And that, in so many words, he told her that afternoon.

“Feeling all right?” he asked her.

“Better than this morning.  The wind’s gone down, hasn’t it?”

He did not answer her.  He sat on the side of the chair and looked her over.

“You want to keep well,” he warned her.  “The whole key to your doing anything is vitality.  That’s the word—­Life.”

She smiled.  It seemed so easy.  Life?  She was full-fed with the joy of it.  Even as she sat, her active feet in their high-heeled shoes were aching to be astir.

“Working in the gymnasium?” he demanded.

“Two hours a day, morning and evening.  Feel.”

She held out her arm to him, and he felt its small, rounded muscle, with a smile.  But his heavily fringed eyes were on her face, and he kept his hold until she shook it off.

“Who’s the soldier boy?” he asked suddenly.

“Lieutenant Hamilton.  He’s rather nice.  Don’t you think so?”

“He’ll do to play with on the trip.  You’ll soon lose him in London.”

The winter darkness closed down round them.  Stewards were busy closing ports and windows with fitted cardboards.  Through the night the ship would travel over the dangerous lanes of the sea with only her small port and starboard lights.  A sense of exhilaration possessed Edith.  This hurling forward over black water, this sense of danger, visualised by precautions, this going to something new and strange, set every nerve to jumping.  She threw back her rug, and getting up went to the rail.  Lethway, the manager, followed her.

“Nervous, aren’t you?”

“Not frightened, anyhow.”

It was then that he told her how he had sized the situation up.  She was a hit or nothing.

“If you go all right,” he said, “you can have the town.  London’s for you or against you, especially if you’re an American.  If you go flat——­”

“Then what?”

She had not thought of that.  What would she do then?  Her salary was not to begin until the performances started.  Her fare and expenses across were paid, but how about getting back?  Even at the best her salary was small.  That had been one of her attractions to Lethway.

“I’ll have to go home, of course,” she said.  “If they don’t like me, and decide in a hurry, I—­I may have to borrow money from you to get back.”

“Don’t worry about that.”  He put a hand over hers as it lay on the rail, and when she made no effort to release it he bent down and kissed her warm fingers.  “Don’t you worry about that,” he repeated.

She did worry, however.  Down in her cabin, not so tidy as the boy’s—­littered with her curiously anomalous belongings, a great bunch of violets in the wash bowl, a cheap toilet set, elaborate high-heeled shoes, and a plain muslin nightgown hanging to the door—­down there she opened her trunk and got out her contract.  There was nothing in it about getting back home.