“Your real self ... haven’t I seen that?”

“I thought so till you said what you did,” she answered in a low voice, looking away from him; then she went on hurriedly:  “You know, when Mamma died I was only thirteen, and though I loved my father very dearly it’s never quite the same, is it?  It was dreadful leaving Papa, but I had to earn money somehow; you see, he wants all sorts of little things, extra delicacies he can’t get on his small means, and I do manage most times to send him them.  He didn’t like my choosing the stage; but I’m not really well enough educated for a governess—­besides, I did try that once....”

“What happened?” asked Ishmael as she paused.

“She—­the lady—­had a grown-up son as well as the children, and he fell in love with me.  I couldn’t help that, but she was very angry.  And I was so unhappy I couldn’t bear to go anywhere else.  I wanted a new life.  You see—­I cared rather.”

“But if you both cared—­”

“I wouldn’t let him defy his mother.  It would have made it all dreadful, somehow.  And he wasn’t a strong character, not like you.  You wouldn’t mind who was against you if you were in love.”

Ishmael did not reply and she went on: 

“I’ve been trying to make a fine thing out of acting now for three years, ever since I was little more than a child—­a real child in the little I knew.  And if I had not minded certain things of course by now I could have been a leading lady and driven in my brougham, or left the stage for good—­or for bad.  But one cannot alter the way one is made, or drop the ideas one was brought up to have ... at least I can’t; and so I’m still in the attic in Cecil Street, with a small part and no prospects.  And how I hate it all sometimes; you can’t imagine how I hate it!  London is like an awful monster that draws one in inch by inch—­a monster that breathes soot instead of fire.”

Ishmael had been turning over a wonderful plan in his mind while she was speaking, an idea that had flashed on him before, but that had seemed too splendid to be possible of realization.  Now, emboldened by her words, he ventured on the great question.

“I say,” he began, “why not, when you want a holiday, when this piece you’re playing in is over, come and stay at Cloom?  I don’t know whether you’ve heard—­whether Carminow has told you about me—­I hope he has; I dropped him a hint, because I hate to think I’m sailing under false colours with you—­” He paused, his courageous words dying in hot embarrassment.  Blanche met him perfectly.

“I know all about it.  Mr. Carminow told me.  What difference does it make, except to make your friends care all the more for you?”

“Then you would come?  My sister Vassie—­you’d like her.  And I think even my mother would love you.  It would be so good for you after all this.”

She did not reply at once and Ishmael’s heart sank.

“Your father....” he murmured; “I suppose you feel—­”