'A regular little devil! Don't care what I say, or what I do, either! I nearly did a chap in once. Yes, really. He'd have deserved it, too.'

'Well,' I begged, 'don't get mad with me.'

'I shan't. I like you-did the first moment I set eyes on you. But you looked so disapproving that I never thought we should make friends.'

'Well, we have. Tell me something about yourself.'

'I'm an actress. No-not the kind you're thinking of. I've been on the boards since I was a kid of six-tumbling.'

'I beg your pardon,' I said, puzzled.

'Haven't you ever seen child acrobats?'

'Oh, I understand!'

'I'm American-born, but I've spent most of my life in England. We've got a new show now-'

'We?'

'My sister and I. Sort of song and dance, and a bit of patter, and a dash of the old business thrown in. It's quite a new idea, and it hits them every time. There's going to be money in it.'

My new acquaintance leaned forward, and discoursed volubly, a great many of her terms being quite unintelligible to me. Yet I found myself evincing an increasing interest in her. She seemed such a curious mixture of child and woman.

Though perfectly wordly-wise, and able, as she expressed it, to take care of herself there was yet something curiously ingenuous in her single-minded attitude towards life, and her wholehearted determination to 'make good'.

We passed through Amiens. The name awakened many memories. My companion seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of what was in my mind.

'Thinking of the War?'

I nodded.

'You were through it, I suppose?'

'Pretty well I was wounded once, and after the Somme they invalided me out altogether. I'm a sort of private secretary now to an MP.'

'My! That's brainy!'

'No, it isn't. There's really awfully little to do. Usually a couple of hours every day sees me through. It's dull work too. In fact, I don't know what I should do if I hadn't got something to fall back upon.'