She was only an ordinary little variety actress, and he knew her little programme pretty well by heart.

But her fascinations were independent of the glamour of the foot-lights.

It was off the stage that he had first come to know her, really know her, a thing that at the first blush of it seems impossible; for the great goddess Diana is not more divinely secret and secluded than (to a young bookseller) a popular Dance and Song Artiste in private life.

Poppy's rooms were next door to the boarding-house balcony, and it was the balcony that did it.
Now, in the matter of balconies, if you choose to regard the receding wooden partition as a partition, and sit very far back behind it, you will have your balcony all to yourself, that is to say, you will see nothing, neither will you be seen.

If, however, you prefer, as Mr.
Rickman preferred, to lean forward over the railings and observe things passing in the street below, you can hardly help establishing some sort of communication with the next-door neighbour who happens to be doing the same thing.