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here he paused to let three men go by. They wore hats and carried overcoats and bags; they were sallow-faced and poor-looking, with a patina of flashness - I thought they might be salesmen carrying sample-cases. Only when they had moved on, and I heard them sharing a joke with the stage door-keeper, did I realise that they were the trio of tumblers taking their leave for the night, and that their bags contained their spangles. I had a sudden fear that Kitty Butler might after all be just like them: plain, unremarkable, almost unrecognisable as the handsome girl I had seen swaggering in the glow of the footlights. I very nearly called to Tony to take me back; but he had descended the staircase, and when I caught up with him in the passageway below he was at a door, and had already turned its handle.
    The door was one of a row of others, indistinguishable from its neighbours but for a brass figure 7, very old and scratched, that was screwed at eye level upon its centre panel, and a hand-written card that had been tacked below. Miss Kitty Butler, it said.
    I found her seated at a little table before a looking-glass; she had half-turned - to reply, I suppose, to Tony’s knock - but at my approach she rose, and reached to shake my hand. She was a little shorter than me, even in her heels, and younger than I had imagined - perhaps my sister’s age, of one- or two-and-twenty.
    â€˜Aha,’ she said, when Tony had left us - there was a hint, still, of her footlight manner in her voice - ‘my mystery admirer! I was sure it must be Gully you came to see; then someone said you never stay beyond the interval. Is it really me you stay for? I never had a fan before!’ As she spoke she leaned quite comfortably against the table - it was cluttered, I now saw, with jars of cream and sticks of grease-paint, with playing cards and half-smoked cigarettes and filthy tea-cups - and crossed her legs at the ankle, and folded her arms. Her face was still thickly powdered, and very red at the lip; her lashes and eyelids were black with paint. She was dressed in the trousers and the shoes that she had worn for her act, but she had removed the jacket, the waistcoat, and, of course, the hat. Her starched shirt was held tight against the swell of her bosom by a pair of braces, but gaped at the throat where she had unclipped her bow-tie. Beyond the shirt I saw an edge of creamy lace.
    I looked away. ‘I do like your act,’ I said.
    â€˜I should think you do, you come to it so often!’
    I smiled. ‘Well, Tony lets me in, you see, for nothing ...’ That made her laugh: her tongue looked very pink, her teeth extraordinarily white, against her painted lips. I felt myself blush. ‘What I mean is,’ I said, ‘Tony lets me have the box. But I would pay if I had to, and sit in the gallery. For I do so like your act, Miss Butler, so very, very much.’
    Now she did not laugh, but she tilted her head a little. ‘Do you?’ she answered gently.
    â€˜Oh, yes.’
    â€˜Tell me what it is you like then, so much.’
    I hesitated. ‘I like your costume,’ I said at last. ‘I like your songs, and the way you sing them. I like the way you talk to Tricky. I like your ... hair.’ Here I stumbled; and now she seemed to blush. There was a second’s almost awkward silence - then, suddenly, as if from somewhere very near at hand, there came the sound of music - the blast of a horn and the pulse of a drum - and a cheer, like the roaring of the wind in some vast sea-shell. I gave a jump, and looked about me; and she laughed. ‘The second half,’ she said. After a moment the cheering stopped; the music, however, went on pulsing and thumping like a great heart-beat.
    She left off leaning against the table, and asked, Did I mind if she smoked? I shook my head, and shook it again when she took up a packet of cigarettes from amongst the dirty cups and playing cards, and held it to me.