“M’wife’s dresser,” he repeated. “And m’wife’s lover’s little by-blow. That the story?”

Poole’s hand dropped on his arm. “In you go,” he said to Martyn, and twisted Bennington away front the door. Martyn slipped through and he shut it behind her. She heard him say: “You’re an offensive fellow in your cups, Ben. We’ll have this out after rehearsal. Get along and change for the third act.”

There was a moment’s pause. The door opened and he looked in.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Perfectly, thank you,” Martyn said, and in an agony of embarrassment added: “I’m sorry to be a nuisance, sir.”

“Oh, don’t be an ass,” he said with great ill humour. The next moment he had gone.

Miss Hamilton, looking desperately worried, came in to change for the third act.

The dress rehearsal ended at midnight in an atmosphere of acute tension. Because she had not yet been paid, Martyn proposed to sleep again in the Greenroom. So easily do our standards adjust themselves to our circumstances that whereas on her first night at the Vulcan the Greenroom had seemed a blessed haven, her hours of precarious security had bred a longing for a bed and ordered cleanliness, and she began to dread the night.

In groups and singly, the actors and stage-staff drifted away. Their voices died out in the alley and passages, and she saw, with dismay, that Fred Badger had emerged from the door of his cobby-hole and now eyed her speculatively. Desolation and fear possessed Martyn. With a show of preoccupation, she hurried away to Miss Hamilton’s dressing-room, which she had already set in order. Here she would find a moment’s respite. Perhaps in a few minutes she would creep down the passage and lock herself in the empty room and wait there until Fred Badger had gone his rounds. He would think she had found a lodging somewhere and left the theatre. She opened the door of Miss Hamilton’s room and went in.

Adam Poole was sitting in front of the gas fire.

Martyn stammered: “I’m sorry,” and made for the door.

“Come in,” he said and stood up. “I want to see you for a moment.”

“Well,” Martyn thought sickly, “this is it. I’m to go.”

He twisted the chair round and ordered rather than invited her to sit in it. As she did so she thought: “I won’t be able to sleep here to-night. When he’s sacked me I’ll get my suitcase and ask my way to the nearest women’s hostel. I’ll walk alone through the streets and when I get there the hostel will be shut.”

He had turned his back to her and seemed to be examining something on the dressing-shelf.

“I would very much rather have disregarded this business,” he said irritably, “but I suppose I can’t. For one thing, someone should apologize to you for Bennington’s behaviour. He’s not likely to do it for himself.”

“It really didn’t matter.”

“Of course it mattered,” he said sharply. “It was insufferable. For both of us.”

She was too distressed to recognize as one of pleasure the small shock this last phrase gave her.

“You realize, of course, how this nonsense started,” he was saying. “You’ve seen something of the play. You’ve seen me. It’s not a matter for congratulation, I dare say, but you’re like enough to be my daughter. You’re a New Zealander, I understand. How old are you?”

“Nineteen, sir.”

“You needn’t bother to pepper your replies with this ‘sir’ business. It’s not in character and it’s entirely unconvincing. I’m thirty-eight. I toured New Zealand in my first job twenty years ago, and Bennington was in the company. That, apparently, is good enough for him. Under the circumstances, I hope you won’t mind my asking you who your parents are and where you were born.”

“I’ve no objection whatever,” said Martyn with spirit. “My father was Martin Tarne. He was the son and grandson of a high-country run-holder — a sheep-farmer — in the South Island. He was killed on Crete.”

He turned and looked directly at her for the first time since she had come into the room.

“I see. And your mother?”

“She’s the daughter of a run-holder in the same district”

“Do you mind telling me her maiden name, if you please?”

Martyn said: “I don’t see what good this will do.”

“Don’t you, indeed? Don’t you, after all, resent the sort of conjecture that’s brewing among these people?”

“I certainly haven’t the smallest desire to be thought your daughter.”

“And I couldn’t agree more. Good Lord!” he said. “This is a fatheaded way for us to talk. Why don’t you want to tell me your mother’s maiden name? What was the matter with it?”

“She always thought it sounded silly. It was Paula Poole Passington.”

He brought the palm of his hand down crisply on the back of her chair. “And why in the world,” he asked, “couldn’t you say so at once?” Martyn was silent. “Paula Poole Passington,” he repeated. “All right. An old cousin of my father’s — Cousin Paula — married someone called Passington and disappeared. I suppose to New Zealand. Why didn’t she look me up when I went out there?”

“I believe she didn’t care for theatricals,” said Martyn. “She was my grandmother. The connection is really quite distant.”

“You might at least have mentioned it.”

“I preferred not to.”

“Too proud?”

“If you like,” she said desperately.

“Why did you come to England?”

“To earn my living.”

“As a dresser?” She was silent. “Well?” he said.

“As best I could.”

“As an actress? Oh, for God’s sake,” he added, “it’s damnably late and I’ll be obliged if you’ll behave reasonably. I may tell you I’ve spoken to Jacko. Don’t you think you’re making an ass of yourself? All this mystery act!”

Martyn got up and faced him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s a silly business but it’s not an act. I didn’t want to make a thing of it. I joined an English touring company in New Zealand a year ago and they took me on with them to Australia.”

“What company was this? What parts did you play?”

She told him.

“I heard about the tour,” he said. “They were a reasonably good company.”

“They paid quite well and I did broadcasting too. I saved up enough to keep me in England for six months and got a job as assistant children’s minder on a ship coming here. Perhaps I should explain that my father lost pretty well everything in the slump, and we are poor people. I had my money in traveller’s cheques and the day we landed they were stolen out of my bag, together with my letters of introduction. The bank will probably be able to stop them and let me have it back, but until they decide, I’m hard up. That’s all.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A fortnight.”

“Where have you tried?”

“Agencies. All the London theatres, I think.”

“This one last? Why?”

“One of them had to be last.”

“Did you know of this — connection — as you call it?”

“Yes. My mother knew of it.”

“And the resemblance?”

“I — we saw your pictures — people sometimes said—”

They looked at each other, warily, with guarded interest.

“And you deliberately fought shy of this theatre because you knew I was playing here?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know about this piece? The girl’s part?”

Martyn was beginning to be very tired. A weariness of spirit and body seeped up through her being in a sluggish tide. She was near to tears and thrust her hand nervously through her short hair. He made some kind of. ejaculation and she said at once: “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“But you knew about the part when you came here?”

“There’s a lot of gossip at the agencies when you’re waiting. A girl I stood next to in the queue at Garnet Marks’s told me they wanted someone at the Vulcan who could be made up to look like you. She’d got it all muddled up with yesterday’s auditions for the touring company in another piece.”

“So you thought you’d try?”

“Yes. I was a bit desperate by then. I thought I’d try.”