‘You’re the boss,’ he said and got to his feet. He put her shoes down in front of the gas-fire and went to the door. ‘Live far from ‘ere?’ he asked. A feeling of intense desolation swept through her and left her without the heart to prevaricate.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to find somewhere. There’s a women’s hostel near Paddington, I think.’

‘Broke?’

‘I’ll be all right, now I’ve got this job.’

His hand was in his pocket: ‘ ‘Ere,’ he said.

‘No, no. Please.’

‘Come orf it. We’re pals, ain’t we?’

‘No, really. I’m terribly grateful but I’d rather not. I’m all right.’

‘You’re the boss,’ he said again, and after a pause: ‘I can’t get the idea, honest I can’t. The way you speak and be’ave and all. What’s the story? ‘Ard luck or what?’

‘There’s no story, really.’

‘Just what you say yourself. No questions asked.’ He opened the door and moved into the passage. ‘Mind,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘it’s against the rules but I won’t be rahnd again. My mate relieves me at eight ack emma but I’ll tip ‘im the wink if it suits you. Them chairs in the greenroom’s not bad for a bit of kip and there’s the fire. I’ll turn it on. Please yerself a-course.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘could I? Could I?’

‘Never know what you can do till you try. Keep it under your tifter, though, or I’ll be in trouble. So long. Don’t get down’earted. It’ll be all the same in a fahsand years.’

He had gone. Martyn ran into the passage and saw his torchlight bobbing out on the stage. She called after him:

‘Thank you—thank you so much. I don’t know your name—but thank you and goodnight.’

‘Badger’s the name,’ he said, and his voice sounded hollow in the empty darkness. ‘Call me Fred.’

The light bobbed out of sight. She heard him whistling for a moment and then a door slammed and she was alone.

With renewed heart she turned back to her job.

At ten o’clock she had finished. She had traversed with diligence all the hazards of fatigue: the mounting threat of sleep, the clumsiness that makes the simplest action an ordeal, the horror of inertia and the temptation to let go the tortured muscles and give up, finally and indifferently, the awful struggle.

Five carefully ironed dresses hung sheeted against the walls, the make-up was laid out on the covered dressing-shelf. The boxes were stacked away, the framed photographs set out. It only remained to buy roses in the morning for Miss Helena Hamilton. Even the vase was ready and filled with water.