“Nearly nineteen,” said Paul.

“By Gosh!” said Barney Bill.

He put on his hat at a comfortable but rakish angle.  He looked like a music-hall humourist.  A couple of the gorgeous ladies giggled.

“Yuss,” said he, “you’re a man with an experience of life—­and nobody can do nothing for you but yerself.  Poor old Barney Bill has been past helping you this many a year.”

“But I owe everything to you!” cried Paul, boyishly.  “If it hadn’t been for you, I should still be working in that factory at Bludston.”

Bill winked and nodded acquiescence as he finished his tankard.

“I’ve often wondered—­since I’ve grown up—­what induced you to take me away.  What was it?”

Bill cocked his head on one side and regarded him queerly.  “Now you’re arsking,” said he.

Paul persisted.  “You must have had some reason.”

“I suppose I was interested in them parents of yours,” said Barney Bill.

And that was all he would say on the subject.

The days went on.  The piece had run through the summer and autumn, and Paul, a favourite with the management, was engaged for the next production.  At rehearsal one day the author put in a couple of lines, of which he was given one to speak.  He now was in very truth an actor.  Jane could no longer taunt him in her naughty moods (invariably followed by bitter repentance) with playing a dumb part like a trained dog.  He had a real part, typewritten and done up in a brown-paper cover, which was handed to him, with lack of humour, by the assistant stage manager.

In view of his own instantaneous success he tried to persuade Jane to go on the stage; but Jane had no artistic ambitions, to say nothing of her disinclination to paint her face.  She preferred the prosaic reality of stenography and typewriting.  No sphere could be too dazzling for Paul; he was born to great things, the consciousness of his high destiny being at once her glory and her despair; but, as regards herself, her outlook on life was cool and sober.  Paul was peacock born; it was for him to strut about in iridescent plumage.  She was a humble daw and knew her station.  It must be said that Paul held out the stage as a career more on account of the social status that it would give to Jane than through a belief in her histrionic possibilities.  He too, fond as he was of the girl with whom he had grown up, recognized the essential difference between them.  She was as pretty, as sensible, as helpful a little daw as ever chattered; but the young peacock never for an instant forgot her daw-dom.

Jane’s profound common-sense reaped its reward the following spring when she found herself obliged to earn her livelihood.  ’Her mother died, and the shop was sold, and an aunt in Cricklewood offered Jane a home, on condition that she paid for her keep.  This she was soon able to do when she obtained a situation with a business firm in the city.  The work was hard and the salary small; but Jane had a brave heart and held her head high.  In her simple philosophy life was work, and dreaming an occasional luxury.  Her mother’s death grieved her deeply, for she was a girl of strong affections, and the breaking up of her life with Paul seemed an irremediable catastrophe.