twenty; showily dressed, and quick with her tongue. She was
good-natured and jolly, and though Praed himself was the essence of
refinement there was something about her reckless mirth and joy in
life--the immense relief of having passed from the sordid life of a
barmaid to this quasi-ladyhood--that enlisted his sympathies. Though
she was always somebody else's mistress until she developed
her special talent as a manageress of high-class houses of
accommodation, "private hotels" on the Continent, chiefly frequented
by English and American _roués_--Praed kept an eye on her career,
and occasionally rendered her, with some cynicism, unobtrusive
friendly services in disentangling her affairs when complications
threatened. He was an art student in those days of the 'seventies,
possessed of about four hundred a year, beginning to go through the
aesthetic phase, and not decided whether he would emerge a painter
of pictures or an architect of grandiose or fantastic buildings. To
his studio Miss Kitty Vavasour or Miss Kate Warren would often come
and pose for the head and shoulders, or for some draped caryatid
wanted for an ambitious porch in an imaginary millionaire's house in
Kensington Palace Gardens. When in 1897, Vivie had learnt about her
mother's "profession," she had flung off violently from all her
mother's "friends," except "Praddy." She even continued to call him
by this nickname, long ago bestowed on him by her mother. At distant
intervals she would pay him a visit at his house and studio near
Hans Place; when Honoria's advice and assistance did not meet the
case of some grave perplexity.

So one afternoon in June, 1901, she came to his little dwelling with
its large studio, and asked to have a long talk to him, whilst his
parlour-maid--he was still a bachelor--denied him to other callers.
They had tea together and Vivie plunged as quickly as possible into