“Do you think I look well enough?” she asked.

“Fifty per cent. of them are a good deal worse in those musical comedies.”

“How much should I get?”

“Two pounds a week.”

“That’s as much as you.”

“Yes; but you’d have to work for it.  I don’t.”

“Oh yes; but what sort of work?  Nothing to typewriting.”

“Perhaps not.  But they’d probably expect more than work out of you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when a stage manager gives an unknown girl a walk on in the chorus of a musical comedy, he looks upon it in the light of a favour.  I suppose it is too.  He puts her in the way of knowing a lot of well-to-do young men, and he pays her two pounds a week for doing nothing but look pretty under the most advantageous circumstances.  There are women who would pay to get a job like that.”

Sally’s face puckered with disgust.  “I think life’s beastly,” she said.

Janet smiled.  “That’s not life,” she said; “that’s musical comedy.”

Then she lit another cigarette and sat there, watching Sally take off her wet clothes; smiled at her, catching the garments with the tips of her fingers, and shuddering when they touched her skin.

“You’re too sensitive for this business, Sally,” she said at last.  “You’re too romantic.  Why don’t you get married?”

“I wish I could,” said Sally.

“Well, you don’t take your chances.”

“What chances?”

“Mr. Arthur—­”

They both laughed.  Mr. Arthur Montagu was a bank clerk, lodging in the same house on Strand-on-Green.  He had had the same room for over three years and had, through various stages of acquaintanceship, come to be addressed by the landlady as Mr. Arthur.

For the first few weeks after the arrival of Sally and Janet, he had chosen to take his meals in the kitchen—­where all meals were served—­after they had finished.  His, was a bed-sitting-room, the only one the house contained, and, in social status, the possession of it lifted him in rank above any of the other lodgers who shared the general sitting-room with the landlady, Mrs. Hewson, and her husband.

But one evening, Sally and he had returned together from Hammersmith on the tram.  They had walked together from the bridge along that river way, with its tall houses and its little houses, its narrow alleys and its low-roofed inns, which is perhaps the most picturesque part of the river that the shattering march of time has left.  He had made intellectual remarks about the effects of the sunlight in the water.  He had drawn her attention to the beauty of the broad stretch of stream as it bent away towards Chiswick out of sight.  He felt that he had made an impression of mentality upon the little typewriting girl.  And, after that, he had suggested to Mrs. Hewson that it might seem churlish on his part not to have his meals with the rest.

Janet Hallard he did not like.  When he talked about art her eyes hung upon him and, waiting until he had finished, she then talked about the Stock Exchange.