"Oh,"--she had a feeling that she was not being quite candid with her
father--"he's rather swank, isn't he, Daddy?"

"Heavens, what slang! I don't see where you get it. He is rich, if
that's what you mean, and it's a wonder he isn't spoiled to death. His
mother is dead, and the General is his own worst enemy; eats and drinks
too much, and thinks he can get away with it."

"Are they very rich--?"

"Millions, with only Derry to leave it to. He's the child of a second
wife."

Oh, lovely, lovely, lovely Cinderella, could your godmother do more
than this? To endow two rained-on and shabby gentlemen with pomp and
circumstance!

Jean tucked her hand into her father's, as if to anchor herself against
this amazing tide of revelation. Then, as the auditorium darkened, and
the curtain went up, she was swept along on a wave of emotions in which
the play world and the real world were inextricably mixed.

And now Our Policeman discovers that he is "romantical." Cinderella
finds her Prince, who isn't in the least the Prince of the fairy tale,
but much nicer under the circumstance--and the curtain goes down on a
glass slipper stuck on the toes of two tiny feet and a cockney
Cinderella, quite content.

"Well," Jean drew a long breath. "It was the loveliest ever, Daddy,"
she said, as he helped her with her cloak.