slanting eyes glittered up to their
majesties. They were convinced at last, and she enjoyed herself very
much indeed. She was chased up the stairs and round the lobby. She was
chased down the stairs, through the supper-room, in and out of half a
dozen boxes, laughing and chattering and shrieking all the while. She
danced nearly every dance. She won the second prize. Three old men tried
to persuade her to live with them. Seven young men vowed they had never
met so sweet a girl.

To the three former Jenny murmured demurely:

"But I'm a good little girl; I don't do those things."

And of course they pointed out that she was much too young to come to so
wicked a place as Covent Garden. And of course, with every good
intention, they offered to escort her home at once.

With the seven young men's admiration Jenny agreed.

"I am sweet, aren't I? Oh, I'm a young dream, if you only knew."

And as a dream was she elusive. She gloried in her freedom. She was glad
she was not in love. She had no wish to do anything but enjoy herself to
the top of her bent. And she succeeded. Then at half-past six o'clock of
a raw November morning, she rumbled home to Hagworth Street in a
four-wheel cab with five other girls--a heap of tangled lace. She went
upstairs on tiptoe. She undressed herself somehow, and in the morning
she woke up to find on each wrist, as testimony of the night's
masquerade, a little pink bow, soiled and crumpled.

She went often after that first visit and had many adventures. On one
occasion she fell in with the handsome wife of a Surrey publican, and
drove back after breakfast beside her to whatever Surrey village Mrs.
Argles astonished with her figure and finery. Irene came, too, and the
girls went to bed in a dimity-hung bedroom and were taken for a drive in
the afternoon