Stella would give away her week’s wages without a second thought as to how she and Chrissie would manage the following week. Stella would lend her best evening gown, her slippers, her gloves or her mantle to any chorus girl who told her a hard luck story about an invitation from a Duke and nothing to wear if she accepted it. Stella found it impossible to pass a beggar in the street or a child looking into a sweet shop without opening her purse. And so Chrissie had to be ceaselessly protecting not only Stella’s interests but her own, for they rose and fell together.

Few people believed they were sisters, indeed, whenever Stella had a gentleman friend with a proprietary interest in her affairs, Chrissie was invariably introduced as ‘my dresser’, a pretence which never lasted long because Stella was too lazy to keep it up and inevitably gave the game away.

Chrissie was well aware that in appearance she was no asset to Stella. Men were inclined to look slightly disgusted or uncomfortable when they learned that this small, wizened creature was Stella’s sister, and it made them even more embarrassed when they learned that there were only two years difference in age between the girls.

‘You’re not to tell him who I am,’ Chrissie would say to Stella time and time again.

‘Why not?’ Stella would reply. I’m not ashamed of you, Chrissie. You’re worth fifty of me.’

In her heart of hearts Chrissie agreed with her, but men were not interested in brains, not the type of men they met anyway, and so they went on year after year, Chrissie making plans for Stella and Stella destroying them or making them unworkable from the very beginning by her sheer good humoured laziness.

The appearance of the Rajah of Jehangar was an unprecedented piece of good fortune. Bad luck had seemed to haunt Stella for months.

A show at the Gaiety Theatre, in which she had had a real chance to show her physical attractions, closed down after a month. There had been some delay before she was re-engaged at Daly’s, and then, three weeks after they had opened, she went down with such a bad cold and a high temperature that Chrissie was forced to keep her at home.

This was a double tragedy, for just before Stella fell ill she had attracted the attention of a South African millionaire who was visiting London. His affections were not seriously engaged, and when she failed to appear at a supper party he was giving for her, he speedily transferred his attention to one of the other girls in her act.