r in the P.R.R.
aren't you? Just like the house you live in. And you're just number so
and so; so am I. When we die fate shoves up the next number and it all
begins over again.'

'That doesn't sound very cheerful, does it?' said Victoria.

'It isn't cheerful. It's merely a fact.'

'I suppose it is,' said Victoria. 'Nobody is ever missed.'

Farwell looked at her critically. The platitude worried him a little; it
was unexpected.

'Yes, exactly,' he stammered. 'Anyhow, you read it and let me know what
you think of it.' Thereupon he took up another book and began to read.

When he had gone Victoria showed her prize to Betty.

'You're getting on,' said Betty with a smile. 'You'll be Mrs Farwell one
of these days, I suppose.'

'Don't be ridiculous, Betty,' snapped Victoria, 'why, I'd have to wash
him.'

'You might as well wash a husband as a dish,' said Betty smoothly.
'Anyhow, the other girls are talking.'

'Let them talk,' said Victoria rather savagely, 'so long as they don't
talk to me.'

Betty took her hand gently.

'Sorry, Vic dear,' she said. 'You're not angry with me, are you?'

'No, of course not, you silly,' said Victoria laughing. 'There run away,
or that old gent at the end'll take a fit.'

Farwell did not engage her in conversation for a few days, nor did she
make any advances to him. She read through _No. 5 John Street_ within
three evenings; it held her with a horrible fascination. Her first
plunge into realistic literature left her shocked as by a cold bath. In
the early days, at Lympton, she had subsisted mainly on Charlotte Young
and Rhoda Broughton. In India, the mess having a subscription at
Mudie's, she had had good opportunities of reading; but, for no
particular reason, except perhaps that she was newly married and busy
with regimental nothings, she had ceased to read anything beyond the
_Sketch_ and the _Sporting and Dramatic_. Thus she had never heard of
the 'common people' except as persons born to minister to the needs of
the rich. She had never felt any interest in them, for they spoke a
language that was not hers. _No. 5 John Street_, coming to her a long
time after the old happy days, when she herself was struggling in the
mire, was a horrible revelation; it showed her herself, and herself not
as 'Tilda towering over fate but as Nancy withering in the indiarubber
works for the benefit of the Ridler system.

She read feverishly by the light of a candle. At times she was repelled