"Were you ever in love?" Helen asked, and she leaned back behind the
curtain of the box out of sight of the audience.

"I suppose I have been in love; but why do you ask?"

"It just occurred to me."

"I have never been in love with a ballet girl, if you mean that."

In blue tights and symmetrical rows the legs of the chorus ladies were
arranged about the stage; the low comedians cracked jokes close to the
footlights; the stalls laughed, the pit applauded.

"Haven't you? Is that really so? I shouldn't think it would be nice.
And yet, if all we hear is true, young men do make love to low women;
I'm not speaking now of ballet girls, but of cooks and housemaids. A
lady, a friend of mine, cannot keep a housemaid under fifty in her
house on account of her son, and she sent him to Eton."

"Yes, I know; I have heard of such things, but I never could
understand."

"I am glad. But you say you have been in love. Tell me all about it. I
want to know. What was she like? Was she fair or dark?"

"Fair. She used to wear a Gainsborough hat."

"Did you like those great hats?"