One night she went with Winton to the Octagon, where Daphne Wing was still performing.  Remembering the girl’s squeaks of rapture at her garden, she wrote next day, asking her to lunch and spend a lazy afternoon under the trees.

The little dancer came with avidity.  She was pale, and droopy from the heat, but happily dressed in Liberty silk, with a plain turn-down straw hat.  They lunched off sweetbreads, ices, and fruit, and then, with coffee, cigarettes, and plenty of sugar-plums, settled down in the deepest shade of the garden, Gyp in a low wicker chair, Daphne Wing on cushions and the grass.  Once past the exclamatory stage, she seemed a great talker, laying bare her little soul with perfect liberality.  And Gyp—­excellent listener—­enjoyed it, as one enjoys all confidential revelations of existences very different from one’s own, especially when regarded as a superior being.

“Of course I don’t mean to stay at home any longer than I can help; only it’s no good going out into life”—­this phrase she often used—­ “till you know where you are.  In my profession, one has to be so careful.  Of course, people think it’s worse than it is; father gets fits sometimes.  But you know, Mrs. Fiorsen, home’s awful.  We have mutton—­you know what mutton is—­it’s really awful in your bedroom in hot weather.  And there’s nowhere to practise.  What I should like would be a studio.  It would be lovely, somewhere down by the river, or up here near you.  That would be lovely.  You know, I’m putting by.  As soon as ever I have two hundred pounds, I shall skip.  What I think would be perfectly lovely would be to inspire painters and musicians.  I don’t want to be just a common ’turn’—­ballet business year after year, and that; I want to be something rather special.  But mother’s so silly about me; she thinks I oughtn’t to take any risks at all.  I shall never get on that way.  It is so nice to talk to you, Mrs. Fiorsen, because you’re young enough to know what I feel; and I’m sure you’d never be shocked at anything.  You see, about men:  Ought one to marry, or ought one to take a lover?  They say you can’t be a perfect artist till you’ve felt passion.  But, then, if you marry, that means mutton over again, and perhaps babies, and perhaps the wrong man after all.  Ugh!  But then, on the other hand, I don’t want to be raffish.  I hate raffish people—­I simply hate them.  What do you think?  It’s awfully difficult, isn’t it?”

Gyp, perfectly grave, answered: 

“That sort of thing settles itself.  I shouldn’t bother beforehand.”

Miss Daphne Wing buried her perfect chin deeper in her hands, and said meditatively: 

“Yes; I rather thought that, too; of course I could do either now.  But, you see, I really don’t care for men who are not distinguished.  I’m sure I shall only fall in love with a really distinguished man.  That’s what you did—­isn’t it?—­so you must understand.  I think Mr. Fiorsen is wonderfully distinguished.”